A lost son honoured in France

On a state visit to France, Sir Peter Cosgrove led the dawn service marking 100 years since soldiers first arrived for service on the Western Front and paid tribute to the sacrifices made by the thousands of Australians and the shared history between the two allied countries. 

“Mortal combat became a daily reality for the men that not that long ago lived peacefully in cities thousands of miles away. In the face of all this, the bond between soldiers grew stronger. They fought and lived and died for each other. Their true character, their sense of mateship, their enduring honour revealed in the heat of battle.”

The Governor-General talked of how soldiers longed for their families at home and made special mention of Private Reginald Kenny, a Yass man who served in the Australian infantry AIF and died in July 1916 at the age of 26. 

His name is on the National Australian Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux.

“Private Reginald Kelly, having learnt of his father’s death, wrote home to his mother urging her to stay strong, lamenting his own absence and wishing he was there to help,” Sir Peter said in his speech.

‘Please God, I should soon be back with my own dear loved ones,’ he wrote in March 1916. Private Reginald Kelly was killed a few months later.

President of the Yass Historical Society Cheryl Mongan was contacted by the Governor-General’s office at the weekend with the request to provide a photograph of Private Reginald ‘Reg’ Kenny. She obliged and felt further compelled to lay a wreath dedicated to his memory at the cenotaph in Yass during the traditional Anzac Day commemorative service on Monday.

“What are the chances of a Yass boy being selected from more than 11,000 men listed on the memorial?” Mrs Mongan said.

According to excerpts from 'We Have Not Forgotten: Yass & District's War 1914-1918,' co-authored by Mrs Mongan and Dr Richard Reid, Reginald Kenny was born in Cooma Street, Yass on January 26, 1890. 

The son of Patrick and Agnes Kenny, he was educated at St Augustine’s Catholic School in Yass and Stotts College in Sydney. From the age of 14, he served in the Werriwa Infantry as a bugler and was promoted Corporal in the Commonwealth Military Force on March 24, 1909. From a very young age he played in town bands and at the time of enlistment was a member of the Premier Band.

Reg sailed for Egypt with the 6th Reinforcements, 18th Battalion, but transferred on February 14, 1916 to the 3rd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Division AIF at Tel el Kebir. In March, the 1st Division proceeded to France where, in April, it went into the trenches of the Western Front, south of Armentières. In late July 1916, the Division entered the Somme fighting at a little village called Pozières. 

At Pozières, and later at nearby Moquet Farm, in seven weeks, three divisions of the AIF – the 1st, 2nd and 4th, - suffered 23,000 casualties. Of these, over 8,000 were either killed in action or died of wounds. 

Yass’s Reg Kenny disappeared into the maelstrom of the Battle of Pozières somewhere between July 22 - 27, 1916. Such was the chaos of that battlefield, caused by some of the most intensive enemy shellfire ever endured by Australians, that the bodies of many men were simply churned into the earth. 

Reg was killed during a period of some six days in which at least nine other Yass district men lost their lives. He died a few days after the first anniversary of his enlistment.

Lest we forget.

With help from the Yass and District Historical Society.