Lieutenant-Colonel W.T.M. Reeve
2nd Bn., Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians)

“Terrier” Reeve was devoted to the Battalion in which he had done all his regimental service and of which he had been adjutant and commanding officer. After his severe wound in 1914 he could have secured a comfortable appointment at home but his high sense of duty urged him to beg to be sent to the front again.

(Whitton, The History of the Prince of Wales’s Leinster Regiment, vol. 2, 153)

Born in France on 29 June 1866, William Tankerville Moneypenny Reeve was the commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, Leinster Regiment on the outbreak of the Great War. He had joined the 2nd Leinsters after graduating from Sandhurst in 1887. He went to Africa as part of the expeditionary force against the Ashanti Empire in 1900. He remained part of the West African Field Force and commanded the Gold Coast Regiment from 1909 to 1911.

He then rejoined to his original regiment as commanding officer in 1912. The 2nd Leinsters went to France as part of the 6th Division but by October 1914 they had been attached to the 73rd Brigade, 24th Division. Reeve commanded the battalion through the heavy fighting that fall until he was wounded on 19 November 1914. A sniper’s bullet caused the loss of his left hand. He was replaced by Major G. Bullen-Smith.

Despite this injury, Reeve resolved to return to the front in June 1915. However, despite his determination, a one-handed colonel was deemed unfit for trench warfare and Bullen-Smith resumed command in July. Reeve was given command of the 1st Garrison Battalion, Essex Regiment, which had been just created for older and otherwise unfit men to serve on lines of communication at the Dardanelles.

Soon after the unit arrived in the Mediterranean theatre, Reeve fell seriously ill from dysentery. He was evacuated back to England where he died on 28 September 1915.