Lieutenant-Colonel R.A.H. Orpen-Palmer
2nd Bn., Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians)

Now that the actual disbandment of the Battalion is about to commence, I wish all ranks to know how proud I have been to command such a body of men. At Home and Abroad, in peace and in war, whether in France, Belgium, Colchester or Silesia, the Battalion has won a fine reputation second to none, a reputation acknowledged everywhere by Brigade and Divisional Commanders. It is a grief and more to all of us that we see our splendid Regiment destroyed; but it is through no fault of our own, and we as Irishmen have done our duty, to our Country and our Empire.

(Lt-Col. Orpen-Palmer, Part 1 Orders, 5 June 1922)

Born in Dublin on 26 December 1877, Reginald Arthur Herbert Orpen-Palmer was commissioned a second lieutenant with the Leinster Regiment in 1898 and served in the Boer War. All three of his brothers served as officers in the First World War, including one who lost an eye fighting with the Leinster Regiment in fall 1914. Initial news reports misidentified R.A.H. Orpen-Palmer as the wounded brother but was adjutant for the 5th (Extra Reserve) Battalion until he went to France in April 1915.

He joined the 2nd Leinsters as a company commander and within a few months was second-in-command. When Lieutenant-Colonel G.M. Bullen Smith temporarily took over the 73rd Brigade in April 1916, Orpen-Palmer was assigned to head the 13th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment. When Bullen-Smith was officially promoted to brigadier general on 15 May 1916, Orpen-Palmer assumed command of the 2nd Leinsters. On 18 August 1916 as part of the Battle of the Somme, the 24th Division was ordered to take the village of Guillemont. As the 2nd Leinsters waited in support trenches, the attacking wave fell back from a combination of German shells and friendly artillery fire.

Regimental historian Lieutenant-Colonel F.E. Whitton described the chaos:

Soon, casualties began to drift by; men with broken arms and with wounds through the shoulder, and most demoralizing of all,—face wounds. The sight of badly mangled features and a loose hanging jaw reacted adversely on such as had imagination. The really badly wounded were not seen; they were unable to walk. It was thus that it was borne upon us that the attack had failed.

Realizing that the weakened frontlines were now vulnerable to counterattack, Orpen-Palmer led his battalion forward. The colonel was badly wounded. Many of the officers were killed or wounded. The medical officer went down, and the chaplain lost a leg. As second-in-command Major A.D. Murphy had been assigned to another battalion at the start of the attack, command fell to a captain who later suffered a head wound. By 20 August 1916, Murphy had returned to assume command of the 2nd.

Within two years of the end of the war, Orpen-Palmer was back in command of his old unit. He would, however, be the final commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion. Following the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, the British Army dissolved its six southern Ireland regiments as part of postwar defence spending cuts. In his final message to the 2nd Battalion, Orpen-Smith remarked: “I have spent more than half my life in The Leinster Regiment and I have never served away from it, and I had hoped when my time of command had finished, and as years passed by, to watch with pride, the Regiment, ever gaining further laurels, but it was not to be.”

Orpen-Palmer transferred to command the 2nd Battalion, East Surrey Regiment. In October 1924, he was promoted to full colonel and placed on half pay. He retired from the army in 1931.

He died on 22 March 1943 in Colchester, Essex.