Alfred Durham Murphy

Maj. Frend

/ Matthew K Barrett / 2 Comments

Major J.R. Frend
2nd Bn., Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians)

Heavy hostile shelling of TEMPLEUX QUARRIES commenced about 11:30am until 12:30pm. Extremely accurate. Lt. Col. Murphy, DSO, MC [and others] were in HQ mess attending to wounded when a shell dropped right in their midst killing the CO … Shelling was kept up at intervals of 50 minutes throughout the day & night. Major J.R. Frend assumed command of Bn. at 1 pm.

(2nd Bn. Leinster Regiment War Diary, 6 Nov 1917)

Following the death of Lieutenant-Colonel A.D. Murphy, Major John Roberts Frend took command of the 2nd Leinsters. He was born on 7 February 1883 in Cloghjordan, Tipperary. He served in the Boer War and joined the Leinster Regiment before emigrating to Australia in 1909. On the outbreak of the Great War, he rejoined his old regiment and served with the 2nd Leinsters in France.

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Lt-Col. Murphy

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Lieutenant-Colonel A.D. Murphy†
2nd Bn., Leinster Regiment (Royal Canadians)
Murphy

The commanding officer seemed to bear a charmed life, and it became a belief in the Battalion that he could not be killed. But he exposed himself fearlessly not because he was invulnerable but because he was brave. No braver man than Alfred Durham Murphy ever stepped on French soil.

(Witton, The History of the Prince of Wales’s Leinster Regiment, vol. 2, 244)

When Major Alfred Durham Murphy assumed command of the 2nd Leinsters in August 1916 at the age of twenty-six, he was one of the youngest battalion commanders on the Western Front. Born on 4 July 1890 in Southwark, Surrey, England, was the son of a retired Tipperary colonel and joined his father’s regiment in 1911. He went to France in September 1914 with the 2nd Leinsters as a junior lieutenant but by May 1916 was second-in-command.

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Lt-Col. Orpen-Palmer

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

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.

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