Studio portrait of 219 Second Lieutenant (2nd Lt) Reginald Montague Armitage, 47th Battalion, of ...

Accession Number P06927.001
Collection type Photograph
Object type Negative
Maker Soame, James Jnr. (and Son, 1931)
Date made January 1917
Conflict First World War, 1914-1918
Copyright

Item copyright: Copyright expired - public domain

Public Domain Mark This item is in the Public Domain

Description

Studio portrait of 219 Second Lieutenant (2nd Lt) Reginald Montague Armitage, 47th Battalion, of Burnie, Tas. A clerk with four years pre-war service as a sergeant in the Australian Army Medical Corps (AAMC) before enlisting in August 1914, Armitage left Australia for Egypt in October 1914 as a Corporal (Cpl) with the 3rd Field Ambulance. Promoted to Sergeant (Sgt) in December 1914, Armitage served on Gallipoli for four months before being evacuated with dysentery. Later selected for officer training, he was commissioned a 2nd Lt in January 1917, and was transferred to the 47th Battalion in France the following month. 2nd Lt Armitage was leading 2 Platoon, A Company during the Australian attack on the Hindenburg Line at Bullecourt on 11 April 1917 when he was mortally wounded in the head, aged 25. Killed in the German trenches, his body was not recovered when the Australian attack withdrew, and he subsequently has no known grave.