Full name and title: Lieutenant Ronald John Land
| Full article: Ronald Land was born on 20 July 1889 in Lowestoft, Suffolk. 1901 the Land family was living at 'Hillside', Fountain Road, Dulwich (today, Fountain Drive, SE19). Ronald, his parents and his older brother shared the house with his widowed grandmother and two servants. The family seems to have moved house quite often. Ronald Land studied at Dulwich College from 1901 to 1905, afterwards becoming a Cadet with University College Officer Training Corps. In 1911 he was a 22-year-old clerk living at 80 Victoria Road, Clapham. There he shared with 13 other boarders, including Alice Land, who may have been his aunt. In June 1915. He enlisted in the York and Lancaster Regiment as Second Lieutenant (presumably because his father was a Yorkshireman). Ronald married Gladys May on 9 January 1916 in Sunderland. He served from May 1916 in Flanders and France, being wounded at the Somme in October 1916. After recovering, he was then attached to the 6th Battalion of the Machine Gun Corps and promoted to Lieutenant, returning to France in December 1917. On 21 March 1918 he was killed at Lagnicourt, south of Arras, while holding up the enemy advance. This, the first day of the German Spring Offensive (Operation Michael), saw over 75,000 casualties (the German suffering slightly greater losses than the Allied forces). A fellow officer wrote of Lieutenant Land, 'he was as thorough a gentleman as ever walked. His men adored him, he was one of the few close friends I ever made. |