Private
Reid, John Earl
Unit
52nd Canadian Infantry Battalion (New Ontario)
Branch
Infantry
Service Component
Canadian Expeditionary Force
Service Number
139746
birth
1895/01/06
Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
death
1917/10/28
Belgium
grave
Nine Elms British Cemetery, Belgium
Gender
Male
John Earl Reid was born in Medicine Hat, Alberta, on 6 January 1895.
Reid was a school teacher when he enlisted in the 114th Canadian Infantry Battalion in Hagersville, Ontario, on 24 December 1915. On 22 March 1916, while undergoing training in Canada, he was made a provisional lance corporal. The following month, he was granted leave to plant crops. On 1 November 1916, Reid sailed to England with his unit on SS Caronia, embarking in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The 114th Battalion disembarked in Liverpool on 11 November 1916.
Upon arrival in England, Reid was transferred to the 35th Canadian Infantry Battalion and made an acting corporal. On 28 December 1916, he reverted to the rank of private at his own request and was transferred to the 52nd Canadian Infantry Battalion (New Ontario). He joined that unit in France on 29 December 1916.
In April and May 1917, Reid was hospitalized in France with abscesses on his neck. In July, he was in hospital again with a skin infection and boils on his neck. Reid sustained severe shell wounds to his left thigh on 27 October 1917, during the Battle of Passchendaele. He died the next day at No. 44 Casualty Clearing Station, in Belgium.
John Earl Reid is buried in Nine Elms British Cemetery, in Belgium.
