Les Lee, a 5ft 11 red-headed ruckman, was 18 years old when he played two games for Richmond in 1913.
When he died in Messines, Belgium at the Great War, he was 22.
He was our youngest senior player to die at War.
Now, digitised records from the Australian Red Cross Society reveal heartbreaking eyewitness accounts of his death while serving for the 10th Machine Gun Company.
Collating the 29 pages of first-hand recollections written by his fellow servicemen, and piecing them together in chronological order, we can now for the first time try to unravel the confusing and tragic events of June 8th 1917.
“He was an intimate friend of mine and his disappearance for a long time mystified me,”
- Private Frank Coffey.
“He was carrying up ammunition and was wounded by shell.”
- Private W. A. Orchard.
“On the first opportunity I set out to find him, and he seemed to be very badly wounded.”
- Private Frank Coffey.
“On June 8th 1917 about 5pm on the right of Messines in the Black Line, at the same gun as myself, Lee was shot through the head and in the side by machine gun bullets.”
- Private W. L. Walters.
“Casualty was wounded by the same shell that wounded me at Messines on the 9th June 1917. He was wounded in the face.
- Private L. L. Stacey.
“A shell landed in the trench close to where I was standing and severely wounded Pte Lee.”
- Private F. J. Moult.
“Some stretcher-bearers were sent out to bring him back, but he never been heard of since. He cannot be a prisoner, as we never fell back at all.”
- Private Herbert Duxson.
“There were no stretchers and no stretcher bearers to be found anywhere”
- Private Frank Coffey.
“He was laying alongside our gun and just breathing when we had orders abt. 7.30pm the same day to move up to the front line. Lee was left there with Pte. Thomas Fergusson of the same Coy (Company). I never saw him again.”
- Private W. L. Walters.
“He was left there when I was taken away as there was not enough stretchers.”
- Private L. L. Stacey.
Above: An explosion at Messines on June 7, 1917. The same date and location where Lee was killed.
“I was able to attend to his wounds. He couldn’t be moved at the time as we had no stretchers. I was attending him up till the time when I got him myself, so I had to leave him there with other wounded men.”
- Private F. J. Moult.
“Private Moult of the same company told me that though wounded himself, he carried Lee back on the 8th June from the Green Line to the Black Line. Lee was so badly wounded and Moult was too done up to carry him further, so left him in a trench in the Black Line.”
- Private E. H. Barnett.
“With the aid of a volunteer from the infantry, Lee was got out of the trench where he was lying, on to the parapet ready to be put into the stretcher and it was then that I left him. Our numbers had been sadly depleted and not a man could be spared from the position.”
- Private Frank Coffey.
“He had been killed and buried at Messines by one of the Engineers who had neglected to remove his identity disc. This was read out to us in Orders one night by the Captain.”
- Private W. A. Orchard.
Lee’s burial location is unknown. His body has never been found.
His name is commemorated at the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing, in Ypres, Belgium.
Above: The first report in the press of Les Lee wounded. Richmond Guardian July 14, 1917.
Above: The Richmond Guardian from August 25, 1917 now reporting Lee as missing.
Above: Richmond Guardian, August 11th 1917. A bio on Les Lee.
