Ralph Dillon McArtney

Ralph Dillon McArtney was a man of 23 years old when he left this
world.
He was a single, grey-eyed man with brown hair. He was 511 feet
which is around 1.80 cm. His weight was 182 lbs, which is 82 kg.
He was a person with no health issues. On paper he was the
perfect soldier.
He came from Blenheim, New Zealand, a town in the region of
Marlborough in the North East of New Zealand.
It is 103.89 km2 big and has a sunny climate.
His address was Port Underwood, which is a
harbour on the east coast of the Marlborough
Sounds. He lived here with his parents Robert
and Amelia McArtney. They were born in
Nelson, New Zealand. I assume that his mother
was 58 and his father 60 years old. I am not
sure because it only says that they have lived
in New Zealand for these years. He was an
engineer and the last employer that he had was F.D. Munro. I am not sure
if this still exist but if it does it is a management consulting company.
On the 12th October 1916 Ralph Dillon McArtney signed his Attestation for
General Service.
This was a paper in which he had to fill in certain things about himself. I
found a primary source of this, which you can find at the end of this paper.
He volunteered for the 23rd Reinforcement. He officially joined the army on
the 13th of September 1916. In the army he was a guard of war. His rank
was private.
McArtney his dead was reported on the 16th of November in 1917 but he
died on the 12th of October 1917, exactly one year after he signed his
Attestation for General Service.
He must have died during the First Battle of Passchendaele because that
battle took place on the 12th of October 1917. It all
happened in the Ypres Salient of the Western Front,
which is west of Passchendaele. The battle was part of
the Third Battle of Ypres.
The British wanted to capture parts of Ypres. The battle
was the British Empire (Australia, New Zealand and
United Kingdom) and France against the German Empire.
Around 25.000 people died, 2.7000 of them were from
New Zealand and one of them was Ralph Dillon McArtney.
He is buried on the Tyne Cot Cemetery in Ypres, which is
a Commonwealth War Grave. Almost 12.00 soldiers from

the Great War are buried here. Only 3,000 people are known so there are a
lot of unknown soldiers. A stonewall
surrounding the cemetery is full of names of
soldiers who are never found, that are around
35.000 names. Most soldiers buried here are
from the Allied Powers and only four are from
the central powers.

Primary sources I used:

Other sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Passchendaele
http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/battles_passchendaeleI.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blenheim,_New_Zealand
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyne_Cot
http://www.aucklandmuseum.com/war-memorial/onlinecenotaph/record/C9102
https://livesofthefirstworldwar.org/lifestory/7178460
http://www.everymanremembered.org/profiles/soldier/463707/
http://www.nzwargraves.org.nz/casualties/ralph-dillon-mcartney
http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/463707/McARTNEY,%20RALPH
%20DILLON

http://ndhadeliver.natlib.govt.nz/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?
dps_pid=IE18940141
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Battle_of_Passchendaele