LIEUTENANT R. D. McLEAN.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 November 1916, Page 7

LIEUTENANT R. D. McLEAN.

STORY OF HIS DEATH. An account of the circumstances under which Seconcl-Lieutenant Ronald I). McLean, son of Mr. Murdock McLean, of Mount Albert, met his death recently in France is contained in a letter received by Mr. McLean from an officer in the New Zealand forces.

The writer, after describing how Lioutenant McLean was killed by a shell during the advance towards Flers, says:--"! cannot grieve for any man killed in action, because I feel that no man could wish for a better death than to fall in battle defending a righteous cause. It is for you, his father, his mother and his family that I feel so sorry; your family has paid the full bitter price to Empire in giving your sons. To show you the regard in which he was held hy those who knew him, I cannot do better than tell you what Captain Grainger had to say about him. He said he was one of the bravest men he had ever known, his courage was of the V.C. standard. His fellow-ollicers had the very highest respect for his work as an office? and for his general bearing, and the men of the company absolutely wot ■ shipped him. Captain Grainger is not the man to praise anyone unless the praise has been well earned, and I can assure you from my own observation ot your son's work and bearing in the trenches, that I can confirm in the fullest degree the tribute that Captain Grainger ,paid him." Mr. Murdoch McLean has lost two sons in the war—one at Gallipoli and the other under the circumstances described above. A third soa, Neil, was serving in France as a private in the Signalling Corps, but was recently selected, with 20 others, from the New Zealand Force in France for promotion to commissioned rank. He is now training at Oxford before returning to the front.