Roy Inwood

Before his enlistment in the Australian Imperial Force, Reginald Roy Inwood worked as a hard-rock miner in the Barrier Ranges of New South Wales, labouring in the subterranean silver-lead-zinc workings of Broken Hill. Enlisting as a private soldier on 24 August 1914 under regimental service number 506, he formed part of the original cohort assigned to H Company of the 10th Battalion. He embarked from Port Adelaide aboard HMAT Ascanius in October 1914, undergoing intensive desert exercises outside Cairo where the battalion consolidated into C Company. Inwood participated in the initial dawn landing at Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915, transferring into towed rowing-boats from the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and the destroyer HMS Foxhound to establish a tenuous beachhead under heavy fire. Through five months of continuous trench warfare on the Gallipoli peninsula, he endured close-quarters counter-attacks, heat, and deprivation until severe illness forced his medical evacuation to Egypt in September 1915.

Rejoining the 10th Battalion on the Western Front in June 1916, Inwood participated in the prolonged fighting for the Somme, notably at Pozières and Mouquet Farm, where his younger brother, Sergeant Robert Minney Inwood, was killed in action. Elevated to temporary corporal during the post-battle reorganisations, he was subsequently reverted to private following an unauthorised absence in the autumn rear camps. He returned to frontline duty during the harsh winter operations of 1916–1917, holding sectors against the Hindenburg Line at Lagnicourt and Second Bullecourt. During the opening stage of the Third Battle of Ypres, amidst the assault on the Menin Road Ridge on 20–21 September 1917, Inwood distinguished himself through a sequence of solo assaults against fortified positions near the western margin of Polygon Wood. His conduct was officially gazetted in the Fourth Supplement to The London Gazette of 23 November 1917 (Issue 30400, published 26 November 1917, page 12330):

"For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty during the advance to the second objective. He moved forward through our barrage alone to an enemy strong post and captured it, together with nine prisoners, killing several of the enemy. During the evening he volunteered for a special all night patrol, which went out 600 yards in front of our line, and there – by his coolness and sound judgment – obtained and sent back very valuable information as to the enemy's movements. In the early morning of the 21 September, Private Inwood located a machine gun which was causing several casualties. He went out alone and bombed the gun and team, killing all but one, whom he brought in as a prisoner with the gun."

Inwood received promotions to lance corporal, corporal, and sergeant in rapid succession, culminating in his personal investiture with the Victoria Cross by King George V at Buckingham Palace on 12 December 1917. Following further frontline service in the Merris sector through the German Spring Offensive of 1918, he was withdrawn in May and repatriated home aboard the troopship Medic with nine fellow Australian recipients to assist with recruiting duties. Discharged from the Australian Imperial Force in December 1918, Inwood navigated turbulent post-war employment across mining at Queenstown, forestry on Kangaroo Island, and municipal labour in Adelaide. Upon the outbreak of the Second World War, he re-enlisted in the Citizen Military Forces on 29 September 1939 under service number S212249, performing domestic security and disciplinary oversight with the Australian Provost Corps and the Military Prison and Detention Barracks Service until his discharge on 30 November 1944 as a warrant officer class two. He died at St Peters, Adelaide, on 23 October 1971 and was interred with full military honours in the AIF Cemetery at West Terrace.