Roy Martin Corrington Lee joined the AIF on 17 June, 1915. He was one of 11 children, six boys and five girls, born to Henry Lee (1867-1937) and his wife Eliza Catherine, nee Walsh (1865-1961). Roy Lee was then 25 years old, married, and working as a Motor or Coach Painter. He had been born in Ballarat, and gave as his next of kin his father, Henry Lee, of Warrnambool. He then crossed this out to make his next of kin his wife, Bertha Alice Lee, whom he had married in 1915, then living at 412 Albert St., East Melbourne. He was not without military experience, having had two and a half years learning about artillery at Warrnambool. Following further training in Melbourne, he was attached to the 5th Battalion and embarked for the war from Melbourne on 25 October, 1915, on board HMAT A36 Ulysses.
Once landed in Egypt, he was transferred to the 23rd Battalion, but fell ill with enteric fever. He would have missed the Gallipoli campaign, which came to an end in December, 1915, and had probably stayed in camp in Egypt, where on 27 November, 1915, he again fell ill with enteric fever and was admitted to the 19th General Hospital at Alexandria. From there on 15 December, 1915, he was transferred to to the Australian General Hospital at Cairo, then sent for convalescence to Heliopolis. The military authorities assessed him as too weak to serve, so he was returned to Australia and given three months convalescent leave. He came back to Melbourne on the same ship he had left on, HMAT Ulysses.
On 20 March, 1916, he returned to duty and eventually took passage to England, arriving in January 1917. He appears to have been sent to the military camp at Durrington, where on 1 February, 1917, he went AWL for ten days and was sentenced to ten days Field Punishment and the loss of twenty days pay. On 27 March, 1917, he was sent to France, crossing from Folkestone.
On 2 April, 1917, he was taken on strength with the 5th Battalion, but on 25 April was again in hospital, after an I.C.T injury to his right hand and rejoining his unit on 2 July. Again, on 1 September, he was taken to hospital with trench fever and did not rejoin his unity until 16 February 1918, finally rejoining his unit on 5 September. He must have been too weak to be invloved in the conflict, having been awarded two weeks furlough in England on 2 February, rejoining his unit on 16 February. He stayed in France until the war was over, on 11 November 1918, and with the other troops, returned to England to await the trip back to Australia.
On 20 January 1919, Roy Lee was in Glasgow, then back to Weymouth and from there to Shaftesbury. He returned to Australia on board H.T. Soudan, leaving for Australia from Devonport on 12 May and was discharged from further duty on 19 June, 1919, presumably back in Melbourne. He had lost his brother, Eugene during the war, killed at Pas-de-Calais Nord in 1917.
From here, little is known of him: birth records show a son born to the couple in 1921. Electoral rolls have him living at Birregurra in 1954. He died at Heidelberg in 1962, presumably at the Repatriation Hospital.
National Archives of Australia Roy Martin Corrington Lee
Ancestry, Birth, Deaths and Marriages