Soldier Record

My grandfather was a Regular Army soldier. He landed in Flanders with the lst Battalion, part of the 22nd Brigade, 7th Division of the British Expeditioary Force. They landed early in October 1914. On the 30th October he was taken prisoner of war.

By the end of October 1914 his Battalion had suffered tremendous casualties and had virtually ceased to exist.

The regimental museum wrote to me 'although I am sure he did not appreciate it at the time, your grandfather was one of the lucky ones, missing out on the trench warfare which set in during the winter of 1914-1915'

The red cross records show him in a POW camp in Munster in December 1914. He was in a camp in Chersk then Chemnitz in January 1918.

I know nothing of his years in capture other than he was fed on potatoe peelings.

He married my grandmother the year after the end of the war and fathered four children who are all still alive, everyone of them now in their 80's

His brothers Joseph and James also served. Joseph in the same regiment. At some time he was wounded.

James was lost on the 25th March 1918. I can only assume that his body was never found. He was also a regular soldier. He joined the Worcestershire Regiment in 1904.

In Sept 1916 he was awarded the Military Medal in a 'particularly harrowing action at La Boisselle'

He lost his life in the spring offensive of 1918 to the west of Bapaume. His life is commemorated on the memorial at Arras. He left a wife and five young children. In 1920 his wife was still trying to get a death certificate to enable her to claim on an insurance policy