Three local men are known to have lost their lives on 24th June 1917 whilst on active service: Second Lieutenant Rupert Edward Everitt, 299th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery; Private William James Leake, 1st/7th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment; and Gunner Henry Smith, 207th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery.
Tag Archives: brothers
20th June 1917
Regular soldier, Sergeant George Holtham, was killed in action on 20th June 1917 serving with the 1st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was 26 years old and had worked for a firm of manufacturing chemists before joining the Army in February 1909.
14th June 1917
Company Sergeant Major William Joseph Richard Swann, 10th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment died of wounds on 14th June 1917, aged 25. He was the eldest of the two sons of parents Samuel (a Company Sergeant Major (later Military Mechanist Quarter Master Sergeant) in the Royal Engineers) and Kate (née Shakespear) who had married in May 1890 at Chirst Church, Aston Park. In 1891, the couple were living in St Mary’s Barracks, Chatham, Kent. Their son, William, was born in Chatham on 22nd May 1891. Their second child, Sidney Norman Percival Swann, was born in Sheerness on 6th July 1892.
13th May 1917
Two local men died on active service on 13th May 1917. Private Albert Charles Adkins, 1st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, died in Germany whilst a Prisoner of War. Private James Edward Lees, 10th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment died in hospital in Liverpool, aged 19, and is buried in Shirley.
10th May 1917
Private George Herbert Smith, 9th Company, Machine Gun Corps, died on 10th May 1917, aged 20. He was born in Marston Green and was the second of the five children (three sons, two daughters) of parents James (a railway plate layer) and Florence Mary (née Harvey) who had married at Bickenhill in 1894. Two of their three sons were killed during the First World War – the youngest, Sydney Harvey (1911-1997) was too young to serve in the war.
25th April 1917
Two local men died on active service on 25th April 1917. 21-year-old Private Douglas Walker Clarke, 12th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment was killed in action in Salonika, and Private Frederick Perks, 15th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment was killed in France.
24th April 1917
Two local men died in France on 24th April 1917. Second Lieutenant Harold James Goodwin, 135th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery was killed in action and Gunner Leslie Richards Reeve, D Company, Machine Gun Corps (Heavy Section) (later Tank Corps), died of wounds.
