95 Years Ago

[leefer]

95 Years ago tomorrow John Ferris was killed in Battle during WW1.

John was my grandads brother...the oldest of the family and was dong well running a shop and pub with his dad(my great grandad) in Harptree and later in Southampton....as a young man he joined the Hants regiment in Bitterne and saw lots of action in France,the Hants regiment was almost wiped out John being one of the few to dodge the shrapnel and gas.
After a brief spell resting he was drafted into the Wilts regiment(PROUD)....and dodged the flak until cruel fate decided he fell fighting in Israel a few weeks before the wars end...he is buried there still.

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/652340/FERRIS,%20J

Talking to my dad about him i knew it knocked the family for six..i didn't know about John untill a few years ago...i have done a lot of research on my family in recent years and have grew very fond of this man who is still a long,long way from home.

[sonicyouth]

My great grandfather died shortly before Armistice Day as well.

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/529200/WARREN,%20H

There's a long boring story about how I found out but nobody gives a fuck and will have stopped reading by this point.

[Batch]

My great grandfather died shortly before Armistice Day as well.

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/529200/WARREN,%20H

There's a long boring story about how I found out but nobody gives a fuck and will have stopped reading by this point.

I hadn't stopped reading.

[donkey]

I hadn't stopped reading.

Nor me.

[Sir Pissalot]

I hadn't stopped reading.

Me neither.

[sonicyouth]

Fair enough! I warn you that it's boring though.
 
I moved to Kenilworth in 2010, saw the surname on the war memorial and knew that there was some sort of family connection to Warwickshire although nobody really knew any details about whom or where. After a little research it transpired that my grandfather had been born in a house in Kenilworth just around the corner from where I lived. Nobody in the family knew where my great grandfather had died in WWI and everyone had believed that he had died after armistice day which turned out to be incorrect. The sad part is that my great grandfather died before my grandfather was even born. I never knew either of my grandfathers and that little connection to the past meant quite a lot to me when I lived there.

[Batch]

That's not boring. Thanks for sharing.

[Samdy Gray]

Thanks leefer and sonic.

It was a previous post of leefer's on here which helped me track down my great great grandfather who died in August 1917.

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/4019683/BARTLETT,%20RICHARD%20THOMAS

[leefer]

Thanks leefer and sonic.

It was a previous post of leefer's on here which helped me track down my great great grandfather who died in August 1917.

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/4019683/BARTLETT,%20RICHARD%20THOMAS

Looked everywhere for that thread Sam...hence the new one

Nice story Sonic

[Sir Pissalot]

Not boring at all SY. My grandfather drove ammunition trucks in France in the first War. I wish I had asked him more about his experiences before he died but I was too young.

[Honkytonk]

I have a maternal grandfather I never met (he died several years before I was born) who was one of the architects on the CWGC when the great cemeteries were set up between the wars. He also fought at el Alamein in the Yeomanry, and his diaries from the time (scribbled in pencil, with plenty of illustrations and rude limericks and found in the loft a year ago) are currently being recorded for posterity by my grandmother and step-grandfather.

It makes me feel proud to think that wherever people go to look for their relatives or loved ones, he was partly responsible for organising and creating the cemeteries that mark their sacrifice. We went on a trip to Belgium in Sixth form as part of our history module, and whilst others got emotional about finding their relatives at cemeteries or on memorials, just seeing the layouts and scale of what was partially my grandfather's work really got me. The menin gate was one of his projects, and being there whilst hundreds of people wept or remembered their relatives who paid the ultimate price, I looked around and felt proud that, despite his name not being on the memorial, he has made it possible for people to tap into those emotions and memories, and his work will be as much of a testament as their sacrifice down the years.

[leefer]

Love to see some of that stuff if you ever get the chance to show it.

[Red Frog]

Well thanks to this thread, I dug up the record of my great-uncle Reggie's death in 1915, aged 22, on HMS Amethyst in the Dardanelles. http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/3033657/GUMBLETON,%20REGINALD%20CHARLES

The family story was that he'd left his towel in the showers, and had the bad luck to have gone back for it just as a Turkish shell hit the spot. He wasn't alone. The ship's history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Amethyst_(1903)#Dardanelles_Campaign says that on the day of his death:

at 04:10 she was hit by field artillery and lost 22 men killed. A further 38 men were wounded, of whom 4 later died.

There's even a link to a scan of the captain's hand-written log for the day http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM53-33548/ADM53-33548-012_0.jpg, which includes Reggie's name in the list of casualties, and says that at 3.30pm the bodies were transferred to HMS Ribble for burial at sea 4' north-west of Ponente Point. So this is precisely where Reggie was buried. http://mapcarta.com/12989364

Sorry if this is boring, but I'm amazed at what I've been able to find. I now know more detail than any of his immediate family did. Thanks for prompting me to look. The wonder of the internet.

[Peter Venkman]

My great uncle was killed 99 years ago on 13th November 1914, we are going over for the 100th anniversary of his death next year to Ypres where he was killed and the Menin Gate where he is commemorated.

This is his Soldiers Penny that was given to every serviceman that died in WWI, its about 4 inches accross.

[fatbasher]

Well thanks to this thread, I dug up the record of my great-uncle Reggie's death in 1915, aged 22, on HMS Amethyst in the Dardanelles. http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/3033657/GUMBLETON,%20REGINALD%20CHARLES

The family story was that he'd left his towel in the showers, and had the bad luck to have gone back for it just as a Turkish shell hit the spot. He wasn't alone. The ship's history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Amethyst_(1903)#Dardanelles_Campaign says that on the day of his death:
There's even a link to a scan of the captain's hand-written log for the day http://oldweather.s3.amazonaws.com/ADM53-33548/ADM53-33548-012_0.jpg, which includes Reggie's name in the list of casualties, and says that at 3.30pm the bodies were transferred to HMS Ribble for burial at sea 4' north-west of Ponente Point. So this is precisely where Reggie was buried. http://mapcarta.com/12989364

Sorry if this is boring, but I'm amazed at what I've been able to find. I now know more detail than any of his immediate family did. Thanks for prompting me to look. The wonder of the internet.

It's 100% more interesting than the 80% bollocks and 25% football posts we all generally post and read.

On that note, i had the privalige to visit Pegasus Bridge & museum last month and the Merville battery along with the local war cemetary. Takes your breath away if you have a heart and is very humbling. Then last week my eldest who is studying French (reason for the week in France) and German @ Reading uni had a week in Germany for the first time. He visited a museum in Munich dedicated to the Jews who perished in the camps. What i found ironic is this. The jews were being exterminated on an industrial scale and civilians throught europe were also being caught up in the conflict. On the beaches in and around Merville the British landed and died trying to defeat the third reich who were killing all and sundry. The German soldiers were dying trying to defend the third reich and by default the killing going on in occupird europe. The net result was death all over the place on all sides, who actually won, was it worth it all in the end? Does anyone actually "win" anything?