From this month, I have started to honour 104 men connected to my family who died in the two world wars and the 2nd Boer War. I am remembering them all on Twitter on the anniversaries of their deaths. The first seven, who died in the two world wars, were:
April 17
Sgt Henry Brookfield was killed in the Battle of Argenta Gap in Italy on April 17, 1945, aged 31. He won the Military Medal in 1943 after clearing – under heavy shell fire – more than 80 land mines hidden in a cornfield in Tunisia when his tank was blown up.
April 18
Pte Edwin Henry Hollister was 20 when he died of wounds sustained in action in France on April 18, 1918. Edwin, who served in the 8th Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment, was buried at Haringhe (Bandaghem) Military Cemetery in Poperinge, near Ypres.
Engine Room Artificer Ernest Valletta Hindman was killed when the submarine he was serving in (HMS E15) ran aground at Gallipoli on April 18, 1915 and was attacked by Turkish forces. Ernest, aged 31, was one of four officers and 27 men serving in the submarine.
April 23
Lt William John Peters was killed in an attack on German defences in France on April 23, 1917. William, 32, of the Devonshire Regiment, was awarded the Military Medal in 1916 for keeping his Y-38 Trench Mortar Battery in action under very heavy artillery fire.
April 24
Pte Francis James Parker was killed in France on April 24, 1917 – in an attack on, and capture of, Fifteen Ravine near the village of Villers-Plouich, about six miles south-west of Cambrai. Aged 20, he served in the 17th (Service) Battalion of the Welsh Regiment.
April 25
George Rayment died in the Balkans on April 25, 1917. Aged, 30, he was a private in the 8th Battalion of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry. He is remembered on the Doiran Memorial in Greece.
April 27
Auxiliary fireman William John Wareham died in a bombing attack on Portsmouth on April 27, 1941. He was killed when a parachute bomb destroyed the Madden’s Hotel in the heart of the city. He was 26.
Picture below
The wreck of the British submarine HMS E15 – in which Ernest Valletta Hindman was killed on April 18, 1915 (Public domain image, via Wikimedia Commons).
