On this day in 1918, Frank Alfred Kingdom (1893-1918) was killed in action in Italy in the Great War.
A private in C Company of the 1/4th Battalion of the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Regiment, Frank was 25 when he lost his life on September 10, 1918.
He is believed to have been killed in a raid in which 36 enemy soldiers and three machine guns were captured.
Frank was buried in Granezza British Cemetery on the Asiago Plateau, in the province of Vicenza, Italy and is remembered on Witheridge War Memorial.
His battalion went to France in March 1915.
They fought in the Battles of Albert, Bazentin Ridge and Ancre in 1916, and in the Battles of Langemarck and Polygon Wood in 1917.
They were transferred to Italy in November 1917 and engaged in fighting on the Asiago Plateau and in the Battle of Vittoria Veneto.
The Oxford and Buckinghamshire Regiment raised 18 battalions during the Great War and lost 5,880 men between 1914 and 1918.
Paul Roberts
NOTES
Frank was a nephew of George Kingdom (1862-1952) who married Lucy Roberts (1868-1945) on April 11, 1889 in Cruwys Morchard. Lucy was the eldest daughter of John Roberts (1829-1919), my great-great grandfather who had 30 grandsons serving in the Great War.
Born in Witheridge in 1893, Frank was the son of Richard Kingdom (1860- 1939) – George’s older brother – and Jessie Hill (1862-1944), who lived at 2, Ebrington Terrace, Witheridge. In 1911, aged 18, Frank lived with his parents in Witheridge, and worked as a cowman.
Pictures below
Frank’s grave in Italy. Photo by bbmir on Find a Grave.
How Frank is remembered on Witheridge War Memorial.
