Military History

John is listed as being killed in action on 1 Oct 1916. The war diary entry for that day is very brief. We have not been able to identify the events that led to the award of John's military medal.

Trenches S of Gueudecourt - Oct 1st - 10pm: Held the trenches. At. 3.15pm we attacked the enemy and dug in and consolidated 200 yards from enemy position. END

Military History

Lawrence is listed as being killed in action, at sea, on 21 Aug 1917 when his ship, the HMS Vala was torpedoed and sank. The description of that days events can be found below:

HMS Vala was not a conventional naval warship, rather what was known as a Q-ship, a merchant vessel, in this case an ex-collier, with the express raison d’être to attract the attention of German U-boats targeting allied shipping. The theory was that a lone merchant ship would draw the U-boat to the surface, opting to use its cannon and so saving their expensive torpedoes for greater prizes, at which point the Q-ship would drop its sides and open fire with hitherto concealed guns. The theory behind the Q Ships was one which owes a significant degree of its success to the element of surprise. The deceit seems to have worked initially, but as war wore on and U-boat commanders became wise to the subterfuge, the efficacy wore off. In 1915, six U-boats were sunk without any loss of Q-ships; the following year, the ratio was three to two; in 1917 six U-boats were sunk but so too were 18 Q-ships, including five in August alone. It was clearly a tactic that had run its course.

During the first half of 1917, HMS Vala had been involved in gun fights with five different U-boats, so not only was the Q-ship tactic becoming better known to the enemy, so too was HMS Vala’s appearance. On 20^th August 1917, she was cruising in the Atlantic approaches to the English Channel around the northern fringes of the Bay of Biscay some 120 miles south west of the Scilly Isles. There, she was spotted by UB.54 under the experienced command of Captain Egon von Werner who, on spotting six look-outs aboard HMS Vala, saw through the disguise and, without surfacing, launched two torpedoes, the first striking a forward hold, the second an aft hold.

The precise sequence of subsequent events is unclear. Some reports seem to imply that most of the 43 crew went down with their ship, while other accounts record that many of the men took to lifeboats which were launched in two waves, firstly with around a dozen or so men and another with as many as 20. With the admiralty recording William’s official date of death as August 21^st, they clearly believe that the men perished in their lifeboats during the ensuing hours in a worsening sea state.

Please click here for a full report on the sinking of HMS Vala from The Wrecksite website which includes a full crew list and charts of the location of the wreck, please respect any copyright notice attached to it

Military History

• Private 1155 Frederick William LINNETT - Stretton on Dunsmore
• Private 1546 Robert Edward Henry MURDEN, MM - Brinklow
• Private 10684 Ernest SUMNER - Long Itchington
• Private 1095 Herbert Charles LEE

Military History

Victor is listed as dying of a lung infection on 15 Jul 1918 whilst a prisoner of war.

Red cross records show that Victor was taken prisoner four months previously on 22 Mar 1918 at Attilly and was held at the Wetzlar and then later Weidenau POW Camps. He died of a lung infection at Weidenau. Unfortunately the war diary pages for March 1918 are missing from the record, perhaps lost duing the German attack and so we cannot give anymore detail about his capture. Attilly is to the north of St. Julien was at the centre of the massive German attack launched the previous day, the first day of the German Spring Offensive.