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Search results for Basra Memorial.
15 December 1916: Pte Nicholas Mann
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Nicholas was the son of a shoe maker and later cabinet maker, and former Colour Sergeant. He served in the South Africa Campaign, though by the 1911 Census he is recorded as a labourer. On attestation on 4 Sept 1914, from surviving papers, we learn that he was 5ft 6in tall, with blue eyes, brown hair and a 35 in chest. He was posted 9 Sept 1…
21 January 1916 : Pte Frederick C Baldwyn
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One of five boys, his father, Frank Baldwyn originally from Aberdeen, ran a market gardening business with his wife Florence out of Fleet Farm, Finchampstead. At the outbreak of war in 1914 Frederick was living on the farm and working as a labourer and bricklayer. Fred enlisted at Salisbury in September 1914. Sent overseas on 18 March 1915, h…
18 April 1916: Pte Sam Naylor
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Sam was born in Lancaster in 1877, the son of an agricultural labourer, Sam lived for much of his life in Gargrave, Yorkshire where he worked in a mil or iron foundry. He was employed in the New Brighton Saw Mills before moving to Accrington, Lancashire where he worked as a moulder at Newbank Works. At the 1911 Census that family lived at 10 …
19 April 1916: Pte Dennis Cyril Byrne
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The son of John and Elizabeth Fell. At the 1901 Census the family lived on Vicarage Place, Burnley. Dennis had an older brother John and younger siblings Douglas and Florence. At the 1911 Census the Byrne family were still living in Burnely, now on Napier Street. Dennis had another sister by then, Annie. Cousins Vincent and Reginald (adopted)…
3 January 1918: Sepoy Babu Singh
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Babu Singh was one of over one million Indians, including over 621,224 combatants and 474,789 non-combatants, who were sent overseas between August 1914 and December 1919. Secret plans had been made as early as 1910 to deploy Indian troops to Mesopotamia via Bombay and Karachi to Basra. Most of the sepoys were recruited from the peasant-warrior …
6 February 1917 : 2nd Lieut (Res) Leon Alfred O’Meara
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He was the only son of Major Walter O’Meara of 11 Talgrath Rd, West Kensighton, former Barrister and mother Annie Mary (née Mackinnon). Educated at St. Edward’s Oxford. Four years a member of the Officers Training Corps and intended entering Pembroke College, Oxford in the autumn of 1916 to study Engineering. He enlisted the Artists’ Rifle…
A Tour of Mesopotamian War Cemeteries in 2003
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In the early summer of 2003, fortunately or not, I found myself and the Battalion I was commanding at the time, 7 Air Assault Battalion REME, based just outside of Al-Amarah in what had once been the British front line in Mesopotamia. Wherever I am in the world if there is an opportunity to visit a CWGC site then I will. A quick look on the map and…
A Lonely Island War Memorial: Stroma in the Pentland Firth
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Two miles north-west of John O’Groats lies the island of Stroma. The name translates from Old Norse as ‘the island in the stream’, the stream being the Pentland Firth. Above: The island of Stroma is the most southerly of the islands in the Pentland Firth. The population of Stroma reached a peak of 375 in 1901. By 1911, the population had slig…