Category Archives: Alfred Sutton School War Memorial

Albert Gilbert Allen

Alfred Sutton School War Memorial, Army, Cambrai, Commemorated name/s, Royal Berkshire Regiment

Albert Gilbert Allen
Private 45498
8th Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment

 

 Allen AG photo  Allen AG Rcem com

Albert Allen was aged 18 years when he was killed in action on 23rd October 1918.  He was the youngest  of seven brothers serving “Their King and Country”.  The notice of his death appeared in the Chronicle on 6th December 1918.  His parents lived at 56, Filey Road.  Albert’s name is commemorated on the Vis-en-Artois memorial panel 7.  The memorial was erected to the memory of those who fell in the advance from 8th August 1918 to the Armistice 11th November 1918.

 On the 22nd October 1918 the 8th Battalion moved to Le Cateau, as part of the 18th Division which was due to attack the following day.  We are told in “Their Duty Done” Colin Fox et al that “by late evening the men were in their assembly positions east of the village facing L’‹vÃque Wood.  The ground over which the attack was to be made was rough grassland with no connected trench systems but with strong German defensive positions organised in depth around machine gun posts……………..Zero hour was 1.20am on 23rd October.  The Royal Berkshires’ assembly point was a deep railway cutting east of Le Cateau from where they would advance onto the second objective.  Enemy shelling here caused 15 casualties…..a temporary dressing station was blown in by a gas shell…….At 1.15am the companies moved out of the cutting…..A creeping barrage moving forward at the rate of 25 yards a minute supported the attack……..At day break the enemy began to retire and Captain M Wykes took the leading companies of the two battalions and rushed the road, capturing over 30 light and heavy machine guns.  The advance continued and the second objective, a line some 1,500 yards beyond the first…..was taken by 8.30am and held throughout the day”.  The total advance for the day was some 8,000 yards.  Casualties for the day were reported as one officer killed, two officers wounded, other ranks – 19 killed, 1 died of wounds, 67 wounded and 3 missing.  Albert Allen was one of those killed in action.

Ernest George Edward Adams

32nd or 35th Div. Signal Co. RE, Alfred Sutton School War Memorial, Army, Somme

Ernest George Edward Adams
Pioneer 103144
32nd Division Signal Company Royal Engineers

ADAMS EGE

Ernest was the only son of Mr and Mrs Ernest Adams of 97, Addington Road.  Mr. Leonard Sutton, once the Mayor of Reading, raised both the 32nd and 35th Signal Companies, initially based at Wantage Hall.  He appealed to the young men of Reading to enlist and one such person was Ernest Adams.  Born in Reading he had attended Redlands and Wokingham Road Senior schools.  He had been employed in the Berkshire Insurance Committee offices.   Ernest was a well known and keen footballer, he played for a local team, the Corinthians, in the position of goal keeper.   

Ernest was only 17 years old when he was killed.  Theoretically he was too young to have served abroad and it is not clear when exactly he enlisted.  It is possible that he gave miss-information to the recruiting sergeant as many young men, eager to do their bit, often did.  With his father and four uncles also serving in the army Ernest was obviously keen to join them.  However, in spite of his age, we are told that he excelled at signalling and was with a sergeant engaged in new aerial signalling before he was killed. He must have been serving for some time in order to have gained sufficient training and experience.  Ernest was with his battalion on the Somme when he was killed on the night of 4th July 1916.  He would have experienced the allied shelling in the week before the ‘big push’ and would have been aware of the gains and losses made in those first few days.  He met his death, only a few weeks before his eighteenth birthday, when a shell burst near him, he lived for only three minutes after being hit.  The same shell injured many others.  

Ernest is buried at Blighty Valley Cemetery, Authuile Wood, the Somme.  Grave location I. B. 2. 

The cemetery was begun in July 1916 and used continuously until November 1916. The cemetery originally contained 212 graves in Plot I; it was not used again until after the Armistice when 784 graves were brought in from the battlefields and smaller cemeteries to the East, most of whom fell on the 1st July.  Authuile Wood, near the River Ancre,  was situated right at the heart of some of the most severe fighting which took place during the July 1916 Somme battles,  the missing dead of those battles being commemorated on the near by Thiepval Memorial to the Missing.  A cheery face looks out from his photograph and the “In memoriam” of 1917 refers to him as “Ern” a “dear and only son”.

William Henry Achurch

Alfred Sutton School War Memorial, Army, Berkshire Yeomanry, Other Regiments, Somme

William Henry Achurch
2nd Lieutenant 
2nd/5th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment 

 ACHURCH WH

William Henry Achurch was the eldest son of Mr and Mrs Achurch, of 90 Cardigan Road, Reading.   He died of wounds received on the 6th December 1917, aged 25.  The Reading Chronicle of the 14th December 1917 carried an obituary.  The article states that he had been badly wounded in the chest.  The British launched a surprise attack at Cambrai on the 20th November 1917.  Ten days later the Germans attacked the salient and penetrated the British lines.  This was followed a few days later by a withdrawal from the area around Bourlon Wood and the eventually checking of the enemy.  The Battle of Cambrai officially ended on the 7th December 1917.  William Achurch is buried at Rocquigny-Equancourt Road British Cemetery, Manancourt, Somme, France.  Location VI. D. 14.

Rocquigny and Equancourt are two villages in the Department of the Somme, some 13 kilometres north of Peronne and 12 kilometres south-east of Bapaume. Rocquigny and Equancourt are approximately 8 kilometres apart and the Rocquigny-Equancourt British Cemetery lies about halfway between the two villages on the north side of the road just west of the crossing road from Etricourt to Ytres.  Etricourt was occupied by British troops at the beginning of April, 1917 during the German Retreat to the Hindenburg Line. It was lost on the 23rd March, 1918, and regained at the beginning of September. The cemetery was begun in 1917, and used (mainly by the 21st and 48th Casualty Clearing Stations, posted at Ytres) until March, 1918.

William Achurch joined the Yeomanry soon after the outbreak of war.  He was transferred to the Worcesters, promoted to the rank of Sergeant whilst on the Somme.  Later he was commissioned to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, returning to England to train in Oxford.  He had been back at the front for four months when he was killed. He had seen a great deal of fighting.

William Achurch was a member of Wycliffe Chapel, a Sunday School teacher and Scout Master.  Before the war he worked for Messrs. Sutton and Sons.