Category Archives: Other Regiments

Thomas Porter

Army, Commemorated name/s, Other Regiments

Thomas Porter
Sergeant  M2/046569
15th Div. Train, Army Service Corps

 Division 7

Porter T photo

Sergeant Thomas Porter is remembered on the grave of his parents Henry and Rosanna Porter who died in 1922 and 1948 respectively.  The commemoration states ‘Died of Wounds in France’.  The Berkshire Family History Society classification number is 7A15.  There are no family details in the CWGC information.  A picture from Berkshire and the War gives the home address as 36 Sherman Road, Reading.

The 1911 census indicates that Thomas and his wife Blanche and son Denis then aged 1 year were living with his parents at 4 Sherman Road.  Thomas was a furniture porter his father worked at the biscuit factory.

 Thomas Porter died of wounds on 18th July 1917, aged 26.  He is buried in Boulogne Eastern Cemetery, Pas de Calais.  Grave reference IV.A.35.

Boulogne was one of the three Base ports most used by the British Armies during the war.  Boulogne and Wimereux formed one of the chief hospital areas.  Thomas Porter was probably wounded some distance away from Boulogne. 

J W Porter

Army, Arras, Commemorated name/s, Other Regiments

J W Porter
Bugler 9137
“G” Company 2nd Battalion
Oxford & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry.

Division 69
Extension

Porter W photo

J W Porter was the son of  Mr and Mrs F. Porter of Reading and the husband of Emily Walker (nee Porter) of 449, Brooklyn Street, St. James’, Winnipeg, Canada.  He died of wounds on 14th September 1915.  He is commemorated on his parents grave, number 18168. 

Bugler Porter is buried in Chocques Military Cemetery, Pas de Calais, France.  Location Plot I. D. 99.

 Chocques  lies north west of Bethune near Gonnheim.  From late autumn 1914 to the end of the war Chocques was occupied by the British.  The graves in Plot I were on men who died of wounds in No. 1 Casualty Clearing Station which was posted in the village.  The officers were buried in Plot V.  The casualties would have been fighting on the Bethune front.

Thomas Pocock

Army, Commemorated name/s, Other Regiments, Passchendaele, St. Batholomew's Church, Ypres

Thomas Pocock
Private 43323
2nd/9th Battalion Manchester Regiment

 Division 39

Pocock Th photo  CIMG2001

Thomas Pocock  lived at 44, Amity Road, Reading.  He was the son of Thomas and Mary Pocock. The 1911 census indicates that he had two older brothers Albert and Harry and one younger brother Ernest Frank who were living in the family home. His mother had given birth to ten children of whom seven were living. Thomas was a labourer at the biscuit factory like his father and older brothers. He was aged 22 when he was killed in action on 9th  October 1917.  This day marks the beginning of the third phase of the Third Battle of Ypres.   

Passchendaele by Martin Matrix Evans describes the scene that Thomas Pocock would have been a part of: “..troops moved up in anticipation of the attack of 9 October.  Lieutenant P. King described the horrors of the march up from Ypres.  ’It was an absolute nightmare.  Often we would have to stop and wait for up to half an hour, because all the time the duck boards were being blown up and men being blown off the track or simply slipping off – because we were all in full marching order with gas masks and rifles, and some were carrying machine guns and extra ammunition’.

At 5.20am on 9 October the 2/9th Manchester Regiment and the 2/4th East Lancashire (both 198 Brigade, 66th Division) advanced against Dab Trench.  Fire from Hamburg Redoubt, the strong point in the centre of the obstacle, cut the men down and an attempt by the 2/5th East Lancashire to take it failed.  King describes it.  ‘We went over this morass, straight into a curtain of rain and mist and shells, for we were caught between two barrages.  Well, of course we lost direction right away….The machine gun fire from the German positions was frightful…. We could hardly move because the mud was so heavy that you were dragging your legs behind you, and with people being hit and falling and splashing down all round you, all you can do is keep moving and look for some form of cover’.”

 It is not therefore surprising that Thomas Pocock has no known grave.  He is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial Panel 120-124 and 162-162A and 163A