Category Archives: Royal Berkshire Regiment

Thomas Henry Palmer

Army, Commemorated name/s, Other Regiments, Royal Berkshire Regiment, Ypres

Thomas Henry Palmer
Private 9829
1st Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment

 Division 12

Palmer TH photo

Thomas Henry Palmer’s home address was 98, Pitcroft Avenue, Reading.  He is commemorated on a his family’s grave. His father was James Palmer, a railway clerk and his mother Rosalind Palmer. The 1911 census indicates that Rosalind had borne nine children although only four servived. A daughter Rosalind May Keys, her husband Herbert and son Charles were living with the Palmer family. Thomas’s two sisters Alice and Bessie were also living in the family home.  Thomas enlisted on 27July 1914, some days before the official declaration of war. Perhaphs with the intention of making acareer change. He was almost 24 years old. He  joined the Dorset Regiment on 7 August and he was posted on active service  overseas in October 1914.  His service record on Ancestry UK indicates that his occupation was that of a fitter and turner.  Thomas had served in the 1st/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment  (Territorial Force) before the enlisting in the Dorset Regiment. His mother Rosilind is given as his nextof kin in the service record and it was she who received his medals and personal effects upon his death. Thomas Palmer was killed in action on the 26th April 1915.  He  is buried at White House Cemetery, St. Jean-les-Ypres, location IV. A.42. 

Although the commemoration on the kerbs states killed in action in France, Thomas is actually buried in Belgium.  The “White House” was on the Ypres road, between St. Jean and the bridge over the Bellewaardbeek.  The cemetery was begun in March, 1915, and used until April, 1918, by units holding this part of the line.  Originally it contained Plots I and II; but after the Armistice these Plots were completed, and III and IV added, by the concentration of graves from the battlefields round Ypres and from smaller burial grounds.   Thomas Palmer’s service record states that he died from the effects of a gunshot wound. It is probable that his body was brought to  the White House Cemetery from a smaller burial ground belonging to a casualty clearing station after the Armistice .

 The Second Battle of Ypres had begun on 22nd April 1915.  The Germans used poison gas for the first time during the next week.  On 26th April the British launched counter attacks against the Germans south-east of Pilckem and towards St. Julien.  The efforts came to naught with the British incurring 4,000 casualties during the day as they faced the superior German machine guns and artillery.  Thomas Palmer is believed to have been a casualty of the fighting which took place in the area.

Charles Palmer

Army, Commemorated name/s, Loos, Royal Berkshire Regiment

Charles Palmer
Lance Corporal 13156
“B” Company 8th Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment 

Charles Palmer  was the son of William and Ellen Palmer,  of  22, St. John’s Street, Reading.  He is commemorated on his parents grave, the inscription is very indistinct, many of the lead letters are missing.  His name appears on the Loos Memorial to the Missing.  Panel 93 – 95.  He died on 25th September 1915, the first day of the battle, aged 19. He was educated at Christ Church School and employed by Messes Knil and Co. for four years.  He was one of the first to enlist in Lord Kitchener’s New Army.

 In “Responding to the Call” by Colin Fox et al a detailed account of the battle which started September 25th 1915 is given. Training and rehearsals for the battle by the 8th Battalion had included bomb throwing “with live bombs” and preparations were made for the discharge of chlorine gas which the British Army used for the first time, some six months after the Germans first gas attack. 

 The order to “stand to” had been given at 3.30am and fix bayonets at 6am.  Immediately a bombardment of the enemy trenches began and a release of gas and smoke.  In the copses of La Haie and Bois Carré, in front of the attacking 8th Royal Berkshires and the 10th Gloucesters, the Germans had set up machine guns which caused many casualties in the attack across No Man’s Land.  Eventually the 8th Battalion captured La Haie and had advanced 400 yards from their starting point.  In a second charge the third line, at Gun Trench, was reached by 8.00am and the advance was now 1,200 yards.  The final objective was to be Hulluch village but there was strong German resistance and eventually the 8th Battalion pulled back to form a line in Gun Trench. In “Responding to the Call”  (page 48) Chapman states that Charles Palmer was amongst the first to fall as the 8th Battalion lead the attack, his body was never found.  Charles Palmer had been with a small group of Reading men who had trained and worked together for almost a year.  Only two of the group escaped death or injury.  Casualties among the men were recorded as 56 killed, 176 wounded and 268 missing.

Joseph William Odell and brothers – Odell

Alfred Sutton School War Memorial, Army, Berkshire Yeomanry, Dardanelles, Graves, Other Regiments, Reading Blue Coat School, Royal Berkshire Regiment, Somme

Joseph William Odell
Trooper 1st Berkshire Yeomanry

 Division 65

JW Odell Odell AG photo bros Joseph Odell EV photo

Joseph Odell was the son of Mr and Mrs Joseph Odell of 87, Cardigan Road.  After leaving school he went to work for Pulsometer Engineering. Joseph was a well-liked young man who had joined the Yeomanry two years before the war.  He was passed as fit by the Doctors and went to serve in Egypt.  He had been there for only a few weeks when he was taken ill and on 12th August 1915 just days before his unit was due to land at Suvla Bay. He was evacuated back to England where he was first sent to hospital in Birmingham and then to Norton, Gloucester and then Pinewood at Hastings.  It was found that he was suffering so badly from tuberculosis that he was sent home to his parents where he eventually died on 3rd February 1916.  He was 22 years of age.

His funeral was military in character with buglers of the Yeomanry sounding the last post. Representatives of his squadron were Trooper Frederick Potts V.C. and Trooper Cook.  There were many mourners including his parents and two brothers as well as other family members and friends including those from Pulsometer Engineering Works and St. Lukes Club.

Joseph Odell was buried in the Reading Cemetery in Division 65.  There was no grave marker but the Thames Valley Branch of the Western Front Association and the Berkshire Yeomanry raised funds to erect a headstone similar in character to that of the CWGC headstone. It was dedicated on 26 June 2004 in a ceremony attended by the Lord Lieutenant of Berkshire, the Honorary Colonel of the Yeomanry, representatives  of the Yeomanry Museum and members of the WFA. The headstone was unveiled by veteran William Stone aged 103.

Odell headstone and WStone

 

His brother Lance Corporal 2442 Edward Victor Odell, 1st / 4th Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment was killed in action on 14th August 1916, he is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing Pier and Face 11D.

Odell EV name

There were no family details given in the CWGC register entry.  The Standard September 9th 1916, gave details of the death of Edward Victor Odell.  He had been a bugler in the Territorials for five years before the war but had left a few months before war was declared.  Edward re-enlisted in the first week of the war joining the 1st/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment.  He had been at the front 17 months when he was killed in the Somme battles.  In civil life, Edward had been a printer for eight years with Messer’s Bradley and Sons, the Forbury.  Edward was married and his son, whom he never saw, was born nine days before the notification of Edward’s death.

The Standard reports the existence of a third brother A.G. Odell who enlisted in the Royal Garrison Artillery at the beginning of the war.  Lance Bombardier, 42215, Albert George Odell served with the 122nd Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery.  He was killed in action on 18th June 1918, aged 23. He is buried in Wailly Orchard Cemetery, Pas De Calais.  Location II.D.4.  He was the husband of E.L.Ward, formerly Odell of 47, Albert Road, Reading.  It was originally difficult to locate this brother because the CWGC detail spelt the surname as O’Dell rather than Odell which is common to other memorials to the brothers.

All the Odell brothers are commemorated on the Reading Blue Coat School War Memorial.