Walter Frank Pearce
Private 19987
8^th Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment

 Division 64
Extension

Walter Frank Pearce and Ernest Albert Pearce are commemorated on a large family headstone.  Their parents were the late William Edward and Phoebe Pearce of 22, Chesterman Street,  Reading.  The 1911 census indicates that Wlater, then 17, was working as a confectionary apprentice. Ernest was a grocers assistant. Other family members included William 29 and Charles 19 who were drapery porters; sisters Hilda 22 and Florence 14 no occupation is given for either sister.

Walter died of wounds at Cambrai as a prisoner of war on 21^st September 1916, aged 22.  He is buried at Porte de Paris Cemetery, Cambrai.  Location I.B.7.

 Ernest Albert Pearce
Private Royal Berkshire Regiment

 Ernest was killed in action at St. Julien on August 16^th 1917 aged 27.  He was part of a Trench Mortar Battery.  The allied forces had on that day attacked along a nine mile front north of the Ypres – Menin Road crossing the Steenbeek River.  The ground was torn by the barrage and the low water  table made No-Mans Land a morass.   All the objectives were captured and the British reached Langemarck and half a mile beyond however,  the  Germans pressed the British back from the high ground won earlier in the day.

Charles Edward Pearce was also injured in the war.
Private 43978
7th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment

Charles service record indicates that he enlisted in February 1916 and was posted to the Royal Berkshire Regiment. However he was serving with the 7th Warwickshires when he wasinjured. He suffered from trench feet in the winter of 1916 and received gun shot wounds to his neck and chest on 5 December 1917. It is believed that he recoved from these injuries and was able to walk again. He signed his own medal receipt and it is believed that he survived the war.

Thomas Henry Palmer
Private 9829
1^st Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment

 Division 12

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 26^th 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 22^nd April 1915.  The Germans used poison gas for the first time during the next week.  On 26^th 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.