Category Archives: Western Front

Hereward Pattision Sadler

Army, Commemorated name/s, Reading School War Memorial, Royal Berkshire Regiment, Somme

Hereward Pattison Sadler
Second Lieutenant
6th Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment

Divison 64
Extension

Sadler HP photo

Hereward Pattison Sadler,  was the only son of William and Jane Sadler, of ‘Oakdene’ 4, Hillside Gardens, Wallington, Surrey, late ‘Plassey’, Holmes Road, Reading. 

The 1911 census indicates that the family had also lived at 42, Hamilton Road. William Sadler was then the head teacher of an elementary school, sister Ethel is recorded as a teacher for the County council her father for the Borough council.  Hereward was still at school.  An elder sister not living at home in 1911 is recorded as a teacher in 1901 census.

Hereward  died of wounds on 19th July 1916, aged 20. This is the day that the battalion was making an attack on on the village of Longueval and Delville Wood, part of the Somme offensive. Many men in the battalion were killed in the bloody battle by artillery and machine gun fire. It is possible that Hereward Sadler was injured and removed to a place of safety rather than being killed immediately during the action. The wood became known as ‘Devil’s wood’ by the men who fought there.  Another Reading man, Samuel Robert Collier who is also remembered in the Old Reading Cemetery was in the same battalion and lost his life in the fighting.


Hereward Sadler  is buried in the Carnoy Military Cemetery.  Location K. 32

Samuel Robert Collier

Abbey Baptist Church, Army, Commemorated name/s, Marlborough House School, Reading University College, Royal Berkshire Regiment, Somme

Samuel Robert Collier (Bob)
Second Lieutenant
6th Royal Berkshire Regiment

 Division 14

 Collier SR photo  CIMG2160 CIMG2161

Samuel Robert Collier known as Bob and commemorated as such on his parents headstone was 23 years old when he was first reported in the Chronicle of 4 August 1916, missing believed killed.  He was the only son of Mr and Mrs S. George Collier, of 198, Tilehurst Road, Reading. 

He was educated at Marlborough House, Reading, and Bath College.  On leaving college he entered Messrs. S. and E. Collier’s Brick and Pottery Works, of which his father was a director.  While at Bath college he was in the Cadet Corps for three years and on leaving became Scout Master of the King’s Road Boy Scouts for four years. 

At the outbreak of war he entered the Berkshire Yeomanry, but later received a commission in the 9th Berkshire Regiment, quartered at Wool.  For four months he acted as transport officer for the regiment, and gave it up to take his examinations at Salisbury Plain, and on June 16 1916 he left for France to join a service battalion of the Berkshires, acting as transport officer till July 15, when he took the post of platoon commander, when the usual transport officer returned from hospital.  He  went into action on July 17 in Delville Wood on the Somme and  was not seen after that date.

 His Captain N. B. Hudson wrote to his parents. “At about 3.30pm I saw your boy lead off his platoon against the enemy in the wood, some of his platoon came back, but I can get no information from them, save that one man told me ( I am afraid this all seems very cruel; but I think you would like me to say all I can) that he had seen an officer’s body lying in the wood, wearing riding breeches and stocking putties, and these I know were the clothes your boy was wearing.  There is only one piece of hope that I think it is right to offer you, and that is no one saw him killed, but in a wood one sees very little.  We have come back 30 miles from the scene of the action now.  From dawn on the 17 until 3.30 p.m. your boy was with me, and showed great coolness under very trying conditions.  At 3.30 p.m. he led his platoon through the wood on the right of the company, while I took the left.  I did not see him anymore.  All I can hope is that you have heard something I have not.  This I can say, that although your boy had only been in my company for two days, I saw in him during the action a fearless and courageous man, whom I felt I could trust.”

 Delville Wood was referred to by the troops as Devils Wood.  Bob Collier’s body was never found and his name is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing Pier and Face 11D

Ralph George Pusey

Alfred Sutton School War Memorial, Army, Other Regiments, St. Batholomew's Church, Ypres

Ralph George Pusey
Guardsman 16604
Number 4 Company,
1st Battalion Grenadier Guards

Pusey RG photo Pusey RG name

Ralph George Puseywas the only son of Frank Howard and Sarah Jane Pusey of 134, Cumberland Road. He had one onlder and two younger sisters. He had attended the Wokingham Road School (now Alfred Sutton Primary School) and his name appears on their war memorial. The 1911 census indicates that at age 15 years he was a baker’s errand boy, his father was a labourer at the biscuit factory.

Ralph is believed to have been in the regular army when war was declared on 4th August 1914. He spent August and September in training, leaving England for Zeebrugge on the 5th October as part of the BEF (British Expeditionary Force).  By the time Pusey and his regiment had arrived the original BEF had already been in action.  After marching for almost two weeks the BEF engaged in the Battle of  Mons on 23rd August.  When it was realised that the British troops were out numbered, an orderly withdrawal, starting on 24th August and lasting many days was begun.  The BEF marched, south.  On the 26th August some battalions fought a holding operation which became known as the Battle of  Le Cateau.  By September 6th the BEF had marched, in the heat of summer, over one hundred miles to the Marne.  There they fought a four day battle which ended with the British pursuing  the Germans who were moving northwards.  Heavy fighting then took place around the Aisne and Albert on the Somme.  When the Grenadier Guards landed in Zeebrugge on October 7th the Germans were occupying an area around Ypres.  Belgian soldiers were in action around the Yser canal and the British had been in battles at Aubers, Armentières, Neuve Chapelle and Warneton, in what was later named the Battle of Flanders.

 When the Grenadier Guards arrived in Belgium they went by train and route march, stopping at various points along the way, to arrive at Ypres on the 14th October.  One stop saw them billeted near a dye works and issued with velvet in lieu of blankets!  When they arrived at their sector of the front they set up out posts between, what in time would be the famous or infamous, Menin and Messines Roads. The first Uhlans, cavalry soldiers of the German Sixth Army were sighted.  The Guards dug  defensive positions at Zandvoorde on the 16th October and moved forward to Kruiseecke on the 17th October.   There the battalion began an attack on the 19th  October but were soon ordered to withdraw.  On the 20th October the Germans attacked the Guards positions in the afternoon, coming within 200 yards of their line. Ralph Pusey was probably killed during this attack.  The 19th October 1914 marked, what historians later referred to as, the start of the First Battle of Ypres. 

 Ralph’s parents were initially informed that Ralph was wounded and reported missing on the 24th October.  This information was published in the Reading Standard 2nd January 1915. Further detail stated that he was believed to be a prisoner of war.  However, his body was never found and he had no known grave.  Ralph Pusey was 19 years old. 

Two memorials were constructed to commemorate the men who were lost in this and the subsequent battles of Ypres.  The Menin Gate, carries 54,896 names of men lost in Ypres before 1916 and the near by memorial at Tyne Cot which commemorates another 35,000 soldiers with no known grave, killed after 1916.