Joseph Henry Wells

Army, Other Regiments, Registered War Grave

Joseph Henry Wells
Private S/2374 Depot
7th Battalion Seaforth Highlanders

Division 26 

 Wells J photo  CIMG2181

Joseph Wells was the  son of Charles and Jane Wells, of 36, The Mount, Reading.  It has not been possible to find background information.

Joseph Wells is buried in a registered war grave, number 16244, and commemorated on the kerbstones that surround it.  His name also appears on the special memorial in the War Plot because his grave had essentially been lost. It is hoped that the CWGC will be able to erect a headstone in the near furtue.

 Joseph Wells died of wounds on 21st August 1916  He was aged 17.  Newspaper reports stated that he had died in an English hospital and was brought to Reading for his funeral.  It is likely that he received his wounds during the Somme battle but further research is required to confirm this as fact.

Albert Henry West

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

Albert Henry West
Private 201566
2nd/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment

Division 40

West AH photo West AH mem name

 Albert Henry West, is  commemorated on a family memorial with the words “Dear son Dick, Killed in Action March 21st 1918 aged 19.

 A CWGC search reveals only one West killed on that date.  It is assumed that they are one and the same person. This was confirmed by an Ancestry UK search.  Relatives have begun a family tree which contains the known information.

Albert was the third son of George Alfred West and Jane West nee Palmer. His brothers were George and Thomas. He had an older and a younger sister called Florence and Gertrude. Sadly Florence also died in 1918, in October, as a result of the flu epidemic.

The 21 March was the first day of the German Spring Offensive. This was a time of rapid movement by the German forces and as a result it would have been almost impossible to remove the dead from the field of battle. Albert Henry West has no known grave and is listed among the missing on the Pozieres Memorial Panel 56 and 57.

John Piggott Wheeler

Army, Commemorated name/s, Other Regiments, Reading School War Memorial, Ypres

John Piggott Wheeler M.C.
Major – “D” Battery,
92nd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery

 Division 32

CIMG2175 CIMG2176

 

John Piggott Wheeler, was the youngest son of Samuel Wheeler and Elizabeth Wheeler of, 30, Craven Road, Reading.  He is commemorated on a family memorial in the corner of Division.  John Wheeler was born in June 1892, and entered the Royal Artillery from the Territorial Force in August 1914. 

 He received his M.C. for “Conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty.  He, with great coolness and disregard of danger, reorganised his drivers and teams, and succeeded in getting his guns into action under the most trying conditions”.

He was killed in action on 29th October 1917, aged 25.   He is buried in Vlamertinghe New Military Cemetery, Belgium, location Plot 9, Row E. Grave 23.