Charles George Alfred Piper
Pioneer 137844
98^th Field Company Royal Engineers

Division 13

Charles George Alfred Piper  was the son of Alfred and Emma or Emily Piper, of 9 Anstey Road, Reading.  He was the eldest of the four children recorded as living at home in the 1901 census. His father was a grocers assistant and Charles, then 18, was recorded as a painters apprentice. In 1911 he was 27 and still living at home in 9 Anstey Road, his occupation was that of housepainter.

Charles Piper died on the 27^th May 1918 and is named on a special memorial in the Hermonville Military Cemetery, Marne.  Location III. AA. 1/5.  Piper, aged 35,  was buried in the German part of this cemetery, but his grave and that of four other Sappers could not be found after the Armistice.  

 Piper was serving in the British IX^th  Corps which served under French Command as part of the French 6^th Army.  The following information may explain how he met his death.

The Divisions which made up the Corps had been sent to this ‘quiet’ sector of Champagne, where No Man’s Land was often as wide as 800 yards, in order to recover from previous ordeals.  The ground had been fought over before but nature had taken its course and the land was green and full of flowers, birds and insects.  However, as soon as the British arrived the area saw more action and increased shelling. Later it was known that the Germans were registering new guns.  During the afternoon 26^th May, with the capture of a German prisoner,  the British got the first indication that an all out attack was immanent.   The men were called to “stand to” amid rumours  that the whole thing was just “wind up”.  However, at 1a.m. the German barrage began, with guns and trench mortars using gas ammunition for 10mins.  This was followed by high explosives and the systematic destruction of the Allied line.  The name given to the bombardment was “Trummelfeuer” or “drum fire” such was the noise which was made.  The German infantry  was set  to go over at 3.40a.m. and thus the German attack on the “Chemin Des Dames” in what was officially recorded as the 3^rd  Battle of the Aisne, began.  Virtually the whole of the front line in the sector broke, with hardly a British gun intact to return fire.  The trenches were overrun and the survivors of the shelling were killed with rifle fire and bayonet, many more were taken prisoner.  The Germans got nearer to Paris than at any other time in the war.

John Edward Plumley
Pioneer WR/20556
103^rd Road Construction Company
Royal Engineers.

 Division 72

John Edward Plumley was the son of Mr John Edward and Mrs Mary Anne Plumley, of 141, Great Knollys Street, Reading.   He is commemorated on the family grave. Number 17820.   The Berkshire Family History Society classification is 72C15.

The 1911 census indicates that he was a tin plate worker. (It is possible that he worked for Huntley, Bourne and Stevens the biscuit tin manufacturers). His service records indicate that when he attested his medical classification was given as B2, it is believed that he was had a hearing deficiency.  The tragedy for the parents, brothers and sisters of John Plumley was that the war had come to an end John had survived, after serving 18 months in France, only to die six days later on the 17^th November 1918 of bronchio pneumonia , contracted as a result of active service.  His personal effects were later sent to his family.

He was aged 28.  The following poem accompanied the notification of death.

Our home is filled with sorrow
Our aching hearts are sad,
For the war has done its crucial part
And robbed us of our lad.
Do not ask if we miss him,
While we toil in pleasure dim;
No morning breaks or night returns
But what we think of him.

 John Plumley is buried in Don Communal Cemetery, Annoeullin, Nord, France.  Location I.B.26.

Don is a town 12 kilometres south-west of Lille.  Annoeullin was held by the Germans from early in the war until shortly before the Armistice.  John Plumley will have been treated in one of two Casualty Clearing Stations, Number 15 came to Don on the 25^th October 1918 and remained until January 1919, Number 32 came at the end of November and left at the end of December 1918.  Soldiers from both hospitals were buried in the Communal Cemetery.  Later bodies were brought in from neighbouring fields.