Second Lieutenant Thomas Pargetter Jones was killed in action on 31st October 1918 whilst serving in France with the Royal Air Force. He was the third of three brothers to be killed in the war – younger brothers Charles Victor (1892-1916) and Collins Jeffreys (1893-1916) enlisted in the 1st Birmingham Pals together on 1st January 1915 and died within hours of each other on 22nd/23rd July 1916.
30th October 1918
Gunner Ernest Solomon Bradley, 59th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery, died of pneumonia at No. 22 Casualty Clearing Station on 30th October 1918, aged 39, He was born in Shirley in 1879 and was the fifth of the ten known children (two sons, eight daughters) of parents William (a wheelwright) and Mary (née Millett). One of the children – Christabel Cecilia – died in 1884 at less than one year old. Another daughter, Florence Margaret, appears to have died in childbirth in 1904, aged 31.
27th October 1918
28-year-old Company Quartermaster Sergeant George Ernest Jenks, Canadian Railway Troops, died of pleural pneumonia at the Camp Hospital, Niagara on 27th October 1918 after suffering from influenza.
25th October 1918
Two local men lost their lives on 25th October 1918 whilst on active service – Private Francis Richard Corbett, 1st Battalion, Duke of Edinburgh’s (Wiltshire) Regiment and Captain Bertram Walter Mockley Pearson, Army Service Corps.
24th October 1918
Two local men died on 24th October 1918 whilst on active service – Sapper John Bertram Harris, 3rd Special Company, Royal Engineers and Private James Powers, 2nd/7th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
23rd October 1918
Five men with a local connection died on 23rd October 1918:
- Lance Corporal Harry Matthew Bradburn, 20th Battalion Manchester Regiment
- Private Oliver Cranmer, 2nd Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment
- Corporal Frederick Alfred Johnson, A Battery, 115th Brigade, Royal Field Artillery
- Shoeing Smith Frank Selfe, Z Battery, 5th Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery
- Private John Howard Whittle, 1st/8th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment
22nd October 1918
According to a letter from his colonel, Captain Howard Victor Fraser Thomas MC, 11th Battalion, Royal -Scots, was killed in action by a bullet to his head whilst gallantly leading his company into action at Vichte during the final push against the Germans in the Battle of Courtrai.
19th October 1918
Two local men died on 19th October 1918 whilst on active service – Private John Freeman, 6th Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and Signalman Edwin Herbert Hulston, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, serving on HMS Plumpton.
18th October 1918
Private William John Townsend was killed in action on 18th October 1918, serving with the 18th (Lancashire Hussars) Battalion of The King’s (Liverpool Regiment). He was the youngest of the four children (two sons, two daughters) of parents, John (a waggoner) and Harriet (née Price) who had married in Bickenhill in 1888. Both of the boys died on active service as William’s elder brother, George, a Lance Corporal with the same regiment as William, was killed in July 1918.
17th October 1918
28-year-old Corporal Harold James Harvie died in Italy on 17th October 1918 serving with the 48th Divisional Ammunition Column, Royal Field Artillery. He died in hospital as a result of pneumonia following influenza and is buried at Montecchio Precalcino Communal Cemetery Extension, Italy.
Solihull Life 