11th August 1917

23-year-old Private James Howard Watts, 11th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, was killed in action on 11th August 1917. He was the elder of the two children of parents Stephen Howard and Catherine (née Hodgkinson) who had married in Birmingham between January-March 1893. James and his sister, Kate Elizabeth, had five half-siblings from their mother’s first marriage to Thomas Ripley (1856-1890) – Margaret, Ferdinand(o) (1886-1964), Elsie, Agnes and Thomas.

The two boys also served in the First World War. Ferdinando served as a Sapper in the Royal Engineers, whilst Thomas was a private in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, serving at home with the 6th (Reserve) Battalion from 2nd November 1914 until being discharged unfit on 2nd August 1916 as a result of valvular heart disease, which he had had for some six years.

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10th August 1917

19-year-old Private Hubert Simpson was killed in action on 10th August 1917, serving with the 11th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. He was born in Birmingham in 1898, and was the youngest of the two children born to parents Joseph (a machinist) and Emily (née Davis) who had married at St Paul’s Church, Birmingham in October 1886. Their eldest child, Clarisse, was born in 1895.

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9th August 1917

Private Charles Paston, 11th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, was killed in action on 9th August 1917 and was the third of three brothers to be killed in the war. He was born in Temple Balsall on 17th June 1887 and was the sixth of eight children (three sons, five daughters) born to parents George (a labourer) and Ann (née Treadgold) who had married in 1876.

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3rd August 1917

On 3rd August 1917, Second Lieutenant Roger Paul Hepburn M.C. died in Ypres at Casualty Clearing Station, no 10, of wounds received in action serving with the Royal Engineers (30th Signal Company, attached. 21st Infantry Brigade). He was 24 years old, and had enlisted in the Army on the day war broke out, driving through the night with two friends on their motorcycles, who offered themselves as despatch riders for service with the expeditionary force. The group didn’t ask permission to go, simply leaving a note to say they had gone. Roger served for eight months at the front in this capacity, before being commissioned with the Royal Engineers and returning to the Front in November 1915 after training as a signaller. His two friends – T. Daish and J. N. Perks – both survived the war.

The local connection is that Roger was educated at Packwood Haugh School, in the Solihull rural district, between 1905-1911, when he joined Rugby School before studying natural sciences at Magdalen College, Cambridge, and taking his degree in June 1914. Whilst at Cambridge, he was also a member of the Officer Training Corps (OTC).

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1st August 1917

Two men with a local connection died in Flanders on 1st August 1917, the second day of the Third Battle of Ypres – former schoolteacher Second Lieutenant George Williams Hastings, 3rd Battalion Monmouthshire Regiment (attached to the 10th Battalion Cheshire Regiment), and labourer, Private David Thorneycroft, 38th Field Ambulance, Army Medical Corps.

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31st July 1917

Four local men lost their lives on 31st July 1917, the opening day of the Third Battle of Ypres (also known as Passchendaele, after the surrounding village and ridge). The offensive lasted until the village was taken on 6th November 1917, at a cost of some 310,000 British casualties, and over 260,000 German casualties.

Our local casualties on the first day, the Battle of Pilckem Ridge were:

  • Captain Eric Belfield, 4th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment
  • Private Rudolph Lawley, 2nd Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regiment
  • Private Joseph James Lines, 10th Battalion, Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent Regiment)
  • Private Joseph Savage, 1st Battalion, Coldstream Guards

Having no known grave, all of them are commemorated on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial

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16th July 1917

Regular soldier, Acting Bombardier Arthur John Berry MM, 49th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery died of wounds on 16th July 1917. Born in Shirley in 1889, he was the third of the seven children (five sons, two daughters) born to parents Samuel, a labourer, and Esther (née Gardner) who had married in 1885.

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15th July 1917

Private Samuel Capewell, 2nd Battalion Scots Guards, was killed in action on 15th July 1917. He was born in Birmingham on 17th February 1877, and was the eighth of the nine children (seven sons, two daughters) of parents William (a painter) and Hannah (née Jones) who had married at All Saints, Hockley, Birmingham in 1859.

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