Private Norman Philip Barlow, 102nd Battalion, Canadian Infantry and Second Lieutenant Lucien Herbert Higgs, Royal Flying Corps both died on 8th June 1917 whilst on active service.
7th June 1917
Three local men lost their lives on 7th June 1917 during the Battle of Messines in West Flanders, Belgium: Captain Harold Jackson, Royal Flying Corps; Private William Charles Sumner, 33rd Battalion Australian Infantry; and Private Almon John Wills, 10th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
5th June 1917
Gunner Charles Henry Howe died on 5th June 1917 whilst serving with D Battery, 242nd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery. Soldiers Died in the Great War indicates that he was born in Balsall, but the City of Coventry Roll of Honour gives his place of birth as Woolwich, and his date of birth as 11th December 1886.
30th May 1917
Second Lieutenant Kenneth Selby Waters was killed on 30th May 1917, whilst serving with the Indian Army Reserve of Officers, attached to No. 1 Mountain Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery. He was born in Nuneaton on 18th June 1890, where his father, Rev. Samuel George Waters, was headmaster of King Edward VI School from 1880 until 1908. Kenneth was the eldest of the two children of Rev. Waters’ second marriage to Ellen Selby.
His sister Winifred Mary was born in 1897. They also had five half-siblings from their father’s first marriage to Laura Ann Batchelor (1849-1884) – Harold William (born 1875), George Cecil (born 1877), Eveline Laura (born 1880), Sybil Bertha (born 1881), and Aubrey Eustace (1883-1945).
28th May 1917
On 28th May 1917 40-year-old George Dipple, a former groom, was killed in action whilst serving as a Gunner with 296th Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery. Born in Ullenhall, he was the third of four children born to parents John (an agricultural labourer) and Martha (née Wiggett) who had married at Ullenhall in 1870.
26th May 1917
Gunner Norman Vaughan of “D” Battery, 312th (West Riding) Brigade, Royal Field Artillery was killed in action on 26th May 1917. Born in Handsworth in 1880, he was the eighth of nine children (six boys, three girls) and the first of two sons of parents John and Maria (née Bevins) to be killed during the war. His brother, William Leonard (known as Leonard) died of wounds on 30th November 1917, serving as a Guardsman with the Grenadier Guards.
21st May 1917
Two local men lost their lives in France on 21st May 1917 – Private Charles Bishop, 11th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, and Private John Gardner, of the 14th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment.
14th May 1917
Private Albert Twissell, 16th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, died on 14th May 1917. He was born in 1895 at Burton Green, situated on the boundary of the parishes of Berkswell, Stoneleigh and Kenilworth, and was baptised at Kenilworth on 14th August 1898.
13th May 1917
Two local men died on active service on 13th May 1917. Private Albert Charles Adkins, 1st Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, died in Germany whilst a Prisoner of War. Private James Edward Lees, 10th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment died in hospital in Liverpool, aged 19, and is buried in Shirley.
10th May 1917
Private George Herbert Smith, 9th Company, Machine Gun Corps, died on 10th May 1917, aged 20. He was born in Marston Green and was the second of the five children (three sons, two daughters) of parents James (a railway plate layer) and Florence Mary (née Harvey) who had married at Bickenhill in 1894. Two of their three sons were killed during the First World War – the youngest, Sydney Harvey (1911-1997) was too young to serve in the war.
Solihull Life 