The Queen’s – The Royal West Surrey Regiment – lost 7,399 men killed during the Great War. Bill, Ernest & George were not among them, but they fought, and suffered, for their country, just the same. They just aren’t remembered as the men who died are.
More men of the Queen’s in later life. Walter, a pre-war regular soldier, on the left, was wounded in the left leg in France on 31st October 1914. He would recover and serve throughout the remainder of the war, being discharged in March 1919 after seven and a half years’ service. He would suffer from encephalitis lethargica in the mid-1920s and be diagnosed with ‘Typical advanced Parkinsonian Syndrome; he is bedridden and totally helpless’ by the early thirties. He would hang on to life until 1940, at which time he was still under fifty years old. Edward, in the centre, had joined up in October 1914, but a fall from a horse in July 1918 would cause him all sorts of problems in later life, although he would live into the 1950s. William, on the right, served from August 1916 until his discharge in August 1919. Quite possibly conscripted, he had been gassed in 1917.
East Surrey Regiment veterans. The East Surreys lost 6,223 men killed, but not, from left, Thomas, William (wounded twice), Albert & Arthur. This is a bit naughty of me, really, and unfair to the other three, but one of these men had the following written on the reverse of his medical card from the late 1930s:
Makes you wonder, though……
REMEMBER THOSE WHO SURVIVED
Hello M long time since I got in touch.
One of my Great Grandfathers was lucky? enough to come home. T/207401 Sgt Arthur Monk.
He was out there in the early part of Passchendaele in the Polygon Wood area where he was badly injured by shrapnel entering his body through his buttocks and exiting through his shoulder. He was shipped home and spent several weeks in a Manchester hospital. Quite why he was sent to Manchester when he lived in Kent I don’t know.
As a child I remember visiting him at his home in Rolvenden Layne. He lived to a ripe old age of 91 – 93 depending on what documents you believe. I have heard through the family grapevine that he had a leather belt he relieved from a dead German soldier during his time out there, but nobody seems to know where it went after his death in 1971. His Military career started in the East Kent Regiment (The Buff) where he spend quite a bit of time and I think he “Retired” but stayed on call and was subsequently called up or “volunteered” for WW1 service.
Hope you are keeping well.