This is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Connecticut.
William Christopher Byron was born in Almonte, Ontario on 27 June 1889 the son of Joseph and Nellie Byron.[1] His mother was Scottish; she emigrated to Canada in 1887 and settled in Ontario, where she married his father, a Canadian. His father died when William Byron was an infant.
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Warrant Officer Class 2, Company Serjeant Major, George Mayer Symons, The Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), attached to the British War Mission, died during the influenza epidemic at Camp Lee, Virginia on 8 October 1918. He was buried in Poplar Grove National Cemetery near Petersburg.
Unfortunately, his grave marker was incorrectly inscribed. The error was first identified by Betsy Dinger, a Park Ranger of the National Parks Service responsible for the cemetery. In conjunction with the CWGC team in Ottawa, she obtained a new, correctly inscribed headstone and stored it pending the refurbishment of the cemetery. Continue reading
This is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Rhode Island.
Palmer Wilkinson Taylor was born on 10 March 1896 in Providence, Rhode Island, the youngest of the two children and only son of Frank and Harriett Taylor; he was of English stock—both sets of grandparents were born in England.[1] The family lived in Massachusetts before moving, sometime before 1910, to Santa Monica. In February 1913 his mother died and in 1915 Taylor began his studies at Stanford University. He abandoned his studies in order to enlist in the Royal Flying Corps.
Continue readingThis is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Rhode Island.
Frank George Laramie (baptised Francois) was born on 15 June 1894 at Windsor Mills, Quebec, one of the six children of Mitchell and Mary Laramie.[1] With the exception of Mary Laramie, the family were French-speaking Québécois and emigrated to the United States in 1903. In the early part of the 20thC, all of the men in the family worked as farm labourers near Smithfield, north of Providence, although Frank had also worked in a local mill.
Laramie enlisted on 8 March 1916 at Sherbrooke, Quebec and joined the 117th (Eastern Townships) Battalion (748755, Private). In May the Battalion moved to Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and at the end of the month to Valcartier, where the Battalion’s early training was conducted. Laramie sailed for England with the Battalion on the RMS Empress of Britain, arriving on 24 August 1916.
Continue readingThis is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Rhode Island.
Not all of the casualties buried in the United States were repatriated in the period immediately after the First World War. Second Lieutenant Evanda Berkeley Garnett was killed in an air crash in Lincolnshire on 27 January 1918. Over 40 years later, on 16 September 1959, his sister Caroline called at the United States Embassy in London in order to arrange for the disinterment of his ashes and for their return from Lincolnshire to Rhode Island. She believed, incorrectly, that the remains of the other airman killed in the crash had been repatriated previously and stated that it was the family’s intention to bring Evanda Garnett home too. His ashes were duly exhumed and sent to the United States where they were reinterred in the family plot in Island Cemetery, Newport.[1]
Continue readingThis is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Rhode Island.
William Bustin was one of three sons from this family who died during the war; his brother Robert was killed in action at Gallipoli in 1915, and Ernest was killed in action in France in 1918.
He was born on 25 November 1886, in Adlington, Lancashire, into the large family of Joseph and Elizabeth Bustin; he was one of nine surviving children; two others died as infants.[1]
Continue readingThis is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Rhode Island.
William Bradley was born on 30 August 1891 in Bingley, Yorkshire, where his mother worked in a mill. He and his mother emigrated to the United States on 28 July 1904; they landed in Boston and settled initially in Lawrence, Massachusetts. In October 1904 his mother married Henry Morville Holmes, who had also emigrated from Bingley, and sometime in the next few years the family moved to Providence, Rhode Island.[1] Willie Bradley became a chauffeur and on 27 March 1915 he married Margaret Anne Farrell; the couple had two children—a son, William, and a daughter, Margaret; their daughter died as an infant.[2]
Bradley enlisted on 19 July 1918 in Providence and soon afterwards joined the Canadian Army Service Corps Depot at Ottawa, Ontario, where he was allocated the regimental number 2688553. On 2 September 1918 he was posted for service with the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force.
Continue readingThis is part of a series of essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in Rhode Island.
Sapper Joseph Thomas Alcorn is one of a number of casualties who died soon after enlistment during the influenza pandemic in 1918.
Continue readingThis is one of two essays about the First World War casualties commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in New Mexico.
Joseph Honoré Deschenes was a French-Canadian born on 10 February 1898 at St. Aubert, Quebec the fourth of the nine children of Zoël and Clare Deschenes.[1] At the time of his enlistment he was working as a labourer in Letellier, a small Francophone community in Manitoba.
He enlisted on 20 December 1915 in Morris, Manitoba for service with the Canadian Expeditionary Force. When he enlisted, aged 17, he gave his year of birth as 1897, implying that he was two months short of his 19th birthday.
Continue readingThis essay is about the only First World War casualty commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in West Virginia.
Few know more about the life and exploits of Lieutenant Bennett than Dr. Charles D. Dusch, Jr., the Deputy Command Historian of the United States Air Force Academy, whose comprehensive and extremely well-researched thesis ‘Great War Aviation and Commemoration: Louis Bennett, Jr., Commander of the West Virginia Flying Corps’ led us to his door.
This shorter piece by Dr. Dusch was written for this project. It describes Bennett’s involvement with aviation in the United States, his service with the Royal Flying Corps in France, his untimely death and his mother’s efforts to commemorate her only son. More information about Dr. Dusch may be found at the end of the essay. Footnotes are by the project editor.
West Virginia’s only Great War ace, Louis Bennett, Jr. was born in Weston, West Virginia, on 22 September 1894.[1] Unlike many of his peers who were merely enticed by the thrill of flying and became good pilots in the war, Bennett was much more. He clearly thought about aviation keenly and its impact on the war in larger terms, and he also took action on his ideas to bring them to fruition.
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Sacrifice 