Shropshire Routes to Roots

6. Memorials

Finding the fallen

Wilfred Higley and Fred Higley were both killed during the war. A. P. Higley survived. We can investigate soldiers whom we know to have died during the First World War by looking at the CD-Rom, "Soldiers Died in the Great War". The CD-Rom also includes "Officers Died in the Great War" and is available at Shropshire Archives and Oswestry Library, just turn up and ask if you can see it.

We can also check if they are commemorated on any memorials in Britain, France or Flanders. Hundreds of memorials to the fallen exist and a good way of finding an individual soldier is to search on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website (Opens in a new window). The commonwealth War Graves Commission is the organisation charged with cataloging and maintaining the war graves of British and Commonwealth servicemen, wherever they have fallen in the world.

• Look at the following and then follow the link to the CWGC website. Search for a relative whom you know died in the First World War.

Private F. Higley, 5th Battalion KSLI was killed in action on 25th September 1915 during an action known as the "Second Attack on Bellewaarde", a diversionary attack in the Ypres salient to prevent German reinforcements from being sent to the Battle of Loos. His body was never found. He is commemorated on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial.

Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial aerial view Larger image, in a new window [28kb] [Reproduced with kind permission of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission]

Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial Larger image, in a new window [29kb] [Reproduced with kind permission of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission]

The Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial is one of four memorials to the missing in Flanders which commemorate the thousands of Commonwealth forces who fell during the battles of the Ypres Salient. More than 54,000 officers and men are commemorated here. The memorial was unveiled in July 1927.

Private W. J. Higley died of wounds on 13th November, 1917. He is buried at the Zuydcoote Military Cemetery, France. The cemetery largely contains the graves of the officers and men who died at the 34th and 36th Casualty Clearing Stations during the autumn of 1917. There are over 300 men commemorated there.

Visit the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website (Opens in a new window).

These Men, from the Wrekin and the Severn
And from red-soiled Hereford, where Wye goes,
Of their own will gave up their freedom,
Laid their bones in foreign earth, for England.

Verse written by the then Poet Laureate Sir John Masefield whose cousin had been killed in 1914 with the 1st Battalion, KSLI. Read at the unveiling of the "Book of all the Names" at the memorial tablet to the KSLI at St. Chad's Church, Shrewsbury, 1932.

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