B.S. 1915 Aug. 21st

Private F. Richardson, of the Oxon and Bucks Light Infantry, has suffered a bad bullet wound in his right forearm, and is now in the 24th General Hospital, Etaples, France. He joined the 5th Oxon and Bucks on December 11th, and after training at Aldershot was sent to the front on May 21st, having since then been involved in much action. Aged 23, he is the son of Fred Richardson, and at the outbreak of war was employed by Mr. J. Payne, a farmer, of Willen.

B.S. 1918 May 25th

Mr. and Mrs. E. Holman, of Willen, received official notice last weekend that their second son, Private Frederick Holman, of the Lewis Gun Section, D Battalion, Tank Corps, had died of wounds on April 29th. Born at Sutton Coldfield, he was aged 22, and had joined the South Staffordshire Regiment in September 1914, from his employment in a steam laundry at Birmingham. As part of Kitchener’s Army, he went to France a year later, and was gassed in 1916. Nursed back to health in a hospital in Cheshire, at the end of the year he returned to France, and was later transferred to the Tank Corps. He came home on leave last Christmas, and returned to France on Boxing Day.

B.S. 1918 Sep. 21st

Lance Corporal Percy Richardson, of the 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, has been officially reported as killed in action in France on Friday, August 30th, and in the following letter Captain Reiss writes to Mr. and Mrs. Walter Richardson, of Willen, regarding the circumstances of the death of their only son;

“I am very sorry to have to inform you that your son was killed in action on August 30. Please accept my sincerest sympathy in your great loss. He was a good and brave soldier. He was shot through the head by a sniper, death being instantaneous and painless. We found him lying thus in a shell hole alongside his officer, who was shot in exactly the same manner. Such men as your son are a great loss to the Company.”

Lance Corporal Richardson was aged 24, and from employment in the dining hall of Wolverton Carriage Works joined up in November 1915, proceeding to France in July 1916. During that year he was wounded on November 13th, as he would be on exactly the same date a year later. Having spent a while in hospital suffering from trench feet, he came home on sick leave in July 1917, and returned to the Western Front in early September.