The HARRY LUND investigation by 'Team Harry'

[sutton-in-craven]

This missing grave aspect of Jesse White brings my mind back to Harry and comments posted much earlier in this thread. Why was Harry buried where he was and his body not transferred back to Sutton to be buried with his mother in the family plot?

I guess there are always going to be these niggling little details that made sense 92 years ago, but today leave us with a few question marks. Probably as headgardener stated a while back, there would have been little time for sentimentality back then. Certainly by 1918 four years into the war, the authorities would have done the best they could with the dwindling resources they had I suppose.

[Verrico2009]

Louise

Those who are commemorated on the Tower Hill Memorial have their names inscribed there because they have no known grave due to them having being lost at sea or buried at sea. As Jesse White's name appears on the Memorial he has either being buried at sea or he is buried somewhere else and therefore his name does not need to be on the memorial.

Myrtle

I do see your point there, Myrtle - but I'm with Andy in my belief that he was the man brought ashore dead: what I assume we can agree on is that he's clearly identified as having died in the earliest reports. Do we know when the memorial was unveiled and could his grave have been "lost" in the interim?

[Myrtle]

Andrew

It is likely that Harry's family would not have been able to afford to have his body transported back home. Also if his death certificate indicates that he was an unknown at the time of his burial the authorities wouldn't have known where his home was.

Myrtle

[Phil Evans]

Louise,

The Tower Hill Memorial was unveiled 12th December 1928.

My link

Phil

[Verrico2009]

This missing grave aspect of Jesse White brings my mind back to Harry and comments posted much earlier in this thread. Why was Harry buried where he was and his body not transferred back to Sutton to be buried with his mother in the family plot?

The comments posted much earlier in the thread were before we ascertained that Harry was the "unknown man" brought aboard the Parker, Andrew. For me, the answer is in the fact that he remained "unidentified" for at least a week after died - by which time it appears he had already been buried (at least that's my reading of the DC): who were they going to notify until a positive ID was made? Whilst we're aware he had been identified and his place of death known by the time probate was granted (just under a year later) we're still unclear as to precisely when or how it took place. Perhaps it was felt inappropriate by the family to have him exhumed and brought to Sutton? Or that leaving him in what had become his final resting place might have been "what he wanted"? Who would have had control of such things? I was under the impression his brother was still in Long Eaton at that point, his mother had died much earlier of course, he was alienated from his father (who probably didn't have the means to organise it even had he wanted to) and his former fiancee married in 1919. It will be interesting to see if we can find who put his name forward for the memorial - I suspect a maternal uncle or two, but I doubt they would have had the (presumably) necessary next of kin status while the others were alive.

[Verrico2009]

Sorry, Myrtle - unintentionally repeating your point on the lack of ID.

Thanks for the link, Phil. I have FMP membership so see if I can find anything there.

[Myrtle]

I do see your point there, Myrtle - but I'm with Andy in my belief that he was the man brought ashore dead: what I assume we can agree on is that he's clearly identified as having died in the earliest reports. Do we know when the memorial was unveiled and could his grave have been "lost" in the interim?

Louise

I would not like to presume that the body was that of Jesse White. Until some proof of the body being that of this particular man, comes to light, I will keep an open mind. It is unlikely that his grave would have been lost in South Wales.

Thanks Phil for providing the date for the unveiling of the Tower Hill Memorial.

[headgardener]

Why was Harry buried where he was and his body not transferred back to Sutton to be buried with his mother in the family plot?

I guess there are always going to be these niggling little details that made sense 92 years ago, but today leave us with a few question marks. Probably as headgardener stated a while back, there would have been little time for sentimentality back then. Certainly by 1918 four years into the war, the authorities would have done the best they could with the dwindling resources they had I suppose.

I'd add, if I didn't make the point in my earlier post, that Harry almost certainly went into the ground as an 'unknown' (as per the DC). What are the chances of the family wanting to have his body exhumed and reburied elsewhere? What are the chances of their wish being granted even if they did?

Better to let him 'rest in peace'.

As for 'dwindling resources', my understanding is that the family had to foot the bill if they wanted a body brought to another place in the UK for burial.

Edit; Oops! I just read on from Andrew's post, and saw Myrtle's and Louise's posts. Great minds......

[Verrico2009]

Louise

I would not like to presume that the body was that of Jesse White. Until some proof of the body being that of this particular man, comes to light, I will keep an open mind. It is unlikely that his grave would have been lost in South Wales.

Fair enough, Myrtle. It's not something I shall be able to follow too closely for a while, but it sounds as though debate has kicked off elsewhere and it would be good to settle this aspect, if possible. Though I do recall a post (and I think it was headgardener commenting earlier on this thread in relation to Jesse White) to the effect that war graves in the UK have been known to be lost in the past. In fact, I had that experience myself this July: "Sorry, Stuart: it's been confirmed there's nothing left above ground" (my post here: Gravestones in UK)

[sutton-in-craven]

OK folks, I know this is ever so slightly off-topic, or a sideways diversion from Harry, but here is a link to the Southampton War memorial where Jesse White is commemorated.

<A class=bbc_url title="External link" href="http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Hampshire/Southampton.html" rel="nofollow external">http://www.roll-of-h...outhampton.html

I can't help thinking what a horrific death it must have been for Jesse. Bad enough having your 'presumably safe' hospital ship torpedoed in the Bristol Channel and being submerged into that freezing water, but to lose all sense of feeling and strength through hypothermia and then slowly drift into the ships propeller…..OK enough said.

EDIT: Woo Hoo, just noticed this brings up my 100th post and it’s only taken me 15 months, Verrico joined after I did and she’s already past the 1,000th mark! Now I can access that Skindlers Club or whatever it’s called. Think I might start a new thread on bottle top collecting, it’d be a darn sight more affordable than war medal collecting!

Edited 23 October , 2010 by sutton-in-craven

[Andy Wade]

Louise

I would not like to presume that the body was that of Jesse White. Until some proof of the body being that of this particular man, comes to light, I will keep an open mind. It is unlikely that his grave would have been lost in South Wales.

Thanks Phil for providing the date for the unveiling of the Tower Hill Memorial.

OK. So, following that line of thinking, if the body landed is not Jesse White then who/where is it? Is there a grave of an unknown man buried in Pembroke Dock Military Cemetery who died on/around 26th February 1918? Since that's where they buried Harry isn't it likely that this body also ended up in there? CWGC don't list unknown burials on their database, they just say "number of identified casualties". So they aren't ruling out the presence of unknown burials, they're just not listed.

PEMBROKE DOCK MILITARY CEMETERY

Country: United Kingdom

Locality: Pembrokeshire

Historical Information: There are 40, 1914-1918 and more than 30, 1939-1945 war casualties commemorated in this site.

No. of Identified Casualties: 73

[larney]

There are no unidentified WW1 graves at Pembroke Dock Military Cemetery as far as I know, but there are several at Pembroke (Llanion) Cemetery, all of which are WW2 burials, mainly men of H.M.S. Puckeridge.

Nearby Milford Haven Cemetery contains several unknown sailors, all WW2, and mainly from H.M.S. Dinosaur and H.M.L.C.G.'s 15 and 16.

I'll keep my eyes and ears open for any other unknown sailor burials in the area, just in case.

SteveJ.

[Andy Wade]

Chris Harley has very kindly done a search of the local authority cemeteries at Pembroke and Jesse White's not in any of them. His reckoning is that he will be in the Pembroke Dock Military Cemetery or somewhere at Southampton.

Which echos my thinking that we'd need to find an unknown grave, but as Steve has just indicated, none exist as far as he's been able to see. (Many thanks for that Steve).

However, since absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, the only way to prove this would be a search of that cemetery's archives to rule it out altogether.

[Andy Wade]

Just looking at what TWGPP has for Jesse White (They do occasionally find 'lost' graves).

Slightly more details than CWGC has down, but if memory serves they have had access to the whole database including any notes that go with entries:

Details: 26/02/18 Aged 28 Drowned, as a result of an attack by an enemy submarine Son of Francis and Jessie White; husband of Helena Mary White (nee Penny), of 4, Chapel Rd., St. Mary's, Southampton. Born at Southampton.

If our information is correct, he didn't drown but died as a result of the propellor injuries, possibly combined with exposure/shock/heart failure after his ordeal.

Strange.

[Verrico2009]

If our information is correct, he didn't drown but died as a result of the propellor injuries, possibly combined with exposure/shock/heart failure after his ordeal.

Strange.

Andy, if you mean strange, as in why does it say he drowned when that wasn't his literal cause of death, I don't think it's an anomaly: all the papers I got out of Kew were highly confidential and only seen at senior levels at the time and I don't think families would have been disabused of the notion that their loved ones simply drowned as a result of enemy action. It's also probably a natural assumption. You'll recall Mona's first message on the subject:

"Samuel known as Harry, was my father's uncle, born in June 1892, in Slippery Ford Oakworth Keighley, he was drowned in the Bristol Channel when the Glenart Castle was torpedoed..."

[Edited to add: I tried FMP for Jesse White as suggested by Phil, but unfortunately haven't been able to come up with anything.]

[Andy Wade]

Yes, I don't suppose they would have elaborated by saying something like: "Oh by the way, your son was horribly chopped up by the rescuing ship's propellors". I guess 'drowned' is a far more acceptable alternative, even if slightly incorrect.

This reminds me of some of the earlier news reports I have from the start of the war where a man is described as having been shot in the neck - and this was actually reported in the newspaper too. How must his relatives have felt about that? Later on the newspapers must have had a change of heart as they were all just described in slightly more comforting terms such as 'he sadly died of his wounds' etc., without including the gory details.

It does show that we can't believe all that we read.

[headgardener]

CWGC don't list unknown burials on their database, they just say "number of identified casualties". So they aren't ruling out the presence of unknown burials, they're just not listed.

Andy,

just to clarify this point; if there ARE any unidentified burials in a cemetery then the CWGC cemetery report listing the number of burials will also list "number of unidentified casualties" (i.e. graves with 'a soldier of the great war' or similar on the headstone). If that isn't mentioned then there almost certainly aren't any.

This reminds me of some of the earlier news reports I have from the start of the war where a man is described as having been shot in the neck - and this was actually reported in the newspaper too. How must his relatives have felt about that? Later on the newspapers must have had a change of heart as they were all just described in slightly more comforting terms such as 'he sadly died of his wounds' etc., without including the gory details.

Indeed. I think that some of the most commonly used phrases (so commonly used that they became devalued) were "he died peacefully" and "he died instantly". I shudder to think of the truth behind some of the phrases that we encounter in those sort of reports.

[Andy Wade]

Andy,

just to clarify this point; if there ARE any unidentified burials in a cemetery then the CWGC cemetery report listing the number of burials will also list "number of unidentified casualties" (i.e. graves with 'a soldier of the great war' or similar on the headstone). If that isn't mentioned then there almost certainly aren't any.

Thanks for that clarification. It pretty much rules out Pembroke Dock Military Cemetery then.

However, just looking at:

Cemetery: PEMBROKE DOCK (LLANION) CEMETERY

Country: United Kingdom

Locality: Pembrokeshire

Historical Information: There are 23 Commonwealth burials of the 1914-18 war here, including 2 unidentified sailors of the Royal Navy. There are a further 51 Commonwealth burials of the 1939-45 war, including 4 unidentified sailors of the Royal Navy and 1 unidentified airman of the R.A.F. There are an additional 4 Foreign National war burials here.

No. of Identified Casualties: 71

I know Jesse White was Mercantile Marine, but is it possible he's one of the two WW1 RN unknowns in Pembroke Dock (Llanion) Cemetery? Perhaps something for SteveJ to look at next time he's in the area?

If one is dated 26/27th February 1918 I'll get the beers in.

[sutton-in-craven]

I note that Jesse came from St Mary's in Southampton. I've just composed an email and sent it to the Parish office in Southampton covering St Mary's Church asking if there is a Jesse White, husband of Helena Mary White, buried in the grounds of this church. Hopefully I'll get a response and can report back.

Ah, just had a response back from the St Mary's Parish administrator stating "No burials have taken place in St. Mary's church since 1834 following the Cemetery Act". However, he has given me the contact details for someone else who may be able to help with the Jesse White burial mystery. Fingers crossed.

[Verrico2009]

Great, gradually ruling out possibilities. I think Jesse's thread is under full steam now with plenty of activity. Would be fantastic if your original query led to some resolution for Jesse too.

[Verrico2009]

Now that the Jesse mystery has successfully been resolved, I'm here at the North Yorkshire archives investigating Harry's inscription on the memorial and I can confirm the leaflet used at the unveiling describes him as "Pte Samuel Lund

R.A.M.C. (Attached Royal Naval Division)"

I'll attach a copy once I'm home. So that's definitely what they intended it to mean.

The question is still WHY? Frustratingly, a list was publicly posted containing rank, regiment and WHERE SERVED, but it doesn't seem to have survived.

[Myrtle]

Louise

Do you know what "Harry" Lund did as a job before the war?

[Verrico2009]

Painter & decorator off the top of my head, Myrtle.

[Myrtle]

Thanks Louise. I thought he may have been a weaver.

[Verrico2009]

Perhaps because his sister was and I think there's a bit of a connection, with the maternal grandfather owning a small woollen mill, Myrtle (although the two uncles the family were living with on the 1901 census were coal merchants).

As promised, here's the snippet from today's work:-