Strange, bizzarre and unlucky deaths

[BIFFO]

In the Towcester road Northampton cemetery book
we have a man killed by gas poisoning while attending a course in England, to train people in the use of the new anti gas helmet, he went into a gas filled tunnel came out yelling and died, his helmet was immediately inspected and found to be fitted correctly !!
Biff

[rolt968]

The Pensions Appeal Tribunals (Scotland): Entitlement and Assessment Case Papers contain a number of unusual and bizarre causes of deaths largely because a number of local pension tribunals took the view that the accidents were not in themselves caused by war service and refused a pension, Indeed in one case the chairman wrote a long memo giving his reasons for what seemed to be a mean decision. In that case at least the appeal tribunal agreed that it was mean and reversed the decision.

I did not take detailed notes of many cases as I was doing a preliminary view and am going back eventually.

However I do remember a incident where a soldier returning from leave was drunk when he boarded a train, became more so and eventually for no reason that his comrades could see climbed out of a carriage window and was subsequently found dead on the tracks.

An appeal was allowed in the case of a soldier in the Black Watch who had better remain nameless who died as a result of choking on meat. Rather oddly none of the papers actually said where he choked (at the front; in reserve, camp in UK, home on leave?).

R.

[Guest]

What's his name Biffo?

Mike

[BIFFO]

Mike

page 198

William Tidy (tidey) 133291 driver RFA 62nd ammo company

d.o.d 14-12-16

in the same book a chap joined the army, for some reason maybe( the derby scheme) he was sent to Coatbridge iron works where he was run over by a train and a wagon killed instantly, his body brought back to Northampton, the iron works and the army then argued who should pay for the transfer. He and his wife had 6 children, his wife wrote to the army for a pension they refused saying even tho he was in the army he had not been on active service, so she was left with no money and six children, AH A LAND FIT FOR HEROES RIGHT ENOUGH !!

[Derek Black]

9714 L.Cpl. David Clark of the 2nd Black Watch unfortunately fatally impaled himself on his bayonet when getting into his trench while under fire.

Derek.

[PFF]

Canadian Corporal Charles Horsley was killed November 18, 1918 while part of a posse searching for fugitives who had killed a missing Deputy Sherriff a few days before

{The perpatrioters were arrested, tried and Hanged in 1919}

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Horsley&GSfn=Charles&GSbyrel=all&GSdy=1918&GSdyrel=in&GSob=n&GRid=127871554&df=all&

[PFF]

In regard to Driver William Tidy

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Tidy&GSfn=William&GSbyrel=all&GSdy=1916&GSdyrel=in&GSob=n&GRid=60001353&df=all&

At least he is listed with the CWGC!

http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/390567/TIDY,%20WILLIAM

SIC Transit Glori!

[rolt968]

For the moment I cannot remember who this was... perhaps just as well. It is from the account of a soldier's death in a local a paper.

He succeeded in getting out of a trench unscathed (when others in his unit didn't). He then went back into the trench "for something" (the paper annoyingly doesn't say what, and was shot emerging the second time.

R.

[helpjpl]

Liverpool Daily Post 30 August 1916

Second-Lieutenant George Marlow, Lancashire Fusiliers, died at Bramshott Hospital on Saturday as the result of injuries received during bomb-throwing practice. At the inquest at Bramshott last night, Lieutenant Norman Brown said that on the 15th inst. he was instructing a squad in bomb-throwing, during the course of which on throwing back his hand the grenade came into contact with a short stack projecting above the sandbag partition, and the bomb rolled over the top of the partition and exploded on the ground. He shouted to Second-Lieutenant Marlow, who was standing close-by, to run for cover, but he was too late. The deceased officer was badly wounded in the leg, and after medical attention, was removed to Bramshott Hospital. A verdict of "accidental death" was recorded.

2nd-Lt George Marlow died 26 August 1916, aged 20, and is buried at Lostock Gralam (St John) Churchyard.

[ALDAWSON77]

A Great Uncle of mine Pte Joseph P Mcrae, KOYLI was wounded twice in France. He was employed in the colliery for the last weeks of the war but sadly was killed on 28/11/1918 when he was crushed between two wagons at Nunnery Colliery.

[David Porter]

836613 Gunner Harry Thomas Page of C/155 Army Brigade RFA was in a party of men digging a gun pit on the Ypres salient on October 21, 1917. Apparently a nearby tank was blown up by the Royal Engineers without any warning. Gunner Page received fatal injuries when the (now detached) tank door hit him. He died on October 26, 1917 and was buried at St. Julien Dressing Station Cemetery. His Military Medal was presented posthumously to his mother.

[GraemeClarke]

Morning

Gunner Page

Regards,

Graeme

PS - You dont happen to know what the WD says about the incident ??

[TwoEssGee]

Major Miles Barne DSO, 1st Scots Guards, DoW 17 September 1917 having been seriously wounded in a tragic incident at Bught Camp, Langemarck.

From "The Scots Guards in the Great War" - Ewart.

"An unfortunate accident had occurred on the morning of the 17th in the transport lines.

A British airman, finding himself forced to land, got rid of a live bomb by throwing it overboard.

It exploded in the transport lines, killing one man and wounding four others, as well as Major Barne DSO,

who died of his wound the following day.

He had only returned from leave in England on the previous day. His funeral at Mendringhem Cemetery,

Proven, was attended by such of the officers as could be spared, as well as by the CO and the pipers and

drummers of the 2nd Battalion."

Footnote - "Major M Barne DSO, rejoined the Scots Guards from the Suffolk Yeomanry in the spring of 1915.

In the autumn of 1915, during the Loos fighting, he was temporarily in command of the 1st Battalion, and on

several other occasions between then and 1917, acted as CO. He was an officer who saw more

continuous service with the 1st Battalion than any other, and he will be deeply missed. He had not an enemy

in the world, and was held in affectionate regard by all ranks."

Not particularly strange or bizarre, but damned unlucky.

His brother Seymour Barne MC had been killed a few months earlier while serving with the RFC.

[rolt968]

For the moment I cannot remember who this was... perhaps just as well. It is from the account of a soldier's death in a local a paper.

He succeeded in getting out of a trench unscathed (when others in his unit didn't). He then went back into the trench "for something" (the paper annoyingly doesn't say what, and was shot emerging the second time.

R.

I've done more research on this man. He was a keen athlete before enlisting. I wonder if he was actually employed as a runner and had been sent back into the trench with a message or "for something". I'll check the war diary, but I suspect I will never know.

RM

[James A Pratt III]

I believe there were a number of RFC/RAF aircraft who may have been downed by a regular artillery shell while spotting artillery fire. This might have happened to a few German aircraft as well. This is not confined to WW I. During WW II right after D-Day a Seafire that was spotting for HMS Warspite made the mistake of flying through the slipstream of one of the ships 15 inch shells. The plane went out of control, but the pilot managed to recover and fly home. There was also an incident during the Vietnam war where a US transport aircraft was downed by a US artillery round with all aboard being killed.

I think there was a British nurse in WW I who was sent back to England for a rest who was killed when she stuck her head out a window during a Zeppelin raid and was killed by a bomb fragment

Then there were the first two members of the US Army to be killed in WW I in Europe they were on the deck of a transport while the ship was having gunnery practice. One shell had a muzzle burst and fragments killed two US army nurses. This incident is mentioned in somewhere in the Women's section.

[Nepper]

There's Fred Frazer of 4th battalion West Yorks who according to the Middlesbrough Evening Gazette of 14 Jan 1918

The death occured to-day of Pte Fredrick Frazer (19) of the (W.Yorks).
Frazer and another soldier were practising rapid loading with dummy cartridges this morning. By some means a live cartridge had got among the dummies and Frazer was struck on the head and died almost immediately.

[sheldrake]

There are two deaths which ought to be in this thread.

#1 Lt Col Gwatkin of the RLC was one of the Durand Group of tunnellers who recovered the 'missing ' mine under Vimy Ridge. A tunnel collapsed while he was investigating further tunnels. This made a member of the Royal Logistics Corps (formed 1990) to be the cap badge of the last British soldier to be killed on the first world war battlefield of Vimy Ridge?

#2 Robert Mcbeath awarded the VC for conspicuous gallantry on the battlefield at Cambrai, survived the best efforts of the Germans to kill him, but fell to a more modern danger. After the war, McBeath and his wife moved to Canada and joined the Vancouver Police Department. On October 9, 1922, while walking the beat with his partner, Detective R. Quirk, McBeath stopped and arrested an Amneruican from Florida named Fred Deal for impaired driving. While escorting the prisoner to the nearest call-box, the man pulled a handgun from his pocket and shot both officers; MacBeath's partner survived, but McBeath died almost instantly. He was 23 years old.

More here http://vancouverpolicemuseum.ca/fallenofficers/robert_mcbeath.htm

[DaveBrigg]

Barr Denton enlisted soon after the outbreak of war and fought with the Lincolnshire Regiment on the Somme. He was badly wounded by a grenade but survived and was invalided out. In 1926 whilst riding his motorbike in the evening he hit a cow in the road and was killed instantly.

A former pupil of ours, Harry Hammond, was a civilian captured by the Japanese in WW2. He survived the prison camp, using his accountancy skills to help other prisoners. Soon after the Japanese surrender supplies were dropped near the camp by the Australian Air Force. One parachute failed to open properly and the package struck Harry on the head, killing him.

[sheldrake]

Not WW1 . An Austrian relative of a old friend survived the Balkans, the Eastern front and then ten years in a Soviet PW camp. In the mid 1950s he walked and hitched his way back to Vienna to the surprise of his family who thought him dead. Within months he was, having picked, cooked and and eaten poisonous fungi.

[rolt968]

There seem to have been a number of slightly bizarre deaths involving bombing (grenade throwing) practice or training in the first eighteen months or so of the war. I can't immediately find it but I'm sure there was one involving a padre who happened to be passing and joined in. I began to feel that being appointed bombing officer was a poisoned chalice even before you got into action.

RM

[TwoEssGee]

There seem to have been a number of slightly bizarre deaths involving bombing (grenade throwing) practice or training in the first eighteen months or so of the war. I can't immediately find it but I'm sure there was one involving a padre who happened to be passing and joined in. I began to feel that being appointed bombing officer was a poisoned chalice even before you got into action.

RM

Indeed.

Here are a couple more incidents from The Scots Guards in the Great War.

"An unfortunate accidental explosion of a bomb during instruction in the 2nd Battalion on the 4th March (1916)

wounded Major Baden-Powell, second in command, and five men, of whom one died of his wounds.

There were several similar accidents about this time, which were attributed to the dangerous shortening of the

bursting time of the Mills Grenade from five to three seconds."

"On 3rd September (1916 at Morlancourt) there occurred a sad accident and a very gallant action. 2nd-Lt G. de L. Leach,

the (1st) battalion bombing officer, was detonating bombs in the Orderly Room, when the fuse of one of them was accidentally

ignited. There were two other men in the room, and Leach, realising the danger to them, shouted a warning, and rushed

to the door carrying the bomb, and evidently intending to throw it in some bushes.

As he got out, he found several people standing about. Before he could throw the bomb where it would do no harm, it exploded.

Both his hands were blown off, and he was wounded in the legs and stomach. He was taken to the hospital at Corbie as

soon as possible, but died on the way. His self-sacrifice cost him his life, but saved the lives of several others.

His splendid conduct was suitably acknowledged in the finding of a Court of Enquiry held that evening.

In recognition of his splendid action, a posthumous award was made of the Albert Medal in gold."

[The Scorer]

"An unfortunate accidental explosion of a bomb during instruction in the 2nd Battalion on the 4th March (1916)

wounded Major Baden-Powell, second in command"

With that name, he should have "Be(en) Prepared" ..... sorry!

(He was, in fact, the elder brother of Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scouting movement)

[James A Pratt III]

In OTF 29-4 there is an account of US army nurse Marion Overend KIFA during a joyride that went wrong. She has the distinction of being the only US army nurse to be killed in a flying accident in France during WW I.

[Ghazala]

“I had gone down to my cabin thinking to write some letters,” Harold Owen, brother of the poet Wilfred, wrote of an experience while serving on HMS Astraea. “To my amazement I saw Wilfred sitting in my chair . . .

“He did not rise and I saw that he was involuntarily immobile, but his eyes which had never left mine were alive with the familiar look of trying to make me understand . . . I went into a deep oblivious sleep. When I woke up I knew with absolute certainty that Wilfred was dead.

[Kitchener's Bugle]

Surely this has to be one of the most Bizarre ....................