Who is buried next to Harry Bardsley?

[Chris_Baker]

According to CWGC, HARRY BARDSLEY Gunner 710229 "A" Bty. 211th Bde., Royal Field Artillery who died on Tuesday 11 September 1917 . Age 21 . is buried in grave 1.D.19 in Ypres Reservoir Cemetery.

According to his family, they have a contemporary article that suggests that he was killed together with a pal, an Australian chap. It says they are buried together.

Question 1: Could any Pal help me out by identifying who this man might be?

During September, 4 ORs of A Battery were killed, including Harry. I've checked on my Soldiers Died CD, and it lists 1,183 men of the RFA who died in the month, so it's rather too many to go one by one through CWGC to see if I can spot who the others might be.

Question 2: Any Pal have any bright ideas about how to identify the other casualties?

[Terry Denham]

Just ask..

Buried either side are

I.D.18 Gnr R.McEvoy 710116 RFA Died 11.09.17

I.D.20 Sjt Charles William Wilcox 801208 RFA DoW 10.09.17

Neither has Australian connections mentioned

[Sgt York]

Chris,

My mother's first husband was killed in Italy along with another sapper in the same booby trapped explosion. She knew they'd been buried next to each other in the Sangro River cemetery from a letter sent by his CO, but didn't know the other sapper's name. I e-mailed the CWGC with the details and received a reply from them with sapper's details, buried next to her husband.

Without someone physically checking to see who is buried on either side of Gnr Bardsley or indeed the same row. It may be worth contacting the CWGC with the details as there may be a chance your Australian chap is buried near.

I've checked the SDGW CD-rom and there are no Australian born casualties for the RFA. There is one Austrailian listed for the RGA.

Regards,

Ronnie.

[Chris_Baker]

Thank you for your blazingly quick responses. Both very useful indeed.

[Terry Denham]

Chris

I would volunteer to look through all the n-o-k info for you to see if there are any Aussie-connected RFA men buried in this cemetery but there are so many without any n-o-k details at all that it would not really give you a conclusive answer.

All you know is that your man does not seem to be buried beside Bardsley.

[zijde26]

To Chris,

The following website http://www.awm.gov.au/ can help to solve your second question.

Gilbert Deraedt

[Neil Mackenzie]

Chris.

Did Ypres Reservoir not include some graves consolidated from other cemeteries. If this included Harry and his pal, might the 2 of them have been buried next to each other originally but not now? Or does the article specifically refer to Ypres Reservoir?

Neil

[Myrtle]

This sounds similar to my experiences about a year ago. I had come across a contemporary article about a soldier who had been kia with two others when on a machine gun in October 1918. The three men were said to be buried together in Harelbeke New British Cemetery but on checking the register I found that it didn't seem to be the case. I presumed at the time that it was either a mistake in the article or that the soldiers had been moved from their original graves after the war.

Regards

Myrtle

[Clive Maier]

English is a very flexible language but the price we pay for that is ambiguity. ‘Together’ can mean ‘with’ or ‘at the same time’ or ‘without interruption’ or ‘united’, for example. It does not unambiguously imply ‘side-by-side’. ‘Buried together’ could mean ‘in the same grave’ or ‘at the same place and time’. I think the latter is more likely, particularly as the original reference came from an article. Journalists are used to condensing things and would be quite likely to render the concept of same place and time as ‘together’.

So if these are original burials, I think nearby is more likely than side-by-side. If they are consolidations as Neil Mackenzie suggests, then even nearby becomes doubtful. According to CWGC:

“Three cemeteries were made near the western gate [of Ypres]: two between the prison and the reservoir, both now removed into the third, and the third on the north side of the prison. The third was called at first the "Cemetery North of the Prison," later "Ypres Reservoir North Cemetery, and now Ypres Reservoir Cemetery. This cemetery was begun in October 1915 and used by fighting units and field ambulances until after the Armistice, when it contained 1,099 graves. The cemetery was later enlarged when graves were brought in from smaller cemeteries or from the battlefields of the salient. In Plot V, Row AA, are the graves of 16 officers and men of the 6th Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry, who were billeted in the vaults of the cathedral and killed on 12 August 1915 by shelling from the "Ypres Express" firing from Houthulst Forest. The survivors were rescued by the 11th King's Liverpools, but these bodies were not recovered until after the Armistice. There are now 2,613 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in the cemetery. 1,034 of the burials are unidentified. The cemetery was designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield.”

For what it’s worth, it seems more likely that the article would have been written shortly after the men’s deaths rather than later at the time of consolidations.

[Chris_Baker]

On checking some other references, we believe the pal referred to was Robert McEvoy. The Australian connection may be a confusion along the way, perhaps arising from the service of this Brigade on Gallipoli and Egypt.

Thanks everyone for your help, as ever.