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WORLD WAR ONE

The Men Who Died

WORLD WAR ONE

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the Hop Store Cemetery which is described as being a little narrow cemetery at Ypres, between a hedge and the hop store. This was very close to the battlefield and used as an advanced dressing station and

reported to be in range of the enemy guns.

The 2nd Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry served with the 6th Division at this time and would have fought in the Battle of Loos. On December 19th, 1915 holding the lines of the Ypres salient they faced the first German phosgene gas attack and many men were lost to the effects of the gas as well as shellfire.

Edgar's three brothers Charles, Frederick and William all served in the army during the war.

And we know that all things work together for good

Private Frederick John Pearce

Oxford and Buckingham Light Infantry 7th Battalion service

no. 15059

Killed in Action May 9th 1917 Aged 24

Commemorated at Doiran Memorial, Greece

Frederick was born in September 1897 in Brecon, to Frederick and Alice Pearce and was baptised in St John's Church on October 17th. In 1901, when he was three, the family were living at 54, The Struet and he had two older sisters and a younger brother. His father, listed as a labourer at the baptism was now shown as a mason and was still in this occupation in 1911 by which time the family had moved to 71, The Struet. The family had now increased with the addition of another daughter and three sons.

Frederick enlisted in Swansea and joined the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry. He went to France in September 1915. He was reported missing after fighting in Salonica in May 1917 but his parents had to wait a further seventeen months for the news that he was presumed killed during the action on May 9th.

Whilst Frederick is listed in army records as being 24 at the time of his death, his actual age would have been about 19 and a half, indicating he probably falsified his age at enlistment.

The 7th Battalion was formed in Oxford in 1914 and landed at Boulogne in September 1915, but moved to Salonika in November of that year. They fought as part of the 78th Brigade within the 26th