Grave given full military honours - after 90 years

Kyt · Nov 10, 2008

War hero buried in unmarked grave given full military honours - 90 YEARS after he died | Mail Online

The grave of a forgotten soldier fatally injured during one of World War I's bloodiest battles has been marked with full military honours - 90 years after he died.

Private Henry Vaughan was shot in the leg during the Battle of Loos in 1915, a disastrous British attack in North West France, which resulted in 50,000 casualties.

He died three years later in 1918 aged 29 after returning home to Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, and was buried in an unmarked grave in the town cemetery.

But local teacher Peter Bradshaw, 50, discovered that Mr Vaughan had died as a result of 'Trench Fever' - meaning he qualified for an official headstone.

He presented evidence gathered from newspaper archives, Mr Vaughan's death certificate and war records to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission who verified the claim.

Now his plot at Gainsborough General Cemetery, which was just a plain patch of grass, features a fitting memorial to the war hero which was unveiled at a ceremony on Friday.

Mr Bradshaw, assistant head teacher at Trent Valley Academy in Gainsborough, began his quest after visiting the French battle field in Hohenzollern Redoubt with his pupils in 2006.

A memorial was being unveiled to the 1,308 men who died attacking a heavily fortified German stronghold.

During a major offensive on October 13, 1915 over 50 Gainsborough men of the 5th Battalion of the Lincolnshire regiment were killed and Mr Vaughan injured.

While compiling a list of local dead, Peter found a newspaper cutting about Mr Vaughan's injuries and return home.

He said: 'It's been been a real honour to finally give this brave man the burial he truly deserved so many years after his death.

'Once we began to assemble all the pieces of the jigsaw it suddenly became clear Henry's death had been overlooked.

'When we found the newspaper cutting there was no mention of him in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

'Luckily we managed to trace his service record this showed he was involved in the Battle of Loos said he was bought back to England with nephritis, which was also called trench fever.

'When we compared this with his death certificate it also cited nephritis and if a soldier dies from the same wounds which forced them out of the army, they qualify for a War Graves Commission headstone.'

Vaughan joined the Territorial Army in September 1914 after moving with his family from Liverpool two years earlier to work at the local Marshalls engineering plant.

He was posted to the Western Front in August 1915 and injured during the main attack on October 13.

After he was posted back to England, two days later he continued to suffer from acute nephritis, which affected thousands of troops.

He was discharged in July 1916 but was still too ill to work and spent months in hospital.

Mr Vaughan never fully recovered and died in May 1918 at the John Copeland Hospital in Gainsborough, with his cause of death listed as coma and acute nephritis.

Mr Bradshaw said they had made extensive efforts to track down a photograph of him, and believe he could be in a group shot of local Territorial Army troops taken before they were posted.

However they have not been able to track down any surviving relatives to confirm his identity.

'It would be nice to think he has some surviving relatives out there,' he added. ''We know he had an older sister called Martha from the Liverpool area, his parents where John and Mary.'

The Battle of Loos formed a part of the wider Artois-Loos Offensive conducted by the French and British in autumn 1915, sometimes referred to as the Second Battle of Artois.

Trench fever affected the kidneys and caused breathlessness, swelling of the face or legs, headache, and sore throat. The illness led to 35,000 casualties in the British and 2,000 in the American forces and hundreds of deaths.

During the war, it accounted for five per cent of medical admissions and more than ten per cent of military hospital bed occupancy.
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Name: VAUGHAN, HENRY
Initials: H
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Private
Regiment/Service: Lincolnshire Regiment
Unit Text: 5th Bn.
Age: 29
Date of Death: 29/05/1918
Service No: 2570
Additional information: Son of Mr. and Mrs. James Vaughan of 18 Birrel Street, Gainsborough.
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: A.N.C. 1348.
Cemetery: GAINSBOROUGH GENERAL CEMETERY

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Grave given full military honours - after 90 years

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