Pte Gerald Edward Hills, 30799, 7th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was reported missing in action in Belgium on July 20th, 1917. It was not until the following October that his widow, Edith, at Breachwood Green was officially notified that he was killed on that date, but there was no further information about how he met his death.

L-Cpl Archibald George Dexter, 233498, 1/2nd Battalion London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), was killed in action in Belgium on August 16th, 1917. A chum on leave, Pte Smith, of New Town Street, Luton, said he had seen L-Cpl Dexter's party fall and had helped to bring them in and bury them. L-Cpl Dexter was killed instantly when a shell burst among the group of five men - all but one from Luton - whom he was in charge of.

Pte Harry (Henry) Sharp, 228138, 1st City of London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), died of wounds sustained in Flanders on September 5th, 1917. He was attached to the 13th Battalion Royal Fusiliers.

Tragically for parents Harry and Edith May Sharp, of 5 Windmill Street [later Welbeck Road], Luton, Pte Sharp's death occurred on the day news reached them that their other son Horace had been killed in a German bombing raid over Chatham Dockyard on September 3rd.

Stoker First Class Horace Stanley Sharp, K17954, Royal Navy, was killed instantly by a bomb dropped on Chatham Dockyard by a German aircraft carrying out a raid on Kent on the bright moonlit night of September 3rd, 1917. Six enemy aircraft had flown up the Thames Estuary to attack Sheerness, Thanet and Chatham, killing 107 Naval ratings and wounding 86 others.

George Titmus was born on 2nd July 1890.

Pte Ernest George Chamberlain, 14553, 6th Battalion Royal West Kent Regiment, was reported missing on October 7th, 1916. But it was not until more than 10 months later that his widow Edith in Luton was informed that he was presumed killed in action on that date.

Pte Alfred Large, G/14842, 12th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment, was killed in action in Flanders on July 31st, 1917.

A son of Mrs Susan Large and the late Frederick Large, he had enlisted in the Bedfordshire Regiment in October 1914 and was transferred to the Royal Sussex Regiment after his training at Newmarket and being drafted to France in August 1916. He was wounded the following November and sent back to England to be treated at the Ontario Military Hospital in Orpington, Kent. He had returned to France in May 1917.

Pte Charles Joseph Morris, 68395, 17th Company Machine Gun Corps (Infantry), died in the 1st Canadian General Hospital in France on August 28th, 1917, from wounds sustained on August 19th. He was admitted to the hospital the following day.

Pte Ernest Currant, 260151, 1/8th Battalion Worcestershire Regiment, was killed in action in Flanders by a sniper on August 27th, 1917. He had seen only ten weeks service at the Front.

Sgt R. G. Wager wrote to Mrs Mabel Annie Currant at 18 Dunstable Place, Luton: "The battalion took part in a big attack on the enemy's position, and whilst your husband was going forward with his platoon he was sniped in the head by one of the enemy. Death was instantaneous."

Pte Owen Brownlow Dale, 764687, London Regiment (Artists' Rifles), was killed in action by a fragment of shell in France on August 24th, 1917. His father, Pte Owen Clifford Dale, 2494, London Regiment, had also been killed in action, on the Somme in 1916.

Owen Brownlow Dale's mother Annie lived at Brooklands, New Bedford Road, Luton, although the family was originally from Woolwich in London, where the 19-year-old soldier was born.

Pte Alfred Scales, 89760, 44th Field Ambulance Royal Army Medical Corps, died on August 23rd, 1917, of wounds received in action in Flanders. He was aged 36 and left a widow and six children, the youngest (Cissie) born just five days before his death.

Alfred had joined the R.A.M.C. at the Grove Road depot in Luton in September 1914. He was drafted to France in February 1917. He had been taken to the 3rd Canadian Casualty Clearing Station, where he died from wounds to the legs and an arm.

Pte George Buggs, 22845, 8th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was captured by the Germans while fighting in the front line at Hulluch in France on June 22nd, 1917, one of nine men taken prisoner in a surprise incursion by the enemy under cover of smoke and darkness.

He was interned at Dulmen in Westphalia but happily survived the war and was repatriated to return to his home at 52 North Street, Luton. He was registered as an absent voter in 1918 but was shown as at home when the electoral roll was compiled in May 1919.

Gunner Frederick Charles Smith, 81322, 65th Howitzer Battery Royal Field Artillery, died on August 10th, 1917, from wounds sustained earlier in the day in action near Armentieres.

In a letter to widowed mother Eleanor Florence Smith at 15 Cowper Street, Luton, Major C. F. Forestier Walker said he had dressed her son's wounds in the afternoon, but Frederick passed away in the late evening after he had been taken to hospital in a motor-car. Before leaving for hospital her son was almost cheerful and expecting to get well again.

Luton-born Sgt Percy Wells, 4484, 7th Regiment, South African Infantry, died from blackwater fever on August 19th, 1917, while serving in East Africa.

He was a son of Harty James and Elizabeth (Lissie) Wells, of 4 Crawley Road, Luton. He enlisted in the Royal Horse Artillery in 1909 and the following year went to South Africa. He was on his way back to England when war was declared and was sent back to Africa, where he was transferred to the South African Infantry and rose through the ranks.

Second Lieut Herbert James Day had served as an observer with the Royal Flying Corps for only about six weeks when he was wounded in aerial combat on Tuesday, August 7th, 1917. He died of his wounds the following day in a casualty clearing station in France.