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.

Frederick, aged 21, was buried on Sunday afternoon, August 12th, in the British corner of the village cemetery at La Gorgue, south-west of Armentieres. An officer and four other men took his body to the cemetery on an ammunition wagon drawn by six black horses from the battery. The coffin was covered with a Union flag and was followed by about 12 officers and over 80 men - all who could be spared from the guns. His grave was marked by a big white cross.

Gunner Smith enlisted in the R.F.A. at Leicester in July 1915 and was sent to Newcastle-on-Tyne for three months training, after which he was drafted out to France in October 1915. He was home on tens days leave in January 1916 and had been at the Front again since then.

Frederick was living at 15 Cowper Street with his mother, two brothers and two sisters at the time of the 1911 Census. He was then a telegraph messenger with the Midland Railway, bu whome his father William Henry was employed prior to his death in 1905 at the age of 42.

Prior to enlisting, Frederick was a telephonist at Market Harborough, Leics. He had been a pupil at the Farley Road Schools, Luton.