Pte Frederick Alfred Bunker, 16769, 9th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, was killed in action in Mesopotamia on January 25th, 1917. He had recently spent his 25th birthday and Christmas in the trenches.

The second son of Walter and Louisa Kate Bunker, of 75 Albert Road, Luton, he had spent eight or nine years working for Vauxhall Motors Ltd. About 12 months after war broke out he left Luton to do war work at Coventry, and after being there about seven months he was 'combed out' on February 1916 and placed in the Royal Warwickshire Regiment.

He was on home leave in May 1917, and the next month finished his training on the Isle of Wight. He then set sail for Bombay and remained with his regiment in India until towards the end of 1916.

On December 21st he wrote home to say that after a fortnight's travelling he had got to the firing line and was in the trenches somewhere in Mesopotamia.

In a letter to his brother who was working at Vauxhall he wrote:"I hope you have had a happy Christmas, which I have not as there isn't anything to see, only sand and Tommies walking about the trenches, and guns going off all the time, and we have had some very bad weather lately."