Pte Horace George Bird, 27369, 1st King's Shropshire Light Infantry, was killed outright by a gas shell which hit his shelter as he slept at 1am on April 20th, 1918.

In expressing his condolensces, Horace's captain wrote to parents George William and Emily Jane Bird at 20 Gloucester Road, Luton: “He was at the time of his death in a shelter with five other members of his Lewis gun team, and was safe from anything but a direct hit. He died instantly, and was hit while sleeping. The other men in the shelter were all evacuated with gas poisoning and one of them has, I regret to say, since died.

“On the same morning a man of another company was killed under like circumstances, and your boy and he were buried in a British soldiers' cemetery at Belgian Battery Corner, near Ypres, and suitably inscribed crosses mark their graves.”

Born in Luton in 1886, Horace Bird had worked as a general labourer at the J. W. Green brewery in Luton. He had joined up 18 months previously.