21st August 1914
St. Symphorien Military Cemetery, Belgium. The cemetery contains 513 burials. 284 German and 229 Commonwealth burials.
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| Maurice Dease |
Buried here, Maurice Dease, the first soldier to have been
awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously during the First World War.
Irish born Dease, served as a Lieutenant with 4th Battalion,
Royal Fusiliers. Dease along with Sidney Godfrey, were defending Nimy Bridge,
Mons, with a single machine gun. Dease
was despite his wounds carried with his duties.
After he was killed, Private Godfrey, carried on whilst the reminder of the
battalion retreated.
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| Sidney Godfrey |
Godfrey who was also awarded a Victoria Cross, was taken
prisoner.
Also killed on the 23rd August, was Oskar
Niemeyer, German solider. Niemeyer served as Musketier with 84th
Infantry Regiment. During the 23rd,
the 84th Infantry Regiment, came up against resistance and closed
the swing-bridge on the Mons-Conde canal.
Whilst extending their position into the east side of the canal,
Niemeyer, swam across the canal, where he requisitioned a small boat. He paddled back across the canal with team,
who took position in a house and took fire on the British forces. Miemeyer, managed to open the bridge, to
allow the Germans to cross in greater numbers.
Niemeyer was killed shortly afterwards.
For this action, Niemeyer was awarded the first Iron Cross posthumously.
However, two days
prior to the actions at Nimy Bridge and nearby canal, the first British soldier,
John Parr, is to have believed to have be the first soldier killed in action, on
the 21st.
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| John Parr |
John Parr, who was the youngest of 11 children was born
1897, Finchley. After leaving school, he
worked as a butcher’s boy and then a caddie at North Middlesex Golf Club. Like so many young men at the time, they were
attracted to a better life provided by the British Army.
Aged 14, Parr, 4th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment
during 1912. He claimed that he was 18,
to meet the requirements of enlistment.
At the outbreak of the First World War, the 4th
Battalion, Middlesex Regiment were one of the first to be mobilized, and to
cross the English Channel. Parr was an
infantry scout. The 4th
Battalion took up positions near the village of Bettignies, a town 8 miles away
from Mons.
During the 21st, Parr and another cyclist were
given orders to locate where the Germans were in the village of Obourg. It was whilst here that they encountered an
Uhlan patrol. Parr remained whilst the
other cyclist returned to report. Its during
this period that Parr, was killed.
Parr was buried at St. Symphorien Military Cemetery. Buried feet away from him is George Lawrence
Price.
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| George Lawrence Price |
Price was born 1892, Falmouth, Nova Scotia. 1917, Price was conscripted, and he served
with the 28th Battalion (Northwest), Canadian Expeditionary Force.
On the morning of 11th November 1918, the 28th
Battalion, had orders to advance from Frameries and continue to the village of
Havre, securing all the bridges on the Canal du Centre. At 4 am the advance had
started. By 9 am having pushed the German
resistance, the 28th Battalion, were facing Ville-sur-Haine. The battalion received the word that hostilities
would cease at 11 am that morning. Price and another comrade were worried about
the Battalion exposed to the Germans. Price
and a further 4 soldiers took the initiative to patrol across the bridge to
search houses. Whilst searching the houses the Germans, had open fired on the
Canadian patrol with a heavy machine gun.
The Canadians had been protected by walls, and the Germans had been
discovered they began to retreat.
A Belgian family warned the Canadians to be careful. Price was shot by one of the retreating
German snipers. He was shot in the left
breast, having been pulled into one of the hoses and treated by a nurse who ran
across the road to assist, but he died at 10.58. The last soldier of the British Empire to
have been killed during the First World War.
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