21st August 1914

St. Symphorien Military Cemetery, Belgium.  The cemetery contains 513 burials.  284 German and 229 Commonwealth burials.

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 4^th 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sidney Godfrey

Godfrey who was also awarded a Victoria Cross, was taken prisoner.

Also killed on the 23^rd August, was Oskar Niemeyer, German solider. Niemeyer served as Musketier with 84^th Infantry Regiment.  During the 23^rd, the 84^th 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 21^st.

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, 4^th 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 4^th Battalion, Middlesex Regiment were one of the first to be mobilized, and to cross the English Channel.  Parr was an infantry scout.  The 4^th Battalion took up positions near the village of Bettignies, a town 8 miles away from Mons. 

During the 21^st, 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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

George Lawrence Price

Price was born 1892, Falmouth, Nova Scotia.  1917, Price was conscripted, and he served with the 28^th Battalion (Northwest), Canadian Expeditionary Force.

On the morning of 11^th November 1918, the 28^th 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 28^th 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.