24/03/2024
On Wednesday 20 March 2024 CSgt Wells (SPSI Ypres Company 1 London Guards) attend a Rededication service at Buttes New British Cemetery in Belgium.
This cemetery was created after the Armistice for the fallen of the Battlefields of Zonnebeke. More than 3/4 of the casualties here remain unidentified.
Pte Culling and Pte Green were two of those casualties who have only recently been identified.
They both belonged to the 1/24th The London Regiment (The Queens). They died alongside each other on 26 August 1917.
The 1/24 London Regiment & Privates Culling and Green
The War Diary of 1/24 London Regiment shows that they entered the frontline trenches near Westhoek on the night of 24/25 August, relieving the 1/20 London Regiment. The diary records several episodes of shelling throughout 25 August, including a 90 minute artillery bombardment beginning at 2300 in which three soldiers were killed and fourteen wounded. Following this, the remainder of 26 August passed without further casualties.
The three men who died in the bombardment overnight from the 25-26 August were Privates Albert Wilfred Saunders Culling, Charles William Green and Albert Henry Hale. The service records for all three survive, and each contains the official Army Form which reported their deaths, and a record of the personal items returned to their next of kin – something which indicates that they received a burial at the time of their deaths.
In March 1920 the remains of three soldiers were recovered from an unmarked site described as a shared grave. All three wore shoulder titles identifying them as members of the 24th London Regiment, and one had an identity disc which allowed him to be identified as Private Albert Henry Hale. At the time, the other two men were not identified, and when all three were reburied at Buttes New British Cemetery, the two unidentified men were buried with the inscription
‘A Soldier of the Great War - – 24th Bn London Regiment – Known Unto God’
