31/08/2026
Harry Butters was an American, born in San Francisco and educated for a time at Beaumont College in Old Windsor, inherited considerable family interests and could easily have remained in a comfortable life in California. Instead, at 22, he crossed the Atlantic to join the British Army. He served through the Battle of Loos and, in May 1916, helped rescue men from a collapsed dugout before suffering shell shock himself. A doctor advised him to resign his commission and rest; Winston Churchill reportedly encouraged him to extend his leave. Harry nevertheless returned to France.
On 20 August, anticipating what might happen, he asked that if he were killed, the cross above his grave should record “the bare fact that I was an American”. Two days later, when ordered back to a battery to replace another casualty, he wrote that it was “surely what I’m here for after all”. He was killed instantly by a direct shell hit at his gun position on the night of 31 August 1916, aged 24. He was buried beneath the Union Jack because an American flag could not be found, although those present had hoped to honour him with both nations’ flags. His wish survives in the inscription on his CWGC headstone at Méaulte: “An American Citizen.”
