Birmingham heroes who died on last day of the Great War

SEVEN soldiers and seamen from Birmingham died on the last day of World War One.

They had survived until the last day of the hellish war – would not live to see another.

Harold Smith, James Rollings, Wilfred Townsend, and William Hadley were four of those who died on November 11, 1918, according to the records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC).

The other three are known only by their initials: C Bennett, a 20year-old private in the King’s (Liverpool Regiment); HF Coysh, 24, a very but Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve; and HE Dixon, a 31-year-old private in the South Staffordshire Regiment.

It was Armistice Day – the day a treaty signed in Paris brought to an end fighting on land, sea and air after four years, three months and one week of the First World War.

Yet, in a brutal demonstration of the sheer scale of the carnage during the Great War, a total of 910 Allied soldiers lost their lives that day before peace was declared at 11am.

But few died in battle. Many had already been shipped back home, only to succumb to their wounds.

Others had fallen to the deadly Spanish Flu that was sweeping the depleted continent.

Able Seaman Smith was, like HF Coysh, a member of the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. He was the husband of Gertrude Louisa Smith, of Esme Road in Sparkhill.

Records suggest he died in Tidworth Military Hospital in Andover after suffering from pneumonia.

He was 24 when he died, and is buried in Smethwick Old Churchyard.

James Rollings, a mechanic in the Royal Air Force, was the husband of Lily Rollings, who lived in Newcombe Road in Handsworth.

His parents were Joshua and Ellen Rollings.

Little has been written about how he died, although he is buried in Handsworth Cemetery.

Private Townsend, 29, had been serving in the South Staffordshire Regiment, like many Birminghamborn soldiers.

He lived with his wife Betsy in Solihull Road in Sparkhill. He is buried in Rouen in France. Corporal Hadley was a 26-year-old corporal with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. Before the war, he had lived in Musgrave Road in Winson Green.

The records also show Private Bennett had been born in Aston, and Able Seaman Coysh was born in Birmingham before his parents moved to Crouch End in London.

Private Dixon’s father, Thomas Dixon, lived in Montgomery Street in Sparkbrook.

In all, the First World War claimed the lives of nearly 16 million. The CWGC holds records of more than one million deaths among the Allied forces alone.