Tutbury Book of Remembrance – Old Welcome Page
March 21st 2018 marked the centenary of the start of the German Spring Offensive.
March 21st 1918 was the 2nd worst day for casualties in the British Army in WWI, only the 1st day of the Battle of the Somme was worse.
It started with a 5 hour German barrage of 3,500,000 shells, it ended in July with over 600,000 casualties on both sides.
The Pozieres Memorial lists the names of 14,708 men with no known grave.
It marked the end of the trench warfare of 1915-17 and a return to the mobile war of 1914 and led to the allies 100 day advance that finished the war.
Read about the German Spring Offensive here.
Two men known in Tutbury were killed in the first part of this campaign, Harry Allsop and Alick Owen. Details of the days leading up to their deaths are given in the transcribed War Diaries.
Read about Harry Allsop and the Northumberland Fusiliers and Alick Owen and the Durham Light Infantry
Welcome to the website of the Tutbury Book of Remembrance, dedicated to the people of the Tutbury area who served and those who died during the two World Wars; the origins of the Book can be found on the About page.
Three Volumes of this book, by three different authors, have been published so far, another one about those who served in WWI is in preparation (your help is needed) and three more are planned – see “The Books” for more details.
The 1st edition, of what turned out to be Volume I – Remembering the Fallen of WWI, was published in hardcopy and on this website (free) in time for Remembrance Day 2012; the printed version was also given free to relatives of the Fallen who had helped with our research and to churches, museums and schools in the area. Nearly 90 copies have been distributed.
The 1st edition of the book covered 50 Fallen from WWI, these being the 47 from the War Memorial plus W. Harry Walker from the tablet in St. Mary’s plus Alick Owen and Owen Bunting from a private Memorial in the churchyard.
It became apparent, as we were doing the research, that the number of WWI Fallen who should be included, i.e. those who died who had connections to Tutbury, was greater than those listed on the War Memorial, our starting point for the project.
Further WWI research commenced in early 2014 (2013 was taken up with the War Memorial Preservation project) to develop the 2nd Edition of the book. This added a further 40 names – these were men, probably born in Tutbury, known in the village but who moved away prior to the war and subsequently died in the war. The 2nd Edition was published in 4th quarter 2014 – a few copies are available at printing cost (£12.50) plus P&P.
Two more books came to light during this process and they have been included under the banner of “The Tutbury Book of Remembrance” – the first is about the WWII Tutbury hero Sgt C.W. Bull and the second is about the Fallen from Nestlé.
If you have any information about the men in the book, or information about the War Memorial at St. Mary’s, or indeed any information you think might be useful to us then please contact us – details can be found on the Contacts page.
Rick & Jane Nuth
Went the day well?
We died and never knew.
But, well or ill,
Freedom, we died for you.
Went the day well?
When you go home,
Tell them of us and say,
“For your tomorrow,
We gave our today”.
The verse is attributed to John Maxwell Edmonds (1875–1958), and is thought to have been inspired by the epitaph written by Simonides to honour the Greeks who fell at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. The Epitaph is carved on the memorial of the 2nd British Division in the Garrison Hill cemetery, Kohima
Copyright:
All rights reserved.
No part of this website may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the authors in writing.
This book is copyright ©2014 by Jane and Rick Nuth
Disclaimer: Reasonable care has been taken to ensure that the contents of this book do not knowingly infringe any other copyright. If it is believed that information in this book is infringing copyright please contact the authors.