Name
Percival James Upchurch
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
01/06/1918
26
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Gunner
68326
Royal Horse Artillery
'B' Battery, 15th Brigade
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
CINQ RUES BRITISH CEMETERY, HAZEBROUCK
F. 12.
France
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin War Memorial
St Saviour's Church War Memorial, Radcliffe Rd., Hitchin
St Mary's Church Roll of Honour, Hitchin
Pre War
Son of James and Eliza Elizabeth Upchurch, of 43, Radcliff Road, Hitchin, Herts. He was the eldest son of James and Elizabeth Upchurch of 43, Radcliffe Road, Hitchin. His mother had been a cripple for twenty years, Before joining the army he was a moulder for Innes Son & King, engineers in Hitchin and was a keen footballer with the Blue Cross Football Club. He was a resident of Hitchin and enlisted there.
Wartime Service
and was given the Regimental Number 68326 and posted to ‘B’ Battery, 15th Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery equipped with 18 pounder guns. He fought in Gallipoli, Egypt and then in France and at the time of his death in action had been in France for over two years. The Battery had been in action and had just finished firing, when a piece of shrapnel from a bursting shell struck him between the shoulder blades penetrating his body. He died before his comrades could even finish bandaging him. At the time of his death the Battery was located in the area of the Nieppe Forest just south of Hazebrouck and was probably part of IX Corps in the 2nd Army. Violent exchanges of shelling took place across this period He was buried in Row F, Grave 12 in the Cinq Rues British Cemetery in France.
Additional Information
His headstone bears the private inscription "Thou hast set my feet in a large room. Psalm 31 second part". His brother Harold was severely wounded in 1918 and Harold's wife had been accidentally killed at Three Counties Railway Station in Arlesey in 1917.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines, Jonty Wild
