Name
Graham Sydney Gilbertson
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
28/11/1917
19
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Second Lieutenant
Bedfordshire Regiment
4th Bn., attached to 7th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
TYNE COT MEMORIAL
Panel 48 to 50 and 162A.
Belgium
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin War Memorial,
Stained Glass Window, Hitchin Boys Grammar School,
Holy Saviour Church War Memorial, Radcliffe Rd., Hitchin,
St Mary's Church Roll of Honour, Hitchin
Pre War
He was the second son of Dr James H. and Beatrice M. Gilbertson born on the 19th July 1898. His father was a medical practitioner of 103, Walsworth Road, Hitchin.
In his early years attended the Hitchin Grammar School Kindergarten. Whilst at the school, which was from 1908-1911, he showed himself as a boy of great spirit, well adapted to a life of action and possessing the physique to support it. When he left, he went to H.M.S. ‘Worcester’ which was probably a training ship. In July 1915 he passed an examination for the Royal Naval Reserve, but was found to be colour blind and was rejected.
Wartime Service
He then began his army service as a private with the Regimental Number 6417 in 1 Company, ‘D’ Squadron of the Inns of Court O.T.C. on the 27th September 1915 and went to No. 14 Officer Cadet Battalion on the 27th December 1916.
He was commissioned on the 25th April 1917 into the 4th Battalion and attached to the 7th Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment. He went to France on the 6th August 1917.
The 7th Battalion was in the 54th Brigade, 18th Division of XIX Corps and his death came at the end of the Second Battle of Passchendaele. At first, he was reported "wounded and missing" in France, but it was later confirmed that he had been killed in action on the 28th November 1917. He had been killed by a machine-gun bullet.
The War Diary states that on the 28th November 1917 the 7th Bedfords were in the front line, in the area of Poelcappelle, having moved up from the Canal bank north of Ypres. No incidents were noted He is remembered on Panel 48 of the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing in Belgium.
Acknowledgments
Adrian Dunne, David C Baines, Jonty Wild
