Name
Reginald Ralph Coleman
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
15/04/1917
29
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Lance Corporal
30488
Leicestershire Regiment
2nd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
CHATBY MEMORIAL
Egypt
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Hitchin Town Memorial, St Mary's Church Roll of Honour, Hitchin
Pre War
He had been born in Bedford and was the eldest son of Mr and Mrs Coleman of Bearton Road, Hitchin.
Several years before the war had started a grocery and provision business in Bearton Road, Hitchin. He then gave this up and went into a grocery business in Leicester. He left a widow and one child living in Leicester.
Wartime Service
When he joined the army, he was given the Regimental Number 30488 having enlisted in Leicester. He was in the 2nd Battalion of the Leicestershires and was drowned whilst on a troop transport which was torpedoed just past the Straits of Messina. This was the ‘Cameronia’ which was taking 2,620 officers and men from Marseilles to Egypt and due to go on to Mesopotamia. A survivor said that Reg was probably in the Guard Room where the Leicesters were on duty at the time.
He has no known grave, but the sea and is remembered on the Chatby Memorial to the Missing, Alexandria, in Egypt.
Acknowledgments
David C Baines, Jonty Wild
