Pte Gerald Edward Hills, 30799, 7th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was reported missing in action in Belgium on July 20th, 1917. It was not until the following October that his widow, Edith, at Breachwood Green was officially notified that he was killed on that date, but there was no further information about how he met his death.

Pte Harry (Henry) Sharp, 228138, 1st City of London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers), died of wounds sustained in Flanders on September 5th, 1917. He was attached to the 13th Battalion Royal Fusiliers.

Tragically for parents Harry and Edith May Sharp, of 5 Windmill Street [later Welbeck Road], Luton, Pte Sharp's death occurred on the day news reached them that their other son Horace had been killed in a German bombing raid over Chatham Dockyard on September 3rd.

Stoker First Class Horace Stanley Sharp, K17954, Royal Navy, was killed instantly by a bomb dropped on Chatham Dockyard by a German aircraft carrying out a raid on Kent on the bright moonlit night of September 3rd, 1917. Six enemy aircraft had flown up the Thames Estuary to attack Sheerness, Thanet and Chatham, killing 107 Naval ratings and wounding 86 others.

Pte Ernest George Chamberlain, 14553, 6th Battalion Royal West Kent Regiment, was reported missing on October 7th, 1916. But it was not until more than 10 months later that his widow Edith in Luton was informed that he was presumed killed in action on that date.

Pte Alfred Large, G/14842, 12th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment, was killed in action in Flanders on July 31st, 1917.

A son of Mrs Susan Large and the late Frederick Large, he had enlisted in the Bedfordshire Regiment in October 1914 and was transferred to the Royal Sussex Regiment after his training at Newmarket and being drafted to France in August 1916. He was wounded the following November and sent back to England to be treated at the Ontario Military Hospital in Orpington, Kent. He had returned to France in May 1917.

It was nearly 12 months before the family of Pte Ernest Arthur Godfrey, 60808, 24th Battalion Royal Fusiliers, learned that he had probably been killed in action in France on April 29th, 1917. In August 1917 an appeal was published for any information about him after he had been reported missing on April 29th.

Pte Godfrey, a son of Arthur Frederick and Kitty Godfrey, of 21 Stockwood Crescent, Luton, had married Daisy Emily Going in Luton in the early summer of 1906. The couple has a son, Leslie Gilbert, born later in 1906, and a daughter Daphne Phyllis, born two years later.

Pte Alfred Scales, 89760, 44th Field Ambulance Royal Army Medical Corps, died on August 23rd, 1917, of wounds received in action in Flanders. He was aged 36 and left a widow and six children, the youngest (Cissie) born just five days before his death.

Alfred had joined the R.A.M.C. at the Grove Road depot in Luton in September 1914. He was drafted to France in February 1917. He had been taken to the 3rd Canadian Casualty Clearing Station, where he died from wounds to the legs and an arm.

Pte George Buggs, 22845, 8th Battalion Bedfordshire Regiment, was captured by the Germans while fighting in the front line at Hulluch in France on June 22nd, 1917, one of nine men taken prisoner in a surprise incursion by the enemy under cover of smoke and darkness.

He was interned at Dulmen in Westphalia but happily survived the war and was repatriated to return to his home at 52 North Street, Luton. He was registered as an absent voter in 1918 but was shown as at home when the electoral roll was compiled in May 1919.

Gunner Frederick Charles Smith, 81322, 65th Howitzer Battery Royal Field Artillery, died on August 10th, 1917, from wounds sustained earlier in the day in action near Armentieres.

In a letter to widowed mother Eleanor Florence Smith at 15 Cowper Street, Luton, Major C. F. Forestier Walker said he had dressed her son's wounds in the afternoon, but Frederick passed away in the late evening after he had been taken to hospital in a motor-car. Before leaving for hospital her son was almost cheerful and expecting to get well again.

Second Lieut Herbert James Day had served as an observer with the Royal Flying Corps for only about six weeks when he was wounded in aerial combat on Tuesday, August 7th, 1917. He died of his wounds the following day in a casualty clearing station in France.

It was not until August 1917 that the family of Pte Stanley Thomas Warner, G/15027, 11th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment, were officially notified that he was presumed to have died on the battlefield on October 21st, 1916.

The 28-year-old had lived with grandparents William and Emma Warner, of 40 Alma Street, Luton for some years before joining the Leicestershire Regiment (5940) in 1915. He was later transferred to the Royal Sussex Regiment while in France before being reported wounded and missing on October 21st, 1916.

In August 1917, nearly eleven months after he was first reported wounded and missing, Guardsman Cyril Bernard Bryan, 18447, 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards, was acknowledged as presumed to have died on the battlefield on September 25th 1916.

Cyril Bryan was born in London in 1892 and came to Luton about three years before the outbreak of war to work for outfitter Mr Mares, of George Street. He had been the first member of the firm to join the Army after hostilities broke out, and had been wounded three times before going missing.

Pte Albert King, 87202, 149th Company Machine Gun Corps (Infantry), was killed in action in France on August 3rd, 1917. A letter to widow Louisa Jane said: "Your husband was killed instantaneously by a shell in the early morning, about 2am.

"He with the rest of the team was in a dug-out well behind the front line when their dug-out was hit by a shell. You husband was buried the same day by a padre in a British cemetery, and a cross has been placed over his grave."

Gunner Arthur William Loney, 163241, 32nd Divisional Ammunition Column, Royal Field Artillery, died accidentally in France from a gunshot wound on August 11th*, 1917. He was aged 25 and left a widow and a year-old child.

A chaplain wrote to Mrs Edith May Loney at 169 Wellington Street, Luton, to say he had laid her husband to rest. Gunner Loney was accidentally killed on Sunday night (August 12th*). No further details of the incident were included.

Pte Harry Isaac Hurry, 238022, 12th Battalion Middlesex Regiment, was killed in action on August 7th, 1917, although an officer at the Front gave the date as August 8th.

Along with his brother Archie Oliver Hurry, Harry enlisted March 1917. The brothers not only had consecutive service numbers (Archie was 238021) in the Middlesex Regiment, they also married on the same day - May 21st, 1917, at Christ Church - at the end of nine weeks training and before they were drafted out to France.