bassp

BASS, PERCY

This page is to Commemorate Percy Bass, who I am researching. He is not a Dover man.

BASS,PERCY. R/4191. Rifleman. King's Royal Rifle Corps. 10th Bn. Killed in action: Flanders. 20/03/1916. Age 24. Son of William Thomas Bass of, 6, Nursery Road, Brixton, London. Born: Clapham, Surrey. Enlisted: 11th Sept 1914. at Cockspur St, Middx. Residence: Brixton, Surrey. Cemetery: Essex Farm Cemetery. Ref: II. E. 15. Percy was a Waiter by Trade. Height 5ft 3in. Weight: 116lbs.

Percy`s 1914-15 Star.

War Diary.

WO95/2115.

20th March 1916.

Usual trench routine, weather good. During afternoon B.15 was shelled with Whiz-bangs two of which killed 4 men and wounded 13 and also wounded Capt. F. England in the arm. About 9 p.m 2/Lt. Hyde with four men and a Lewis gun was sent out to enfilade Germans working on their saps, by ADMIRALS ROAD but en route he encountered a hostile patrol of about 35. After waiting till they approached from 60 to less than 20 yards he opened and continued firing till all his ammunition, gun, rifle, and revolver was exhausted. The party and the gun were got in with difficulty. Two men were killed and one wounded. 2nd Lt. Hyde behaved very gallantly throughout and has since been recommended for a Military Cross. ( Was Percy killed by shell fire or was he in 2/Lt. Hyde`s party).

ESSEX FARM CEMETERY
Country: Belgium

Locality: Ieper, West-Vlaanderen

Boezinge

Historical Information: The land south of Essex Farm was used as a dressing station cemetery from April 1915 to August 1917. The burials were made without definite plan and some of the divisions which occupied this sector may be traced in almost every part of the cemetery, but the 49th (West Riding) Division buried their dead of 1915 in Plot I, and the 38th (Welsh) Division used Plot III in the autumn of 1916. There are 1,199 servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 102 of the burials are unidentified but special memorials commemorate 19 casualties known or believed to be buried among them.

It was in Essex Farm Cemetery that Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae of the Canadian Army Medical Corps wrote the poem ' In Flanders Fields' in May 1915. The 49th Division Memorial is immediately behind the cemetery, on the canal bank.

No. of Identified Casualties: 1100