The Westmorland Gazette of May 6, 1916, reports the death in France of three local men serving with the 8th Battalion of the Border Regiment.

On April 24, James Garth, a 21-years-old man who lived at Field Cottage, Haverflatts Lane, Milnthorpe, and who had worked at Dobson’s Comb Mill before joining the army, was killed.

His mother received a letter from Jim’s comrade Ralph Thompson telling her that Jim was hit by a sniper’s bullet and died 'quite painlessly'. He continued: "He will be buried in the cemetery behind our lines and we will see that his resting place will be marked.”

The same issue of the paper tells us that Robert Whittam, of Church View, Staveley, had lost his life in the trenches on April 28, along with three of his comrades.

Robert was aged 32, a gardener who had worked for Mawson’s of Windermere, but was employed at Garstang prior to the war. Robert’s comrades were John Tweddle from Darlington, John Butler from Preston, and Alfred Marsden.

All four were with a working party in the support lines when a shell burst in their midst.

Sergeant Marsden was another local man, aged 31, born at Barrow, but for many years his widowed mother had been the cook at the Rothay Hotel, Grasmere, where Alfred had also worked.

At this time the battalion was in the front line near the village of Neuville St Vaast, a few miles north of Arras. This was a 'quiet' part of the Western Front at this time - no battles were in progress.

These men were just part of the normal 'wastage' of trench warfare, consequently they could be properly buried by their comrades, in this case in a small 'soldiers' cemetery.

From the Summer of 1919 the Commonwealth War Graves Commission began the enormous task of building the cemeteries and memorials we now see on the Western Front.

For ease of maintenance it was decided that hundreds of the small 'soldier' cemeteries would be concentrated into larger plots, and in August 1919 the bodies of these Border Regiment men were exhumed from Neuville St Vaast and reburied in La Chaudiere Military Cemetery, Vimy.

In 1916 this territory was held by the German armies. Not until early in 1918 did the Canadian Corps establish a small Advanced Dressing Station here, and began to bury their dead in this now lovely place, three kilometres away from Neuville St Vaast.

During the exhaustive searches made by the burial teams, many other bodies were found on the old battlefields and some of them were also brought into this cemetery. La Chaudiere is now the final resting place of 594 men, and among the seven 8th Border Regiment are our three local men.

Ralph Thompson, who wrote to Mrs Garth, was also a Milnthorpe man, whose home address was Beetham Road. He had but a few more weeks to live, and died of wounds on July 19, during the Battle of the Somme.

He is buried in Heilly Station Cemetery, Mericourt l’Abbe.

Mrs Garth also lost another son, Albert, who had served with the Kendal Pals and was killed in action in October 1917 during the Third battle of Ypres. He has no known grave and is named on Tyne Cot Memorial.