THIS week we mark the 100th anniversary of another soldier from Redditch who perished in the First World War.
Charles Emms was a married man who died from wounds received in the Arras campaign in northern France.
He was a Lance Corporal with the 2nd Battalion the Worcestershire Regiment, which found itself up against the Hindenburg Line just east of the French village of Croisilles.
The British had been trying to advance there since April, all with little success but many casualties.
It isn’t known how or when Charles was wounded but the 2nd Battalion was in the vanguard of attacks on May 20/21, when casualties were reported as ‘very heavy’ with 36 killed, 139 wounded and 73 missing.
Then, between May 27 and May 31, while in reserve, the unit suffered a further seven killed and 21 wounded from enemy shellfire.
However the fact that Charles is buried in Rouen away to the west would seem to suggest his injuries were not immediately life threatening.
Charles Emms was born in 1889 in Charles Street, Headless Cross, the eldest of two children born to William and Kate Emms.
The couple’s only daughter, Ethel, died in infancy.
His father was a carpenter and his mum a needle burnisher.
The couple’s second son Harry was born in 1892.
William died not long afterwards and by the 1901 census Kate had moved nearby to 9 Birchfield Road and was bringing up the boys on her own.
By 1911 Charles was recorded as working as a fishing rod maker. He then married Lilian Rose and moved to 3 Stratton Terrace, Rosehill Street, Cheltenham.
He is buried in the St Sever Cemetery extension in Rouen in France and is remembered today on the war memorial at the Bridge Church in Headless Cross and also at St Luke’s C of E First School.
With thanks to Remembering Redditch’s Fallen Heroes;Tthe war diaries of the Worcestershire Regiment and http://www.rememberthefallen.co.uk/
