Current Information:

Age-25

22 Stanhope Street, Regent's Park

In mid-February , 1916, 12th Division returned to the area of the Hohenzollern Redoubt that they had left in November 1915 after the Battle of Loos. On 2nd March, 36 Brigade were in action when 8th Royal Fusiliers, along with other units rushed to occupy and consolidate three craters that were formed when the Engineers blew some deep mines. 8th Royal Fusiliers suffered quite heavy casualties during this operation and on 5th March, the battalion moved back to billets in Bethune where for the next five days they were involved in re-organisation and training. The Battalion Diary for 7th March has a two word entry ‘Billets, reorganisation’ and makes no mention of the seventeen men, one of whom was William Garrett, who were killed in action on that day, nor is there any mention of them in the Regimental History. It is probably the case that they were missing after the operation on 2nd March and not officially registered as dead until 7th March and the fact that they are all commemorated on the Loos Memorial to the Missing lends weight to this explanation.  Another possibility is that they were away from the battalion on a working party but even so one would have expected at least a cursory mention of such a heavy loss as well as the recovery of the bodies to be identified and buried in a cemetery.