Current Information:

Age-26

16, Greenhill Road, Harlesden

At the end of August and beginning of September, 1916, the 2nd Royal Fusiliers battalion of 86 Brigade, 29th Division, were in B Camp at Brandhoek near Ypres in Belgium. From here they provided, on a nightly basis, working parties for various duties and on the 1st September a party of 400 were sent to dig a cable trench near Ypres. These tasks were often very dangerous. Harassing artillery and machine-gun fire from the enemy would be kept up intermittently throughout the night designed to disrupt the work as much as possible. Tracks along which parties had to travel to reach the front line were known to the German gunners and targeted accordingly. Many a soldier met his death while on a working or carrying party as was the case of George Smith on 1st September.