Current Information:

Age-20

Enlisted-London

Rifle House Cemetery, Belgium

Throughout March 1915 and the first three weeks of April, 19156, the 5th London battalion, then part of 11 Brigade of 4th Division, were holding the line in and around Ploegsteert in Belgium, just across the border from Armentières in France, spending time in the trenches interspersed with periods in billets in reserve from where they could be called upon to provide working parties for various tasks. Thomas Harries was killed on 15th April when the battalion was in the trenches in Ploegsteert Wood but there is no further information concerning his death. The attrition rate among British soldiers on the Western Front was on average 300 each day and 60% of these were as a result of shellfire. When not involved in an actual battle it was either shell fire or a sniper’s bullet that caused most deaths and injuries.