The Last Casualty of The Great War?

James Frost

This young man from Aldridge is James Henry Ernest Frost. He was born in a house on the Birmingham Road in Aldridge in 1898 and baptised at St Mary's, the parish church on 14 August that year.

His parents were Eli Frost and Clara Leah nee Mason. He was one of ten siblings and he and my Father are first cousins. Dad doesn't remember James because he had already died in the slaughter of a generation of young men during WW1 when Dad was born but Dad does remember his Auntie Clara because she lived to a ripe old age of 76. She died in 1953 and is buried in Aldridge Cemetery with various members of her family.

Dad recalls that Clara was a warm, loving and inviting person, full of hugs ready to be given and small treats if she had baked that day and that was most days as Clara made all her own bread. There was always a warm pot of soup or stew sitting on the small range ready for visitors to take their fill along with a slice from her own crusty loaves. Clara's home was small and rural. There was no indoor plumbing of any sort, no running water, no toilet but it was a home filled with love and also tinged with tragedy.

Shortly after James's birth the family moved out of Aldridge for a brief life in Darlaston. Eli, James's father swapped agricultural labouring for life as a engine stoker at a colliery but this appears not to have worked out and the family returned to Aldridge to live in Mill Green, later moving a little closer to the village to Gould Firm Lane. Eli returned to agricultural labouring.

Eli Frost

When war broke out James was not quite 16 years old and his elder brother Eli was just 18.  Eli who had worked in the Brickyard in Aldridge as a tile carrier, took Territorial Force Attestation for the duration of the war on 2 September 1915 in Wolverhampton. He became part of 1/6 Battalion, South Staffordshire Regiment and served with the 46th (North Midland) Division. At the time of his enlistment the 46th Division were fighting in the Battle of Loos and it was decimated on 13th October 1915 during an attack on the  Hohenzollern Redoubt. In May 1916 Eli was taken ill with Pyrexia, highly contagious Typhoid (or Enteric) fever and was invalided to the UK in June 1916. He convalesced for 5 months and then returned to France in November 1916. He managed to see the War through almost to the end when he was wounded in action in October 1918. He was then discharged to 'coal mining'. Eli continued to live in Aldridge for the rest of his life until his death in 1969. He married in 1934 and had two sons.

James had seen his elder brother depart for war, return terribly ill and then depart once more. Before his 19th birthday he enlisted in Newcastle Under Lyme and was assigned to the Manchester Regiment as a Private. He served in the 13th Battalion and was away with them in Salonika  from Christmas 1917 until June 1918 when the battalion left Salonika and went directly to France arriving in Abancourt on 11 July 1918. There they were first absorbed into the 17th Battalion at the end of July and then just a few short weeks later, they in turn were absorbed into the 9th Battalion. It was a time of much rearrangement of battalions and regiments at that time in the Great War.

Gradually James and his fellow comrades moved east. On the morning of 11th of November 1918, James found himself at the entrance to a wood on the outskirts of a tiny village in Belgium called Sivry. It was the easternmost point reached by the British Army during WW1. It was here that James was hit by a burst of shells from the enemy and mortally wounded. How and why James found himself there is explained a little by the research of Mr Bernard Counen who is a local historian in Belgium and has worked tirelessly on this story. It appears that James was ill and was left by the 9th Battalion Manchester Regiment with the villagers of Sivry to be cared for by the locals.

The War Diary seems to support this as the battalion was on the move. The entry for the 11th November reads:

"Bn HQ moved to A24 c. 26. and at 10.10 hours, received an order that hostilities would cease at 11.00 hours, this order only reached the coys a few minutes before that hour. Enemy artillery remained active to the last and No 54854 Pte J Frost of 'A' Coy was fatally wounded by a shell less than ten minutes before the armistice commenced."

The villagers of Sivry buried James in their communal cemetery and there he has remained ever since, the only serviceman to be buried there. His grave was adopted by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission but it has remained tended and cared for by the villagers of Sivry who have adopted him as one of their own. Tomorrow (Saturday) and Sunday commemorations will take place and a new memorial for James will be unveiled.

The grave of Pte JHE Frost Sivry Communal Cemetery

Grave of Pte JHE Frost Service Number 54854 Sivry Communal Cemetery

The inscription on the grave, requested by James's father reads:

TIME CHANGES MANY THINGS BUT MEMORY LIKE THE IVY CLINGS.

Was James the last soldier to die before the Armistice? Was he the last casualty?

 He was certainly one of the last to be fatally wounded, just a few minutes before the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918. 

The wonderful Sue Satterthwaite of Aldridge Great War Project and The Poppy Road Project  approached the CWGC and asked them to consider the possibility and they did engage their historians to investigate however the historians said,  "they appreciate your suggestion that Private James Henry E Frost, 54854, 9th Bn. Manchester Regiment should be considered as the last casualty of the First World War.  Regrettably however the report in the War Diary does not provide conclusive evidence of this - it indicates he was fatally wounded but there is no verification of the fact when the death took place." This is disappointing but I'm not taking that as a final answer as I hope Mr Counen may have more information.

James was just 20 years old when he died. Had he heard that the War was almost over? Did he know that the Armistice was about to take place? In a way I hope he had not because it is unimaginable the thoughts that may have crossed his mind as he lay dying. So close to returning home to his warm and loving Mother, the hope of a better life after the war. He was still so very young with his whole life to look forward to. This was all snatched away from him in the last few minutes before the guns lay silent for the first time in over four years and the war was officially over.

Although we received an invitation to attend the ceremonies in Sivry this weekend, we were unable to make appropriate arrangements to go at such short notice. I will however, be making the journey to Sivry to honour this member of my family and to take a little of Aldridge in some form, to lay upon the grave of James.

I give thanks to the village of Sivry and all those who keep the memory of James alive. I thank them for tending his grave and I thank them for the honour they bestow upon him this coming weekend. He truly is not forgotten.

On Sunday please spare a thought for James Frost, an Aldridge man who possibly was the last casualty of World War 1. Thank you.