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FOOTS CRAY MEMORIAL

Private Bernard BATSFORD Royal West Kent Regt, 1st Battalion
1887-20th July 1916

Bernard Batsford, whose parents home was Nash's Cottages, Cray Road was born in Foots
Cray in 1887. His late father had been employed as a bricklayer. When 27-year-old Bernard
enlisted at Woolwich during Christmas 1914, his occupation was recorded as a pot-man in
a local public house.

During his service, Bernard was given only five days leave before having to rejoin his
Regiment in France in 1916. When news of Bernard's unfortunate death in the horrors of
the first days of the Somme battles reached his widowed mother, she was ill in hospital
after suffering a stroke. A War Office gratuity awarded in 1919 was divided equally between
his surviving brothers and sisters.

In Memoriam: Remembered on Thiepval Memorial, Belgium

Private Thomas George BAYLEY Cambridgeshire Regiment, 1st Battalion
1887 - 3rd September 1917

Thomas lived with his wife, Edith, and their two children at School Cottages, Church
Road. Employed as a draper's assistant, he enlisted in November 1915 at Bexleyheath and
was placed in the Cambridgeshire Regiment.

After being in France for about seven months, he had to be invalided home with trench
fever, and had only just returned to his Unit when he was severely wounded during the
Battle of Ypres on 3rd Sept 1917. Unfortunately Thomas died the same day.

In Memoriam: Buried in the Reninghelst New Military Cemetery, Belgium.

Rifleman Norman Allen Walter BOOKER Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's
Own) 10th Battalion
1898 - 30th November 1917

One of ten children born to William and Mary Booker in North Cray, the family home was
now Orchard Villas, Foots Cray. Norman enlisted in Woolwich before or very near his 19th
birthday. Four of his brothers also served - William in the Royal Field Artillery; Alfred in
The Royal West Kent Regiment; Lionel in the Navy with a British minesweeper and Leonard
with the Royal Field Artillery. In November 1917, Norman took part in the Battle of
Cambrai.

On 20th November 1917, the British Army made the bold decision that they could use the
fairly new phenomenon of the Tank and launched a limited and tactically radical attack at
Cambrai. Previous constant artillery bombardment had managed to cut a temporary
rupture of the German Lines and there was a definite opportunity for a breakthrough, but
they did not have sufficient mobile reserves to get through in order to exploit the tank's
success, and within days the chance had gone. General Haig ordered the battle to continue
but there was no more progress and the German's counter attacked in force on 30th
November. Norman was just one of the many casualties of yet another futile encounter.

In Memoriam: Remembered on the Cambrai Memorial, Louverval, France.

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