LONG-LOST WARRIORS

Evening Star, Issue 20053, 19 December 1928, Page 9

LONG-LOST WARRIORS

MEN WHO RETURNED The case of the soldier whose lost memory led to his separation from his relatives in Wellington for ten years has had many parallels in England. There was the case last month of George Hemming a sailor, who suddenly turned up at his brother’s home in Worcester, though long given up as dead; and the previous week the story of James Powell, a former private of the Royal Army Service Corps, who, having been reported missing in the war. walked into a Caidilf restaurant where his two sisters were employed. Hard on the heels ol these two cases came the news of the return home, after ten years’ absence, of C. H. Peoeey, of Gloucester. His case is as astonisning as any. He served with the Gloucestershires in France and Salonika, and was twice severely wounded.

Discharged with a pension in 1918, he joined a steamship bound for the United States, .went ashore at Portland, and from that time disappeared. When, at long last, he returned to his home a few days ago, lie found his house occupied by strangers, his wife had been manned and had a child-

A brother, who was partly deaf and dumb, received such a shock when he caught sight of Peacey that •he recovered u large measure of his speech. Peacey’s case is the familiar one of lost memory. Shell-shocked in the war, his old trouble recurred in Portland, and after wandering about for a time ho was put in a mental hospital and remained there for ten years. It required several operations before ho recovered his memory. This recalls the case of a French soldier of Grenoble, who returned to his homo two years ago, having been mourned as dead for nearly ten years, to find that bis wife bad remarried and borne two children. He had been buried alive at Verdun, and, recovering, was made a prisoner of war in Germany. Later he worked on a farm having completely lost his memory, A married sergeant of the Coldstream Guards, , who was reported “missing, presumably killed,” after Mons i« August. 1914, returned to his homo at Windsor in June the following year to find that his wife was drawing a widow’s pension. After the rereat from Mons he had escaped being t a lien prisoner by the Germans by seeking refuge in different Belgian farms, and occasionally working as a farm labourer. He ultimately worked his way to the Belgian coast, and then went to Harwich. LETTERS THAT WENT ASTRAY. Yet another remarkable case was the return to his home in Belfast iu November, 1926, of Private Hugh Wilson, formerly of the 9tli Royal Irish Rifles, and afterwards of the Royal Engineers, who had been given up for lost ten years previously by bis relatives.

Although twice wounded iu the war, ho had never been reported officially as dead, but his mother had had no letter from him since 1916. Alter the armistice Wilson saw service in the East, and, as his mother had changed her residence, it was assumed that his letters to her over the intervening period of ten years had gone astray. Tho reunion of “Seqnah” (Mr W. Hannnway Howe), tho famous tooth, extractor, with 'his son, at Southampton in 1924, each having believed the other dead for years, was as romantic as any case of tho kind

The death of the father at Johannesburg was announced in the newspapers on February 7, 1916, and the son, reported missing in France in 1917, was later assumed to bo dead, and his wife was granted a widow's pension. The son, a drill instructor in the R.A.F., had been wounded four times in France, and when reported as missing was actually in hospital in France. There he remained for about two years after his fourth wound, suffering from complete loss of memory, and when he returned home to his wife he read tho account in the papers of his father’s death

While waiting to embark on a liner which was taking troops to the East, at Southampton, the son wandered into the street where his father used to be in business as a herbalist, and there, to his surprise, found his father halo and hearty. Loss of memory is usually at tho bottom of these dramatic reunions, as it was in the case of an ox-gunuer of the Royal Field Artillery, named McDonald, who was reported killed in Franco in January, 1917, and was found and identified by his brother James at Kirkcoimel, Dumfries-shirc. The missing man had been travelling about as a mat-maker when ho was recognised by a woman who knew him previously. When questioned, M'Donald could recall a shell explosion, which buried birn, and be also had a faint recollection of having been a prisoner of war, but otherwise his mind was almost a blank a« to his doings in the interval of seven and a-half years. Many men have been told that their names are inscribed on war memorials or crosses. This happened to Mr V. Fielding, of New King street, Bath, in 1927, when the Imperial War Graves Commission assurred him that he was “ officially ” buried in Fontaine au Pierre Communal Cemetery, Franco, as there was a cross there inscribed with the number under which ho served. THE TROUSERS CLUE.

This number had been taken from a pair of trousers found on the man buried, but Fielding, in point of fact, served in the Somerset Light Infantry in Mesopotamia, and not in France. A man named Livingstone returned to Skene, a little Aberdeenshire parish in June, 1927, to find his name chiselled on the local war memorial, a granite cross. Livingstone had wandered to Skene in August, 1914, had been engaged on the land by a farmer, but soon afterwards enlisted and went to tiv front. Ho was reported “missing, presumed killed,” and no further word was hoard from him until he called on tho Skene parish registrar in Juno last year, explaining that he had just come from Australia, and asking that his name be removed from the list of dead on the war memorial. Sergeant-major F. W. Dewsbury, a former Lifeguardsman and a one-time member of King Edward VII. ’s guard of honour, was very surprised to see his son walk into his house at Brighton in January this year. The son had been mourned as dead for thirteen years. Employed in South Persia before the wa.’, ho was attached as interpreter and engineer to the expedition under General Gorringe which was to attempt to relieve Townsend at Kut soon after war broke out. Ho had many adventures in the desert in charge of a pontoon section, but following the relief of Kut, he was released by the Army, and returned to work with the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. in Persia. When he came home in 1920 he could find no trace of his family. He had no answer to his letters, and so perhaps found it easy to believe the repoi"t that his father was dead. The father, on the other hand, hearing that his boy had been killed at Mens, had rejoined the Army at the age of fifty-four years; and gone to Fiance. That explains why the son's correspondence had not been answered, and it also explains why each thought tho other dead. A joyous reunion followed. A millionaire shipowner, Sir James Knott, of Torquay, was thought to have lost all throe sons in the war, so he sold his business and retired. Two of the sous, both of whom had distinguished themselves in tho Avar, were killed within a few weeks of each fttteav a«d Ifttec au official intimation

said that Thomas, the oldest, had boon killed in Gallipoli. There were rumours that Thomas was alive, and one day, to the joy of his parents, he turned up, having been in New Zealand suffering from loss of memory. When he reached England he was all but penniless, and had to take a room in a small London hotel, but his identity was soon established, and he rejoined his mother at Exmouth. Perhaps more dramatic was the case which occurred at Leeds during the Boer War. An aged tradesman neard with great grief of the death of his only son in battle. Both the War Office and the newspapers lent sup. port to the news. Months passed; and the fathei, brooding alone one evening, suddenly started up in a frenzy of mixed hope and fear at the sound of a well-remem-bered step in the hall. In a moment the door was flung open and he stood face to face with Jm sturdy khaki-clad son in the flesh. But the shock was too great, and the father fell dead of heart failure at his son’s feet.

The son had been wounded, captured by the. Boers, and kept a prisoner ot war for nine months. Cut off from all means of communication, his death had beeu '