b. 1894 d.1917 (Aged 23)
Little is known of John Albone apart from his service and death during the first world war. His father was David Albone, & he married Lily Tween on the 15th July 1915 at the Registry Office at West Ham in the County of Essex, no children are known to have been born from this marriage.
John Albone is not actually a direct member of the family as Lily went on to marry twice more. I however, feel that he is worth mentioning as he was married to Lily and she obviously held him in high esteem, even joining the Voluntary Aid Detachments (VAD) in order to discover the truth about his death and in order to see his grave. (For those of you that are wondering Lily was Edward Richard Ventris Porter´s second wife.)
It is not known if she ever visited his last resting place at the Tyne Cot Memorial in Belgium where 80% of the war dead lay in unmarked graves. John Albone is one of the many that has an unmarked grave.
John Albone was awarded the Military Medal by King George V on the 19th February 1917. He was killed in action in the September of the same year. It would seem that the citation for this award has been lost, as this original would have been given to John himself.
The award was however published in the London Newspapers of the day even though the deed has now been forgotten.
Lance Corporal, G/60114, 26th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers. Killed in action Thursday, 20th September 1917 in France & Flanders. Age 23. Enlisted Bedford, resident Arlesey. Son of David Albone; husband of Lily Albone, of 55, Park Side, Woodford Green, Essex. Formerly 40399, Bedfordshire Regiment. Commemorated on Tyne Cot Memorial, Zonnebeke, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium. Panel 28 to 30 and 162 to 162A and 163A (See memorial plan)
The photograph (above) shows original grave markers before they were replaced by headstones from Portland stone. The captured German blockhouse, subsequently used as a Dressing Station from October 1917, can be seen at the top centre of the picture.
The Tyne Cot Memorial commemorates a total of 34,888 men who died in the Ypres Salient from 16th August 1917 to the end of the War and who have no known grave. The Missing of the Salient who died before 16th August are commemorated on The Menin Gate in Ypres.
The memorial lies amid peaceful farmland which slopes gently up to the village of Passchendaele. Visiting the Memorial today it is almost impossible to believe that in the Summer and Autumn of 1917 it was a morass of shell holes, mud, shattered equipment and littered with the corpses of soldiers. Many of these men would never be identified and their names would be carved into the panels of the memorial which stands there today.
In front of the Memorial is Tyne Cot Cemetery, still guarded in peace, as it was in war, by the brooding shapes of German pillboxes. The Cross of Sacrifice in the centre of the cemetery was built on top of one of these pillboxes, part of which can still be seen. This pillbox was used as a dressing station after its capture and the original cemetery grew up around it, as can be seen from the haphazard arrangement of the original battlefield graves nearby. After the Armistice, the battlefields were cleared and the bodies found during the clearances, together with those from several nearby smaller cemeteries were concentrated in the Tyne Cot Cemetery. This cemetery is now the largest Commonwealth War Graves Commission Cemetery in the world, with almost 12,000 graves.
In House Lane in the village of Arlesey, stands a memorial on the village green. There is also a Roll of Honour in St Peters church.
(The inscription reads)
1914-1918
IN MEMORY OF
THE MEN OF THIS PARISH
WHO DIED SERVING
THEIR COUNTRY
IN THE GREAT WAR
THEY GAVE ALL.
This article was written by Richard J. Buckley
Richard Buckley b.1967 d.20xx
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