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“If you think, have a kindly thought, If you speak, speak generously, Of those who as heroes fought And died to keep you free”
Set up by the Black Country Society. Our aim is to highlight local men who died in the Great War and how they have been commemorated on war memorials. Its scope covers the whole of the present Dudley Municipal Borough and therefore includes the places which have come within its bounds since 1914.
There are over fifty memorials and the number of names exceeds three thousand. Research on the names has been extensive but inevitably errors and omissions occur. We would like to hear about them concentrated on life and work before 1914, involvement in military campaigns and where each man is buried or commemorated.
Horace Case was the son of Philip and Lily Case of 5 Talbot Street, Cradley. He was a keen member of the Wesleyan church Sunday School and worked as a clerk in the chain and anchor works of Messrs Noah. Hingley and Sons. He enlisted in June 1917 in the Hampshire Regiment and joined the 1st Battalion He was soon transferred to the 2/4th Berkshires in the 61st South Midland Division and joined them on the Western Front on the 1st April 1918 . This was a critical time as the German Spring offensives proved to be particularly severe for these units. On the 21st March at St. Quentin they faced the first German assault and were driven back nearly to Amiens. For recuperation they were sent to a quiet part of the front near Bethune and Private Horace Case arrived in a draft of reinforcements. Unfortunately the second German assault commenced on the Lys on the 9th April and surged over their positions. Private Horace Case was killed in action from a shell burst on the 29th April and is buried in the Guards Cemetery, Cuinchy (VII G 1). He was 18 years of age and is commemorated on the Cradley and Halesowen Memorials.
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Cradley, Dudley, West Midlands, England
