KING, Charles

Charles King lived at 'The Croft', 76 Hagley Road, Oldswinford, and volunteered for the South Staffordshire Regiment. He was commissioned as Second Lieutenant and joined the 2nd Battalion on the Western Front on the 9th July 1915. This battalion had been part of the original B.E.F. and in the Spring of 1915 was engaged in the Artois battles at Festubert and Aubers Ridge. Second Lieutenant King arrived to help make up the serious losses of early 1915 and Loos was his first and only battle. The terrain chosen by Sir John French for the largest attack of the war to date had been relatively quiet. It covered the 8 miles south from La Bassée towards Loos and Lens. It was generally flat and featureless, consisting of cultivated fields, interspersed with industrial villages and flanked on the German side with the spoil heaps of isolated mines. Little surprise was possible, as the Germans overlooked the British lines and had built defences in some depth. The attack on the 25th September opened at dawn on the canal and brick-stacks near La Bassée. A and B Companies were unable to advance very far as men were pinned down by enemy machine gun fire. Captain Kilby led C Company along the canal in a forlorn attack and thereby earned the Regiment's first Victoria Cross of the Great War. Charles King led his platoon in the attack on the brick-stacks but these proved to be good concealment for the defenders' machine gun nests. The battalion's attack was all over by 9.30 and the survivors straggled back to the start trenches. The losses amounted to 1 officer and 19 men killed, 4 officers and 79 men wounded, 130 men gassed and 4 officers and 31 men missing. Among the missing was Charles King. On the 26th October the War Diary noted a memorial cross in his memory but it seems that his body was never recovered. He was 19 years of age and he is commemorated on the Loos, Stourbridge and Oldswinford church Memorials.