211819 Sgt. Robert Ramsey British Army 12th Btn. Royal Irish Rifles from:Ballymoney, Co. Antrim (d.23rd Aug 1917) Sergeant Robert Ramsey regularly wrote home in one letter, when he was promoted to Lance Corporal he relates how the officers warned him not to associate as closely as before with his lower ranking friends, however Robert replied that they had always been his pals and nothing was going to change that, not even stripes. In his letters he also writes of the death of his friend, Joseph Watson of Rasharkin, at Le Touret and also of Robert John Coleman who lived close to the Ramsey’s home, who was killed on 1st July 1916 along with 16 other men from the 12th Battalion, where once Sergeant Ramsey had been amongst a crowd of friends from the Culmore district, now he was one of only three. A few days later, the 12th Battalion was moved to the Messines area of Belgium, and it was here on the evening of 22nd August 1916, that Sergeant Ramsey, then 21 years old, wrote his last letter home. The next morning at 10. 30am he was killed, shot in the head by a sniper. He had just fired five rounds and inadvertently stood up straight to re-load his rifle. He is buried at Ration Farm Cemetery.
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