249388 2Lt. Thomas George Grandon Heenan British Army 4th Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers from:Belfast (d.21st March 1918) Born in Belfast, Ireland in 1892, Thomas Heenan was the son of William Patrick Heenan, a civil servant with the Board of Trade, and his wife Kathleen Mary (nee Grandon).
Thomas was working as a journalist in Belfast at the time of the 1911 census but was then admitted to the Civil Service and followed his father into the Board of Trade.
In June 1915 he was commissioned as a temporary Second Lieutenant in the 4th Battalion and attached to the 1st Battalion of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. He served in France until his death on the Somme during the Second Somme Offensive. This is officially recorded as 21st of March 1918 but is not a definitive date since he had been reported missing and this is date when it seems the Army determined he could not be located and was presumed dead. According to Army records he was 23 years old.
The day of his death was marked by a heavy and sustained attack by the German forces. At the end of an assault lasting five hours which involved gas and explosives, the 1st Batallion of the Fusiliers retreated. Six hundred soldiers were missing, leaving the battalion with only five officers and ninety men.
He is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial in France. He was awarded posthumously the British Medal and the Victory Medal.
His parents were living at 42 Derwent Road, Stoneycroft, Liverpool at the time of his death. The family subsequently returned to Ireland where William Heenan died in County Cork in October 1932 and his wife Kathleen a few months later, in December 1932. They had no living children.
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