Additions will be checked before being published on the website and where possible will be forwarded to the person who submitted the original entries. Your contact details will not be forwarded, but they can send a reply via this messaging system.
please scroll down to send a message
Pte. Frank Higham
British Army 10th Btn. Royal Welsh Fusiliers
from:Hyde Cheshire
(d.25th Dec 1918)
Frank Higham lived and worked in Hyde Cheshire. When he joined the Army in 1916 he was 32 and married. He was initially in the Cheshire Regt but was transferred to the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. He was captured at the Battle of Delville Wood and spent the remainder of the war as a POW at Wittenburg Camp in Germany. Frank communicated to his family that he was working in a sugar mill. He said he was being treated well - but that was likely as not to upset his wife and family as Wittenberg had a reputation as the worst camp and Typhus had been rife. When the war ended and the German infrastructure failed, Denamrk offered to help repatriate prisoners to the UK. Denmark set up 9 staging posts (8 in Denmark; 1 in Sweden) to which soldiers were moved. The plan was, they would stay there about a week to get decent food/health checks/spruced up before being returned home. Frank was at Ljungbyhed Military Camp in Sweden and was due to sail home on Christmas Day 1918 on the HMS Wessex. Unfortunately he had arrived in Sweden in a poor condition and despite the best efforts of the Ljunbyhed Hospital, he died from Spanish Flu on Christmas Day 1918. He was buried 2 days later at Riseberga Church, Skane, Sweden.
