253183 Sgt. Lister Walter Kaye British Army 2nd/6th Btn. Royal Warwickshire Regiment from:Workington (d.21st Mar 1918) My son was given the task of researching a family member who had been involved in either the First or Second World War. We knew that we had a relative who had fought in World War One so we started digging.
Lister Kaye was born in Workington in 1893. His mother died when he was 10. His father remarried and had three further children, the youngest of which was my grandfather, Ernest Graham Kaye. Ernest remembers, at the age of four, his half-brother swinging him up onto his shoulders. This would have been 1914, the year Lister enlisted.
He served for four years. On 21st of March 1918, while he fought with the2nd/6th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, he was involved in the first day of the massive German offensive, Operation Michael. He was killed at the Battle of St Quentin.
He was 25 years old.
Perhaps as a direct result of losing his half-brother, my grandfather became a conscientious objector in WW2. He had to go before a panel to explain his choice.
If we learnt one thing from what he recounted, it was that life as a conscientious objector was miserable.
Two very different, but equally heartbreaking stories.
Additional Information: | Ernest Graham Kaye was born in 1914. He had brothers Frederick William born 1910 and Henry born 1916. Ernest must have remembered his half brother Lister Walter from a time when he was on leave from the army.
Lister is buried in the Chapelle British Cemetery in Holnon France.
I have a photograph of Lister in Army uniform. Also a photograph of Frederick, Ernest and Henry, their parents and children taken in the 1950's.
Anne
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