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JACK READING CASWELL (1904-1907 :
27), Sereant, 10th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, was the
younger son of Mr T R Caswell of Dudley Street, Wolverhampton.
From the school he went as an apprentice to Messrs. Newbury’s at
Birmingham. Within a month of the
opening of the war he enlisted in the Birmingham City Battalion, and after a
course of training, went to France and took part in much of the desperate
fighting of 1915-17. One episode of
this period gives an illustration of the fierceness of the conflict as well as
of Caswell’s fortitude. Near High Wood an attack was made on a German trench
300 yards distant. After going 100
yards Caswell was wounded in the right side; after another 100 yards a bullet
passed right through his left calf; and when the trench was reached his rifle
was blown out of his hand and he was badly wounded in the right thumb joint;
then he had to crawl back over the 300 yards over which he had advanced.
The action that led to his death took place on May 8th 1918,
when he was attached to the Lewis Gun section.
He received shell wounds in the side and chest, and was carried to the 3rd
Australian Casualty Clearing Station, and there he died from his injuries on May
15th. He was buried at
Esquelbecq Military Cemetery near Hazebrouck.
It is probably for his conspicuous gallantry on all occasions rather than
for a particular exploit that the Military Medal was awarded to him, and
unfortunately he did not live to wear it. It
may be recalled that Caswell was in the Football XI in 1906-7.
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