Broseley hero's amazing wartime achievements

His name is carved on Broseley war memorial, just one of many heroes from the town whose sacrifices are remembered with pride.

But now a remarkable "back story" has emerged into the life of Bert Oakes, a local lad who was in the thick of the fighting in the trenches in 1916 and 1917 before his luck finally ran out.

And it has arisen because of a very modern dilemma - what to do with all the letters and memorabilia when an elderly relative dies or has to go into a care home.

Such was the case when a lady relative of Bert's from Coventry had to go into a home and in the inevitable clearout a huge collection of papers and letters was passed to a Shrewsbury couple.

"My husband's father's brother was her father," said the Shrewsbury woman, who has since been widowed and prefers not to be named.

Although related, her late husband did not know the family.

"It's going too far back. We did not know what to do with them. We couldn't destroy them."

After reading of the work of historian Janet Doody of Telford, who has just produced a booklet arising out of her research into every name on the Broseley memorial, the lady contacted the Shropshire Star offering to give the documents to a surviving relative of Bert Oakes, or a museum or researcher. "I just don't want to throw them away," she said.

Bert wrote letters to his parents Edward and Eliza Oakes at 5 Barber Street, Broseley, every few days. The collection also includes letters he wrote to his married sister Mab Owen at 47 Bramble Street, Coventry, as well as letters written home by his brother Cis - Cecil Oakes, who also served at the front but, unlike Bert, survived.

Bert tells of mud and a measles outbreak during his training at Prees Heath. In the knowledge he was about to go off to war, he quietly married Gert, who appears to have worked at Maddox's department store in Shrewsbury and lived at 5 Holywell Terrace in the county town.

Bert left for France arriving around mid-July 1916, serving with the 7th Battalion of the King's Shropshire Light Infantry.

He had a baptism of fire. A shell burst close to his trench burying him and others and leaving him severely shaken, but otherwise unhurt.

Writing to Mab on July 27 he said: "On Sunday morning last I was buried by a shell and lost everything. I was sent to hospital and am again at the base feeling better, but still shaky...

"...I shall not easily forget Saturday night and Sunday morning. Still I was spared through it while other poor fellows went under... Buried with me was a Wenlock boy named Rowe. His father keeps a blacksmith shop."

On August 27 he wrote again: "I was in it again last week end but am glad to say I came through safely although had many narrow escapes.

"If anyone had told me that man could stand what we've stood of late, I could not have believed them."

His brother Cis served in the pre-war Shropshire Yeomanry, then the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, and then the Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry.

Cis saw joining the battle as a chance for some sort of redemption, as in a letter home he said ". . . if I never come back I shall have died an hero after all my bad ways in my past life. . . As bad as I have been in my past life I am now going to repay for all my sins . . ."

Bert's family were to see him alive one last time, when he was granted leave at the end of August 1917.

Lance Corporal Oakes returned to France in early September and was killed on September 30, 1917, aged 33. At that time his wife was living at 19 Barratts Hill, Broseley.

The papers don't shed much light on the circumstances, but by chance Cis met two sergeant Ainsworth and Townshend of the 7th KSLI a few months later and they told him Bert had died of concussion, and also had a slight puncture wound in the stomach - which would suggest he was killed by a bursting shell.

In a prophetic last letter to his sister written five days before his death, Bert says: "We are all completely fed up but still we look forward to a lasting peace which could not be if a finish were to be put to this terrible struggle at present.

"Our cause must be fought for and absolutely won at this time of asking or trouble would crop up again in the near future and the next generation would have to finish the struggle we have commenced."