2/4th Battalion Queen’s (Royal West Surrey) Regiment
Died 29th August 1915 aged 24
Personal Information:
Herbert Parson was born at Dog Kennel Cottage Oak Hill Horsham Sussex on 25 October 1891. He was the second son of William Merrick Parsons (1862-1938) a railwayman, and Fanny Longhurst (1857-1930) who had married on 22 August 1877 at St. Patrick Hove Sussex. He was a grandson of Jane Elizabeth Longhurst nee Reffell (1832-).
In 1911 he was living with his parents at 14 Rymer Road Croydon and employed as a motor and cycle builder’s apprentice.
Military Information:
The Regiment is the oldest English line Infantry Regiment in the British Army as it was first raised in 1661 as The Earl of Peterborough’s Regiment of Foot, by Henry Mordaunt 2nd Earl of Peterborough.
The eight month campaign in Gallipoli was fought by Commonwealth and French forces in an attempt to force Turkey out of the war, to relieve the deadlock of the Western Front in France and Belgium, and to open a supply route to Russia through the Dardanelles and the Black Sea.
The Allies landed on the peninsula on 25-26 April 1915; the 29th Division at Cape Helles in the south and the Australian and New Zealand Corps north of Gaba Tepe on the west coast, an area soon known as Anzac. On 6 August, further troops were put ashore at Suvla, just north of Anzac, and the climax of the campaign came in early August when simultaneous assaults were launched on all three fronts.
The aim of the Suvla force had been to quickly secure the sparsely held high ground surrounding the bay and salt lake, but confused landings and indecision caused fatal delays allowing the Turkish forces to reinforce and only a few of the objectives were taken with difficulty.
The 2/4th Battalion Territorial Force was formed in August 1914 at Croydon. In July 1915 It embarked for Gallipoli from Devonport Plymouth and landed at Gallipoli on 9 August 1915. In December of that year, it was evacuated from Gallipoli to Egypt due to severe casualties from combat, disease and harsh weather. At that time the Division was reduced to just 162 officers and 2428 men, approximately 15% of its full strength.
Cemetery:
Green Hill Cemetery, Gallipoli, Turkey II B 12
Green Hill Cemetery was made after the Armistice when isolated graves were brought in from the battlefields of August 1915 and from small burial grounds in the surrounding area. These earlier burial grounds were known as York; 40th Brigade Nos. 1 and 2; Green Hill Nos. 1 and 2; Chocolate Hill; Inniskilling; Salt Lake; and Scimitar Hill (which contained 520 graves, almost all unidentified).
There are now 2,971 servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery. 2,472 of the burials are unidentified but special memorials commemorate a number of casualties known or believed to be buried among them.