Richard Vine-Jenkins
Rank: Sapper
Regiment: Royal Engineers
Mother: Mrs Vine-Jenkins
Address: 196 Battle Road, Hollington
Bothers: H Vine-Jenkins & J Vine-Jenkins
Cousin: Miss E Robinson
Other Info: At the Front. Killed in action. According to CWGC, Richard died on 26th April 1917. He is remembered at St Nicholas British Cemetery, grave reference I. H. 3.
An article reporting the death of Sapper Vine was published in the Hastings & St Leonards Observer on 5th May 1917; “News has been received of the death in action of Sapper R. Vine, R.E., in France. He was the son of Mrs. Vin, 196, Battle Road, Hollington. He worked as a plate layer for Messers. Dick Kerr and Co., at the installation of the Hastings Tramways and subsequently did the similar work for the same firm in Brazil.
He left that country to join up and went into the Army in February 1916. He was a native of Hastings. The Captain of the Company, writing to he mother says ‘Your son was very seriously wounded on April 26th and died of his wounds about an hour later. A shell fell near the work we were doing and close to your son, badly wounding him in the thighs and legs. He was unconscious when we picked him up and he never regained consciousness. We did our best with field dressings and took him to a field dressing station on a stretcher, where he had every attention from the doctors, but the shock and loss of blood were too much for him.
He was buried in the military cemetery at St. Nicholas, a suburb of Arras. Your son was a splendid worker and very good at his trade of a platelayer. He took a leading part in our railway work on the Somme and is a great loss to our Company.'”
Published: December 1916 & May 1917
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