John New

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Private 200099 John New
1st/4th Battalion (Princess Charlotte of Wales's) Royal Berkshire Regiment

Local Information:

He was the son of Tom and Elizabeth New, of Hungerford, Berkshire. He was born in Hungerford and enlisted at Newbury.

He joined his local regiment and was posted to the 1st/4th a territorial battalion.

He died of wounds on Monday 26th August 1918, aged 23. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Giavera Memorial to the missing, Italy.

Photo Gallery:

pte new map

royal berkshire

- Regimental Badge of the Royal Berkshires.

- The sketch map from the war diary showing the area of the raid in Italy and where Private New was killed.

Regimental Information:

He was killed whilst taking part in a raid on enemy positions on the night of 26th/27th August 1918.

Extract from the raid report:

Object:
To kill or capture the Austrian Garrison

Objective:
Area as in attached map which shows the allocated areas to battalion and companies.

Forming up:
At 9.00pm, the battalion left our outpost line of resistance by the Poslen Gap and proceeded in single file to the Guardinalti Ridge whence they moved forward to forming up positions in the valley. 'B' Company was on the east of the road, with 'A' company in rear of it. 'D' and 'C' companies on the west of the road. All companies were in lines of platoons in file.

During the last half hour before zero enemy seemed very nervous, enemy lights were sent up, some rifle grenades fired of which a few fell among 'C' Company. A few shells were fired into the valley south of Guardinalti, but not MG fire was opened.

Prisoners:
The receipts actually held a total of 72, but there were some more handed over. Estimates naturally vary widely, but apparently the West of the area produced more than the east.

Casualties:
1 OR died of wounds, 4 ORs missing, 5 Officers and 41 ORs wounded.

The report then gives detailed coverage of what each company did. (We do not know which company Private New was in.). We believe he was the '1 OR' who died of wounds as mentioned in the report.