Military History

Thomas is listed as being killed in action on 26th February 1915. The 5th Dragoon's war diary entry for that day is transcribed below and, like previous and subsequent days, it contains no details of casualties. An entry on 23rd February mentioned that all casualties were being caused via loopholes [gun firing positions] and we have surmised that Thomas was killed by a/the sniper firing at the loopholes in the trenches.

Trenches near Zillebeke - 26 Feb 1915: A quiet day except for the usual amount of sniping. Opposite A Squadron a particularly irritating sniper was came out before dawn and took up a position about 40 yards away in a steel box with sides and fired steadily at loopholes all day. He was too near to shell and to far to reach with a hand grenade. He was eventually bagged.

All along the trenches it was only possible to see over by means of a periscope. They were continually being broken and Lt Carrington was wounded in the eye by the glass of one of them.

At night every other man had to be on the alert and up and ready. As a rule towards 10 o’clock when the rations were arriving (they came by wagon to canvas dug out and then on by hand) sniping and firing were heavy.

The French lines were unusually quiet on our right but the 28^th Division on our right were particularly noisy.

On this night Lt Curran in order to clear up the question of the Trench in front of A Squadron crawled out of his trench about 50 yards down the line, he crawled along the front of his trench until he was opposite the end of the hostile trench and there crawled to see the enemys trench. This meant crawling over dead bodies which had been lain out since October, through the barbed wire and over tin cans and took about ¾ hour. On reaching the German trench he looked over, he heard some Germans talking and they fired point blank at him, missed and bolted.

He got back safely and reported that the work going on had been barbed wire being put up & that the work was only a listening post. For this he received the Military Cross and an “Ordre des Jour” [similar to Mention in Dispatches] from General Le Feise?