George Frederick Green

Attested 16/06/1915 aged 32 years and 72 days. Promoted to corporal on 27/7/1915, to sergeant on 17/08/1915 and to CQMS on 20/9/1915.

This man is commemorated in a book of remembrance held by Mansfield District Council. Captain Sydney Freeman Brookfield (1) wrote to a friend with the news of his death, it was published in the Mansfield Reporter and Sutton Times published on 9th June 1916 :- “HOW QR.-MASTER F. GREEN WAS KILLED. “We have already announced the death at the front in France of Quartermaster-Sergt. F. Green, but at the time we had few details regarding his death. We have since received a copy of a letter written by the captain of his company to a London lady, who was a friend of his. It is as follows: — “May 27th, 1916. “17a, [17th?] Sherwood Foresters, B.E.F. “Dear Madam, — It is with deep regret that I have to inform you that my Quartermaster- Sergeant, Frederick Green, was killed last Sunday night when in the execution of his duties. I do not know his next of kin, but have taken the liberty of reading your letter of the 20th to him, and I realise from the feeling you express to him in it that his sad death will be the cause of deep sorrow to you. Believe me, I sympathise with you very deeply, for apart from my high regard for poor Green as one of the best Quartermaster-Sergeants one could hope to have, I also had a very real personal liking for him. No one could have been more thorough or more conscientious. It was, in fact, this very thoroughness that cost him his life, as he came up to report to me in person, before he could get my message to go back, that the men's rations were all delivered. It was a very dangerous bit of trench, and it happened unluckily that a rifle grenade burst near him. Mercifully he was killed instantly, and could not have known a moment's suffering. He is buried in a little British cemetery not very far away, and we have put up a wooden cross on his grave, which I will see is looked after so long as we are anywhere in this neighbourhood. The poor fellow was very popular with the men. One can scarcely pay a Quartermaster-Sergt. a higher compliment, as only a very tactful and unselfish man can hope to be really popular in that position. From the start of this Company to the day of his death, he worked with unflagging zeal, and he was in most, if not in every respect, the most valuable man in the Company. I can scarcely realise that we shall work together no more. I am sorry I do not know your surname, and am addressing this simply to “Marianne,” hoping it will reach you safely. — Believe me, dear Madam, yours sincerely, S. F. BROOKFIELD, Captain.” [1] Captain Sydney Freeman Brookfield, 17th Battalion Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire Regiment, formerly Border Regiment, was killed in action on 3rd September 1916. Commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, he was the 33 year-old son of Sydney Walter and Susan Thorne Brookfield, of 49 Charing Cross, S.W. The above article and information is courtesy of Jim Grundy and his facebook pages Small Town Great War Hucknall 1914-1918.