Rifleman 305512 Bertie Bates

1st/5th Battalion London Regiment (London Rifle Brigade) and posted to 2nd/8th Battalion London Regiment (Post Office Rifles) at the time of his death.

Killed in Action on the Western Front 23rd March 1918 aged 19 years. The German Spring Offensive was launched on the 21st March 1918 until midnight of the 7th August 1918, the day before the Allied Forces launched their offensive against the German Army known as the Advance to Victory.

Bertie Bates is commemorated on the Pozieres Memorial, Somme, France. This memorial has over 600 names from the Rifle Brigade included in the 14,655 names of missing casualties from this German Offensive.

Son of Charles and Maria Bates who was born in 1871 in St. John's, Newfoundland. They were married in Halifax, Canada and recorded as an Armed Forces Marriage. They came to Rothley where Bertie was born in 1899 and lived in Aqua Pura Villa, Rothley Road, Mountsorrel, within the Ecclesiastical Parish of Rothley. Brother to Nellie Elizabeth, Robert Butt and Reginald Charles

Named on the Rothley War Memorial and War Memorials in Mountsorrel