Charles Snelling

The bullet that killed Charles Snelling of the Irish Leinster Regiment in Heuvelland on an icy cold (down to -17° C) and snowed under on February 1, 1917, also pierced all the papers in his leather wallet. Thus, a corner was torn off from a field service postcard (pre-printed postcard) that had not yet been sent, on which Charles made known that he was doing reasonably well. On a photo in his wallet his wife Alice looks worried and their daughter Nellie has already grown quite a bit. Daddy, however, would no longer be in their midst from now on. Private Charles Snelling is buried at Pond Farm Cemetery in Wulvergem.

Charles Snelling was born in Newington near Sittingbourne as the son of an Irish family who had emigrated to Kent. From March 1916, he came to the front with the 7th Leinsters battalion as part of the predominantly Catholic 16th Irish Division. At rest the Irish lay around Loker, in support in Kemmel and at the front in the trenches for Wijtschate, opposite the German positions at Maedelstede, Spanbroekmolen and Kruisstraat. On 1 February 1917 a group of 30 German soldiers carried out a raid, dressed in white camouflage suits. Irish machine gun fire fought off the attack, but Charles Snelling and 3 other soldiers were killed.