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 7416 1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment
George Cross was born in Sudbury in 1888, the son of William and Sarah Cross. His father was employed as a silk weaver, his mother as a tailoress and the family lived at 12 Garden Row. By 1911 his widowed mother had moved to 47 Mill Lane, Sudbury.
George enlisted in Bury St. Edmunds and served as a regular soldier with the Suffolk Regiment. In 1911 he was stationed at Mustapha Pasha Barracks in Alexandria, Egypt.
When war was declared George was stationed in Khartoum in the Sudan. He landed in France with the battalion at Le Havre on 16 January 1915. The battalion which formed part of 84th Brigade, 28th Division saw action in Belgium including the Second Battle of Ypres where the first gas attacks were launched by the Germans on 22 April 1915.
It was reported in the Suffolk and Essex Free Press that George had been captured and held as a Prisoner of War. George was held prisoner at Giessen Camp near Frankfurt as his sister received a postcard from him.
He died on 17 December 1918 and lies buried in Chambieres French National Cemetery, Metz, Moselle, France. It is possible that weakened by his time as a prisoner of war he may have succumbed to the influenza pandemic that killed more lives globally than all the casualties on both sides during the First World War.
It is intended that a Cross of Remembrance will be laid by his grave in September 2018. George was awarded the 1914-15 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal.
His younger brother Ernest lost his life in 1916 serving with the Royal Fusiliers and is also remembered on the Sudbury War Memorial.
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