CORPORAL GERALD EDMONDS PATTINSON
MACHINE GUN CORPS (HEAVY BRANCH)
15TH SEPTEMBER 1916 AGE 31
BURIED: COMBLES COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION, FRANCE
The British Army used tanks in battle for the first time at Flers-Courcelette on 15 September 1916. Corporal Pattinson was a member of C14 (No. 509) under the command of Second Lieutenant Francis Arnold. C14 took part in the attack on Bouleaux Wood but after using its machine guns to good effect it ditched in a shell hole. Pattinson and three other crew members attempted to dig it out but were attacked by German grenade throwers. When a grenade landed among the group Pattinson picked it up to throw it back but it exploded and killed him. The full story is told here.
This is the action that gave rise to his inscription with its distinct echo of the sacrifice that Christ himself made: - "He saved others; himself he cannot save," St Matthew 27:42.
The Pattinson family must have had a difficult war since Mrs Pattinson was a German citizen, born in Hamburg in 1851, and at the time of the 1911 census they had a German domestic servant in the household.