Sgt Arthur Ernest Kennedy (Jamieson), 29683, 2nd Battalion Wiltshire Regiment (ex-20841 Devonshire Regiment), died on October 26th, 1918, while being held as a prisoner of war in Germany.

No report of his death appeared at the time, but in an earlier letter from him to Henrietta Jamieson (described as his stepmother) at 2 Edward Street, Luton, he said he was then being held in Cassel (Kassel) and he was going on all right but the chief thing he wanted was “bread and something to spread on it – a small tin of dripping would do fine”.

His Red Cross prisoner of war record shows he was captured at St Quentin on March 21st, 1918, the opening day of the German spring offensive. He was not wounded and was taken first to Cassel and later to Mannheim, where he died in hospital, according to the Red Cross. No details of the cause of death are recorded, but his burial – a re-interment? – was, according to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, at Niederzwehren Cemetery, Kassel.

Arthur's records are confusing. The UK Soldiers Died in the Great War website gives his place of birth as Bournemouth, says he had a home address in Dunstable and he was killed in action in France or Flanders on April 26th, 1918. But Red Cross records show him born at Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, on April 27th, 1892 (although BMD records show 1891, in Stockton, under the name Jamieson) and living in Edward Street, Luton. His regiment and regimental number are the same in each case.

Although in all military records he is listed as Arthur Ernest Kennedy, on the Luton Roll of Honour and in the Luton absent voters' registers he is named as Arthur Ernest Jamieson. He was, however, included as Arthur Edward Kennedy, one of four men who died as prisoners of war, on a list published when Luton Borough War Prisoners Committee provided a dinner at the Winter Assembly Hall for around 200 returned POWs in March 1919.

Arthur's medal record shows he qualified for the British War Medal and Victory Medal. His register of effects, which says Jamieson was an alias, shows Henrietta A. Jamieson to be his mother and names two sisters as legatees, Mabel and married sister Ellen Dickens.