Service number: 27789 | Rank: Private | Regiment: Royal Dublin Fusilers
Killed in action, October 3, 1916, in Greece. Aged 31.
Buried at STRUMA MILITARY CEMETERY, Greece.
WHAT I KNOW ABOUT EDMUND …
Edmund was born in March 1886 to William and Sarah Talbot. William was a self-employed upholsterer and the couple lived at 80 Bury Road. When Edmund left school he became a domestic page in the town. At the outbreak of war he went to Norwich to enlist and joined the war with the Norfolk Regiment, and given the service number of 13096. At some point in the fighting he was attached to the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, possibly when returning to the Front after recovering from injury.
On 3rd October, the 6th and 7th Battalions of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers were tasked with taking the small Greek town of Yenikoi. At 5am the British artillery opened up on the village setting a few houses on fire and half an hour later the troops moved in. Within half an hour the village was taken and the Fusiliers suffered no casualties in the process. The trouble is the operation had gone too well and as the troops dug in the Bulgarian troops were merely 450 yards away and their artillery then fired upon the Fusiliers. The British replied with their artillery but their shells fell on to the Fusiliers and the latter suffered many casualties. The Fusiliers withdrew from the Front so they could reorganise and upon being reinforced they again went on the offensive late into the night, capturing many Bulgarian prisoners while doing so. During this confusing action Edmund was killed.
During October 1916 Edmund’s parents received official notification from the War Office stating he had been wounded and was also unaccounted for, however the family had already received letters from his comrades stating that he had been killed. A week later they received the official notification from the War Office stating that Edmund had been killed during fighting at the Front. Edmund was not married. He was 31 years old. His father provided the inscription for his headstone, “Gone But Not Forgotten“.