Lieutenant Shoosmith
Sunday 22nd August : We have just heard the sad news that one of the heroes of the 1st/5thBedfords’ attack at Gallipoli on 15th of this month has been killed. Lieutenant F S Shoosmith , the Machine Gun officer, was a favourite with his men and the whole battalion feels the loss by his death, for the work he did with his machine-gun was magnificent. He worked practically single-handed for three whole days and nights but unfortunately yesterday he was speaking with the Machine Gun Officer of the 1st/11th London Regiment in the trenches, when a sniper spotted them and shot them both. Lieutenant Shoosmith was wounded in the head and died an hour afterwards. He was unconscious to the last. He had often remarked that if it were his lot to die, he wished to die a short and unpainful death. The officer of the Londons also died later in the day(1)
Source: Luton News 16th September 1915
(1) Lieutenant Shoosmith has no known grave and is commemorated on the Helles Memorial, he was 21 and from Hart Hill, Luton. No London Regiment officer is recorded as dying that day or the next by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
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