ALBERT ANDERSON

Albert Edward Anderson was born in February 1897. His parents, John (a carpenter) and Elizabeth, lived at 740 Main North Road, near Sheldon Park. Albert attended Belfast School and was working as an electrician when he joined the Army in July 1917, aged 20.

Qualifying as a First Class Signaller before embarking for Liverpool, he arrived in France in June 1918. For some time, he worked as part of the Entrenching Battalion, digging the never-ending trenches in preparation for the final offensives to be undertaken against the Germans. A report in The Press on 8 November 1918 noted that he had been recently wounded in the left thigh, and was “seriously ill with broncho-pneumonia.” In fact, Albert Anderson was recovering from this wound (sustained on 5 September 1918) at the Base Deport at Etaples, where he contracted pneumonia and died at Étaples on 31 October 1918. He is buried in the Military Cemetery there. He is commemorated on the Belfast War Memorial and on his family's headstone in the Belfast Cemetery (see below).

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