Biography of Amos Fisher Hunt (66545)
32nd Battalion Royal Fusiliers
Formerly 6/13728, T.R. Battalion
Died 29th April 1918

• Name: Ellen Fisher
• DOB: 1867
• Place Of Birth: Morton, Lincolnshire, England
• Marriage: 1895 Bourne District

• None found

• No marriage for Amos has been found and because of his age we can assume that he never had the opportunity to marry.

Newspaper Mentions

• Weekly Casualty List War Office and Air Ministry) Tuesday 25th June 1918.
  DIED
  ROYAL FUSILIERS
  Hunt 66545 A. F. (Dunsby)

• Grantham Journal Saturday 3rd May 1919
• IN MEMORIAM
• HUNT – In ever-loving memory of our dear son and brother, Pte Amos F. Hunt, Dunsby, who died at Boulogne, on April 19th 1918, aged 20 years.
• From FATHER, MOTHER, BROTHER and SISTER.

Military Records

Medals

• The British Medal
• The Victory Medal

Memorials

• UK:
• Dunsby, Roll of Honour in All Saints Church

• In Memory of Private Amos Fisher Hunt, 66545, 32nd Battalion Royal Fusiliers who died on 29 April 1918 Age 20.
• Son of Philip Lound Hunt and Ellen Hunt of Dunsby, Bourne, Lincs
• Remembered with Honour, Boulogne Eastern Cemetery
• “MEMORY CLINGS ALWAYS”
• Grave IX. B. 4.

© Picture taken by South Lincolnshire War Memorials

Military Service Timeline

• Amos Fisher Hunt was born in Dunsby, Lincolnshire in the spring of 1898 to Philip Lound Hunt, a farm labourer born in Dunsby in 1869 and his wife Ellen Fisher, born in Morton in 1867.
  The couple were married in 1895 in the Bourne District and so this was probably Morton.
  Amos was the eldest child of three children born to the couple:-

  • Amos Fisher Hunt, 1898, Dunsby

  • Frederick William Hunt, 1902, Dunsby

  • Phyllis Elizabeth Hunt, 1910, Dunsby
  On the 1911 census Amos Fisher Hunt was living in Dunsby aged 12 with his parents and siblings.
  We have not been able to find the full military records for Amos and like 60% of all WW1 military records they were most likely destroyed in a warehouse fire in the Blitz.
  Because of his young age and the date when he first entered the theatre of war we have to assume that he was most probably conscripted into the Army.

  In January 1916 parliament passed a bill that made conscription mandatory for any single man between the age of 18 and 41. Amos turning 18 in the spring of 1916 would mean that we would have to answer the call as so many men did on the 1st March.
  The medals rolls show that Amos Fisher Hunt was listed as T.B.D. Private 13728 T.R. (Training Reserve) Battalion and then posted to the 32nd battalion Royal Fusiliers (London Regiment) as Private G/66545.
  Amos Hunt entered the theatre of war on 21st June 1917 and the medals rolls suggest that this was with the Training reserve Battalion until the 11th September 1917 when he was posted to the 32nd Battalion Royal Fusiliers.
  Because of the lack of records we can only try and piece together Amos’ movements via the Battalion Diaries.
  The 32nd Battalion had seen action in the 3rd battle of Ypres (Battle of Passchendaele) Amos joining the Battalion in time to have served with them in the Battle for the Menin Road. From there they were involved in operations on the Flanders coast before being moved to Italy on the 13th November 1917.

  The Battalion were part of a force used to strengthen the Italian resistance and they assumed control of a front line sector behind the River Piave as part of a plan to stop the enemy taking the line. The major fighting, first Battle of Piave occurred between 10th November and 25th November.
  In this battle the German Army had taken Monte Tomba and Malette but the offensive stalled. After the first Battle the Austrian Army made a second attempt to break the Italian line between the 4th and the 24th December but with lack of artillery and an exhausted army, the front held.

  After a winter in the Italian mountains the Battalion was moved back to France on the 18th March just days ahead of what was to become the German Spring offensive.
  A reorganisation of the Army on the 18th March saw the Battalion disbanded and Amos was posted to the newly formed 36th Battalion Machine Gun Corps.

  The 36th Battalion started off April in Bourseville, entraining on the 3rd and 4th April by Companies, and moved to Brake Camp where they were joined by 15 officers and 269 other ranks reinforcements. The 4 companies were then sent out to their respective sectors under the command of 36th Division Headquarters.
  Without knowing which Company Amos was assigned to, it is quite difficult to trace his movements as the companies were spread across the entire divisional front.
  Each Company had 16 guns and the teams assigned to these guns would take up the gun positions assigned in their particular part of the line.
  The diary for the 17th April, north east of Ypres, reads:-

  Enemy again very active with artillery fire. 6 guns of D company relieved by 18th Regt, 4th Belgian Division, during night in accordance with orders No9.
  18th April –

  Our artillery was very active all day. The Bosche was also very active, paying special attention to Boundary Road, Buff’s Road and Hill Top.
  19th April –

  Both sides very active with artillery and machine guns
  20th April

  Enemy aircraft rather more active than usual. Our AA guns had some good targets and with tracer ammunition some good shooting was observed.
  21st April

  Our guns at Cheddar Villa fired 3000 rounds on enemy’s position during the night to which the enemy retaliated with his machine guns and artillery.
  22nd April

  B Company relieved A Company in the reserve line as detailed in order No 10.
  23rd April

  Re organisation of guns took place on the night of 22/23rd, during the 23rd and night 23/24th. Details of the re organisation are given in order 11.
  24th April

  Very quiet day nothing to report.
  25th April

  Enemy artillery very active during the night
  26th April

  Divisional line withdrawn on the night of 26/27th, new position of guns after withdrawal are shown in order No12. Battalion HQ moved from Canal Bank to Siege Camp. 1 man of A company killed by shell fire.

  As we can see from the diary here were very few casualties during this first 3 weeks of Amos serving with the Battalion.
  We do know that by the 29th of April Amos is in a hospital in Boulogne and dies on this day. Ad it would normally take a day or more to go through a casualty clearing station and then on to a field hospital and then a base/general hospital then we assume that Amos left his battalion around this point in time.
  In a soldiers effects register Amos is listed as a death in France on 29th April 1917 from Pneumonia. This is consistent with his burial in Boulogne Eastern Cemetery as Boulogne was on of the chief hospital areas and a place where men spent time waiting to be shipped back to England.
  A Commonwealth War Grave Commission Report shows that Amos was attached to the 36th Machine Gun Corps at the time of his death although most records show him as serving with the 32nd Battalion Royal Fusiliers (London Regiment).
  Amos is next mentioned in a clipping from the Grantham Journal from 3rd May 1919 in the “In Memoriam” section from his Father, Mother, Brother and Sister.

  Other comments on the CWGC records show that Amos was the Son of Philip Lound Hunt and Ellen Hunt, of Dunsby, Bourne, Lincolnshire.
  CWGC:

  Private Amos Fisher Hunt 66545, 32nd Battalion Royal Fusiliers, is remembered with honour at the Boulogne Eastern Cemetery.
  Boulogne, was one of the three base ports most extensively used by the Commonwealth armies on the Western Front throughout the First World War. It was closed and cleared on the 27 August 1914 when the Allies were forced to fall back ahead of the German advance, but was opened again in October and from that month to the end of the war, Boulogne and Wimereux formed one of the chief hospital areas.
  Until June 1918, the dead from the hospitals at Boulogne itself were buried in the Cimetiere de L’Est, one of the town cemeteries, the Commonwealth graves forming a long, narrow strip along the right hand edge of the cemetery. In the spring of 1918, it was found that space was running short in the Eastern Cemetery in spite of repeated extensions to the south, and the site of the new cemetery at Terlincthun was chosen.
  During the Second World War, hospitals were again posted to Boulogne for a short time in May 1940. The town was taken by the Germans at the end of that month and remained in their hands until recaptured by the Canadians on 22 September 1944.
  Boulogne Eastern Cemetery contains 5,577 Commonwealth burials of the First World War and 224 from the Second World War.
  The Commonwealth plots were designed by Charles Holden.

Sources

• WW1 Soldier’s Records (www.ancestry.co.uk)
• British Newspaper Archive.
• Fold 3
• Find My Past
• Genealogist
• Forces War Records
• British Army Service Numbers
• War Gratuity Calculator
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission
• National Archives – Battalion War Diaries
• General Registry Office