Casualty Details   527435  

   

Date of birth 11th September 1893. Son of Thomas and Kate Hammond, of 11, Police Station Yard, Rayne, Rd., Braintree; Thomas was born in Brentwood. Thomas and Kate moved house moved house often. In 1891 they lived in South Weald and Thomas was a railway labourer. By 1901 Thomas was a beer house keeper, and was living at Shalford Green. At that time the family consisted of mother and father, Emily, Kate, Gertrude, Thomas (jnr), Agnes and Arthur. Thomas went to Rayne School, being admitted when the family moved from Chelmsford on 17th November 1902, leaving on 10th February 1903 when the family moved again but by 1911 they were back in Rayne, living at Duck End Green. Thomas enlisted at Chelmsford. Went to France 30th May 1915. .

DUD CORNER CEMETERY, LOOS, Pas de Calais, France VIII. B. 14. Loos-en-Gohelle is a village 5 kilometres north-west of Lens. Dud Corner Cemetery is located about 1 kilometre west of the village, to the north-east of the N43 the main Lens to Bethune road. The Loos Memorial forms the side and back of Dud Corner Cemetery and commemorates over 20,000 officers and men who have no known grave, who fell in the area from the River Lys to the old southern boundary of the First Army, east and west of Grenay. The name "Dud Corner" is believed to be due to the large number of unexploded enemy shells found in the neighbourhood after the Armistice. The only burials here during hostilities were those of four Officers of the 9th Black Watch and one Private of the 8th Royal Dublin Fusiliers, close to Plot III, Row B; the remainder of the graves were brought in later from small cemeteries and isolated positions near Loos and to the North. There are now nearly 2,000, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, over half are unidentified and special headstones have been erected to 15 soldiers from the United Kingdom who are believed to be buried among them. The great majority of the dead buried here fell in the Battle of Loos, 1915; but some were killed in succeeding years. The regimental memorials brought to the Cemetery included those of the 10th Scottish Rifles and the 17th London Regiment, dating from the Battle of Loos, and those of the Royal Montreal Regiment and the Royal Highlanders of Canada, dating from the Battle of Hill 70 in August, 1917, Special memorials are erected in this Cemetery to twelve soldiers of the 2nd Welch Regiment, killed in action on the 12th October, 1915, and buried in Crucifix Cemetery, Loos, whose graves could not be found on concentration. The cemetery now covers an area of 5,550 square metres, and is bounded by a low rubble wall except on the road side, where the War Stone is raised on a grass terrace and flanked by buildings. The more important of the small cemeteries concentrated into Dud Corner Cemetery were the following:-. TOSH CEMETERY, LOOS, on the North side of the village, close to the communication trench called Tosh Alley. It contained the graves of 171 soldiers from the United Kingdom (118 of whom were Irish) and five from Canada. It was used from October, 1915, to September, 1917. CRUCIFIX CEMETERY, LOOS, a little West of Tosh Cemetery. It was used from September, 1915, to May, 1916, and it contained the graves of 53 soldiers from the United Kingdom. LE RUTOIRE BRITISH CEMETERY, VERMELLES, close to Le Rutoire Farm, which is on Loos Plain, near the village of Vermelles. It was used in 1915, and contained the graves of 82 soldiers from the United Kingdom and six French soldiers. .

Private Hammond died during the Battle of Loos in October 1915. The 9th Battalion Essex Regiment were in trenches near the village of Noyelles les Vermelles. They were waiting to attack a quarry which was a German strong point on the morning of 12th October. While they waited the trenches were hit by shells and Private Hammond was among the casualties.