2nd Lieutenant John Stewart WACHER
1st Battalion Queen's Own (Royal West Kent Regiment) attached to the 7th (Service) Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers

Date of birth: 21st March 1896
Date of death: 5th August 1916

Killed on active service aged 20
Buried at Mikra British Cemetery, Kalamaria Grave Ref 1392
He was born at Dane John in Canterbury on the 21st of March 1896 the younger son of Sidney Wacher FRCS, a surgeon, and Margaret Caroline (nee Frend) of The Hoath, St Martin’s Hill near Canterbury. He was christened at Canterbury on the 28th of April 1896.

He was educated at the Junior King’s School from January 1905 and at the King’s School Canterbury from September 1910 to July 1913 during which time he played rugby for the 2nd XV and was awarded his sports colours in 1913. He was a member of the Officer Training Corps from February 1910 and was promoted to Lance Corporal in January 1913. During his time with the Officer Training Corps he achieved a First Class Musketry Certificate and attended three annual camps. He then went to Simon Langton Grammar School for a year.

Following the outbreak of war he applied for a place at the Royal Military College Sandhurst on the 18th of August 1914, in an application which was supported by the Headmaster of King's. At a medical examination, which was held on the 14th of October, it was recorded that he was five feet ten and three quarter inches tall. He was in H Company at Sandhurst and was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion Queen’s Own (Royal West Kent) Regiment on the 16th of December 1914.

He embarked for France on the 17th of May 1915 and joined the 1st Battalion of his regiment in the field at a camp at Duderdom near Ypres on the evening of the 21st of May 1915.

On the 12th of June he was taken ill and on the 17th of June 1915 he was admitted to 14 General Hospital at Wimereaux with slight German measles. On the 19th of June he was transferred to 10 Stationary Hospital at St Omer and on the 20th of June he was evacuated and embarked on the Hospital Ship "Newhaven" at Boulogne arriving in Dover the same day. On the 21st of June he was admitted to 5th Northern Hospital at Leicester following which he appeared before a medical board which declared him to be unfit for service and gave him three weeks leave from the 25th of June. On the 16th of July he appeared before a further medical board where he was declared as "completely removed from German measles."

On the 23rd of July 1915 he reported for duty with the 3rd Battalion of his regiment at Fort Darland, Chatham. He was due to join the 2/4th Battalion of his regiment at Gallipoli but, with the evacuation of the peninsular imminent, he was attached to the 7th Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers with effect from the 15th of November 1915, although he joined them in the field at Causli in Salonica on the 6th of November. On the 24th of June 1916 he was admitted to hospital with diarrhoea but was released back to his unit on the 19th of July.

On the 5th of August 1916 the battalion was in training at Kamara where John Wacher was supervising bomb throwing practice. During the exercise a bomb exploded which killed him and seriously wounded Private Dowler. A Battalion Court of Enquiry was assembled which established that the case of the accident was due to "the premature explosion of the bomb".

His parents received the following telegram dated the 8th of August 1916:-

"Deeply regret to inform you D.A.G base Alexandria reports 2nd Lt J.S. Wacher Royal West Kent Regt was accidently killed August 5th. The Army Council express their sympathy."

He was buried about 1,000 yards to the south of Kamara on a bearing of 170 degrees from the village. A marble tombstone was erected over the grave and it was wired off. The site was later chosen as the burial ground for 10th Division.

A brother officer wrote:-

“His death cast a gloom over the battalion in which he was very popular”.

He is commemorated at Simon Langton and on the Canterbury City war memorial in the Buttermarket.
Day Boy

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