Name
Walter Henry Booker Sims
27 June 1897
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
APSLEY END (ST. MARY) CHURCHYARD
United Kingdom
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Hemel Hempstead Town Memorial,
Not on the Apsley End memorial
Pre War
Walter Henry Booker Sims (known as Harry) was born on 27 June 1897 in Lambourne, Hungerford, Berkshire, the eldest son of Walter and Gertrude Sims and one of five children, although two of them died in early childhood.
On the 1901 Census the family were living in Oxford Street, Lambourne, Berks where his father was working as a Blacksmith. They had moved to Letcombe Regis, Wantage, Berks by 1911. Harry left school in 1911 and did not follow the footsteps of his father as a Blacksmith but worked as an Errand Boy.
When he was 15 years old he joined the Royal Navy as a Boy 2nd Class and was sent to HMS Ganges, the onshore training establishment at Shotley, Suffolk. The standard length of service was 12 years, which was to begin on his 18th birthday on 27 June 1915. He was said to have been just over 4ft 11ins tall. He served on HMS Hawke from June to October 1913, then on HMS Endymion for about a month before returning to HMS Hawke on 17 November 1913. Sadly, he became ill with Acute Rheumatism and was invalided from the service on 5 December 1913.
His mother later lived at 14 Frogmore Crescent, Apsley End, Hemel Hempstead.
Wartime Service
He must have recovered sufficiently from the acute rheumatism to re-enlist at the outbreak of war and served in the Royal Marine Light Infantry (Reg. No. 18726) and is said to have been on HMS Princess Royal at the Battle of Jutland. Although the Princess Royal was hit nine times during the battle Harry survived but lost 22 of his crew mates. He was then on naval patrol around the British coastline with support duties at the Battle of Heligoland-Bight in 1917.
In February 1919 he was badly injured when he fell from the mast rigging and landed on his head on the deck. He was transferred to a hospital ship, HMS Garth Castle, at Scapa Flow for treatment and eventually brought to Portsmouth. Owing to the seriousness of his injuries, he was invalided out of the Navy again on 31 May 1919 and awarded a Silver War Badge. He was transferred to the West Herts Hospital in Hemel Hempstead where his family were then living and continued to be treated for his injuries, but sadly, he did not recover and in October suffered a fatal heart attack, indirectly attributable to his earlier fall and the rheumatic fever he had in 1913. He died on 17 October 1919 at the West Herts Hospital aged 22 and is buried in the churchyard of St Mary's, Apsley.
Additional Information
Not found in CWGC records, probably because he was already discharged from service at the time of his death. His mother later lived at 14 Frogmore Crescent, Apsley End, Hemel Hempstead and that maybe his only connection with this location.
His father Walter Snr served in the war as a Staff Farrier with the Royal Field Artillery and survived.
Acknowledgments
Brenda Palmer
Jonty Wild, www.dacorumheritage.org.uk, www.hemelheroes.com.
