241527 Pte. Stanley Parr British Army 2nd Btn. Royal Fusiliers from:Sheffield I'm not sure when my grandfather, Stanley Parr, joined the British Army; whether he volunteered or was conscripted. He would have joined from his home city of Sheffield but it is uncertain how he found himself in the second battalion in the Royal Fusiliers, a Regular British Army formation.
His older brother, Herbert Parr, a Private in the 9th KOYLI, died of wounds in early May 2017. His grave is at Warlencourt Halte, between Arras and Doullens.
Both brothers are named on the Eccleshall War Memorial in Sheffield.
We know Stanley was captured after being gassed and wounded, probably in late 1917. He spent some time in a POW camp, Fort MacDonald near Lille, evidently with many Portuguese POWs, before being transported east to Poland where he was put to work in a salt mine. On release at the end of the war he evidently wandered eastern Europe, probably with other POWs attempting to get home. He contacted Spanish 'flu in Switzerland but was nursed back to some form of health in a Red Cross hospital there. He returned to Sheffield in 1919. We have a small silver medallion he received from the City of Sheffield indicating he was a POW 1919.
Stanley couldn't work properly because of his war injuries. He died in 1931 and is buried at the Eccleshall cemetery in Sheffield
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