Notes for Lance Sergeant Henry 'Harry' ADKINS From the Kings Own Royal Lancaster Regiment museum website - Lance Sergeant Henry Adkins, number 10720. Overseas: 23 Aug 1914. ... 1st Battalion Orders of 4 Aug 1914 show his promotion to Lance Sergeant. Discharged on 31 Dec 1919 and received the Silver War Badge.
Harry was captured on the third day of the war and was in POW camps for the duration. [122]
Family notes for Lance Sergeant Henry 'Harry' ADKINS and Joanna Helena LETSCH It appears that Henry ADKINS was illegitimate. [122]
Harry trained as an infantryman with the Royal Warwickshire Regiment but went to war
with the Kings Own Royal Lancaster Regiment. He was shipped to France and joined WWI
at the beginning. Three days into the war Harry was captured in the 'bloodbath' of
Le Cateau and was imprisoned in several German prisoner of war camps for the rest of
the war. This led to a very important event where Harry was under house arrest in
The Hague being nursed by his future wife. We do not know of Harry's injuries, was
he shot at Le Cateau or suffering from the effects of internment - we do not know.
On 09 October 1918, Sgt Harry Adkins married Joanna Helena Letsch at The Hague. [122],[124]
Harry and Joanna moved back to Warwick where Mart was born 27 March 1920. Harry's
mother, Elizabeth, appears to have passed away in December 1918 so did they ever
meet again? By all accounts Johanna was homesick so they made the trip back to
Holland to be with her family. [122]
Harry and Johanna had three more children, Harry b.1922, Elizabeth b.1925 and George
b.1927. All three children were Dutch citizens. In 1929 Johanna passed away, we
cannot find out the cause of death, and Harry followed suit 12 months later. Some
say that Harry died of a 'broken heart', a euphemism for many things, did he take
his own life? As a result of this Mart and brother Harry were put in an orphanage in
Holland and let out as adults in 1939 ... only to be interned by the occupying
German forces and sent to many prisoner of war camps around Poland and Italy. Mart
held a British identity and was seen as alien. As funny goes, what Harry did in WWI,
Mart and brother Harry did in WW2. Crazy! Siblings Elizabeth and George stayed in
Holland as citizens and the ADKINS surname is still in use there. [122]
The webmaster feels a certain affinity to Harry and Johanna. All marriages in The
Netherlands have to be a civil ceremony (you can go to church afterwards if you
wish), and in The Hague they would have gone to the Stadspaleis (Town Hall) in
Javastraat for the ceremony. I was married there too! My mother's name was also
Adkins. [95]
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