RIFLEMAN FRANK OSBORNE
LONDON REGIMENT (POST OFFICE RIFLES)
3RD APRIL 1917 AGE 19
BURIED: LIJSSENTHOEK MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
As last messages go, this is pretty heartbreaking. Nineteen-year-old Frank Osborne died of wounds in a Casualty Clearing Station at Lijssenthoek on 3 April 1917. Casualty Clearing Stations were a half-way house between the battlefield and the base hospitals; it took the less seriously wounded who could spend up to four weeks there before being returned to their units, and it kept those who were too badly wounded to travel any further down the casualty evacuation chain.
There is no information as to the nature of Frank Osborne's wound but one imagines that he was one of those too seriously wounded to be moved ... but not too seriously wounded to be able to send his mother his "dearest love" before he died. It was his mother, Mrs Charlotte Osborne, chose his inscription.