LANCE CORPORAL DOUGLAS BRAUND KENT
LONDON REGIMENT, PRINCE OF WALES OWN CIVIL SERVICE RIFLES
9TH SEPTEMBER 1915 AGE 35
BURIED: CHOCQUES MILITARY CEMETERY, FRANCE
The sense of this inscription must be 'rather death than dishonour' although the word 'salir' means smear, tarnish or stain not dishonour. The French themselves would write, 'plutot la mort que le deshonneur' (the database won't take the accents).
Lance-Corporal Kent's wife, Dorothy, chose his inscription; the wife who had tried to divorce him in October 1908, four years after they were married, but whose petition had been struck out in October 1909. I can't tell what happened after that: there is no sign of either Douglas or Dorothy in the 1911 census, but their three-year-old daughter, also Dorothy, was living with her grandmother.
Douglas Kent, a First Class Clerk in the Estate Duty Office at Somerset House, served with the 15th Battalion the London Regiment, the Prince of Wales' Own Civil Service Rifles. His army number indicates that he volunteered in September 1914. He died of wounds a year later when the regiment were taking part in support duties in preparation for the Battle of Loos.