GUNNER GODFREY DAVID FLEMING SMITH
ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY
9TH SEPTEMBER 1916 AGE 20
BURIED: HEILLY STATION CEMETERY, MERICOURT-L'ABBE, FRANCE
Unfortunately this is all I have been able to discover about the death of Gunner Smith. I don't know what the incident was nor what happened to the friend. Godfrey Smith appears to have been the only gunner from 187th Brigade to have died on the 9th September 1916 but Heilly Station Cemetery was a Casualty Clearing Station cemetery so the incident could have happened some days earlier.
Smith's mother, Mrs Annie Smith, chose his inscription. Someone, a friend or her son's officer, must have written to tell her about the event. It is a real example of the much used quotation from St John 15:13, which so many memorial committees and bereaved families chose for an inscription:
Greater love hath no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends.