SERJEANT PERCY TUCKER
LONDON REGIMENT ROYAL FUSILIERS
17TH SEPTEMBER 1916 AGE 31
BURIED: COMBLES COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION, FRANCE
Serjeant Tucker was killed in action in a local attack at Leuze Wood near the village of Combles, which is where his body was discovered in a temporary grave in 1920. His brother Reginald had been killed in Flanders two months earlier. Their father Jonah, chose both their inscriptions. Reginald's says:
We are more than conquerors
Through him
That loved us
This comes from Romans 8:37 and is an introduction to the beautiful passage about nothing being able to separate us from the love of God - "neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature". If Reginald's inscription is about the permanence of God's love, what is Percy's about? It sounds like the words of a conscientious objector - whenever I speak in favour of peace I am shouted down. I don't think Percy Tucker can have been one or he wouldn't have achieved the rank of serjeant, but that doesn't mean to say that he didn't speak out in favour of peace.
Percy Tucker was an elementary school teacher in London when he enlisted in the 2nd Battalion The London Regiment, Royal Fusiliers. Reginald was a miller's clerk in Chippenham, Wiltshire where both brothers had been born and where both are commemorated on the Tabernacle Congregational Church Memorial. There's a Frederick Tucker on this memorial too. Percy and Reginald's eldest brother was called Frederick but it has not been possible to establish whether this is their brother.