Lieutenant Vivian Donald Berry Collins

Lieutenant Vivian Donald Berry Collins   

What we do know about you

You were a friend of my family, my ancestors the Slater family of 19, Vernon Street, Derby, and the Smith family of Highfield Road, Derby. We have your photograph in a family album, the album of Charles Sydney Smith, but we no longer know anything of your family.

You were a lieutenant in the 2^nd or 13^th Battalion The Sherwood Foresters in March 1915, and you were killed on May 9^th 1915 when leading an attack near Richebourg. You remain in France with no known grave, and are commemorated at Le Touret Memorial. You were 30 at the time. You were the son of William Andrew and Emma Collins.

We know you were at one time in the King Edwards Own Gurka Rifles (The Sirmoor Rifles). We are not sure if this was an attachment made in 1915 from the Sherwood Foresters, or if you had joined The Sirmoor Rifles before your return from the Indian sub-continent in 1914-15.

Before the war you were a member of The Survey of India. In 1911 you surveyed the Siachen Glacier and Mountains Of East Karakoram and Teram Kangri , and you also wrote a paper “The Triangulation up the Hunza River and Gorge"

Your Derby friend Major Charles Sydney Smith MC, Sherwood Foresters and Machine Gun Corps, survived the great war but died of influenza in November 1918. His only son Victor Sydney Smith was born in July 1919. His younger brother ( Lt. in 1915) Frank Wooley Smith OBE, DFC, Sherwood Foresters and Royal Flying Corps, survived the war and served in WW2 in The Assam Light Horse, on the Ledo Road  and related airlift operations. His elder brother, Private Joseph Arthur (alias “Pete”) Smith, joined the Canadian Engineers, 259^th Battalion, in Ontario in 1918, and served in the Canadian Siberian Expedition.

If any descendant or family member or researcher reads this post and knows anything about this special friend of my ancestors, please get in touch with me.

Nigel S. Aspdin
19 Vernon Street
Derby DE1 1FT
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1332-345342 *
Mobile Tel: +44 (0)7751-278376 *
* Please use voicemail if unavailable
Email: aspdin@gmail.com

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