In April 1918, the parents of Hugh R. Dale-Harris received a letter that no parent wants to read. “I very much regret but I must inform you that your son who was in my battery is missing since the morning of March 21,” wrote Major Douglas Scott on April 9, 1918. Hugh was on duty near the trenches looking after a gun that was used against tanks. He was with four men and two found their way back to the battery and said they saw a thick mist and the Germans got close to the gun without being seen. “When nearly surrounded of course by very superior numbers your son told the men to clear out and get away if they could,” wrote Scott. “The men who escaped say the last they saw of him he was firing his revolver at the Germans at about 40 yards,” he wrote. “I fear your son must have been killed as he was not the sort who would let himself be captured easily however great the odds against him.”

Lieutenant Colonel Hugh was in fact captured and taken to a German prisoner of war camp. His family wrote letters to each other regularly, updating each other on the status of Hugh and the rest of the family. Hugh’s brothers Alan and Edmund also served in the war. “I have not heard from Hugh yet but I don’t think there is any occasion to worry about him,” wrote Alan to his parents on April 27, 1918. “I think Hugh is better off as a prisoner than if he were still in the fight.”

All three brothers survived the war.

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