15th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment
Percy John Tustin was the son of Raymond David and Elizabeth Tustin who lived at 29 Courtenay Street, Cheltenham.
Prior to the war he had been an employee of the Midland Railway Company and he may have served with the Royal Engineers before being transferred to the 15th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment, being involved for sixteen months in the Salonika campaign and then invalided home in April 1918 suffering from malaria.
Whilst no Service Record for Private Tustin has survived his Medal Index Card records service in the RAMC (number 21237), Royal Engineers (261803) and Hampshire Regiment (58584).
According to the CWGC Register his final unit was the 15th Battalion, Hampshire Regiment, however, that battalion did not serve on the Salonika Front, so it is possible that when there he was a member of the Royal Engineers and was posted to the Hampshire’s on return to the UK.
The sector occupied by British troops in Salonika was particularly unhealthy, troops there being prone to the mosquito infested plains in summer and the exposure to appalling weather during the winters; there were far more cases of illness than battle casualties.
Private Tustin was probably in a very low state of health when he was taken ill with influenza in February 1919, dying of pneumonia at Suffolk Hall VAD Hospital, on 28 February 1919 (aged 29), just after his demobilisation.
He is buried in Cheltenham Borough Cemetery, where his grave is marked by a CWGC headstone.
He is named on the Prestbury War Memorial and Prestbury (St Mary) Church War Memorial. There is a photograph of him in The Graphic of the 15 March 1919.
On the St Paul’s Memorial he is described as serving with the Royal Engineers.
Research by Graham Adams 10 February 2013