Albert Pierce
Date of birth: 1920
Date of death: 15.8.1943
Area: Kirkhamgate
Regiment: Green Howards
Family information: Son of Mrs Elizabeth Pierce
Rank: Private
Service number: 4542324
War Service
When war broke out Albert enlisted and became Private 4542324 with the Green Howards (Alexandra, Princess of Wales’ Own Yorkshire Regiment) 7th Battalion. He fought with them in the Sicily campaign codenamed “Operation Husky” as part of the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division, but was killed on 15th August 1943 – two days before the end of the campaign – and buried in Catania War Cemetery, Sicily. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists him as “son of Elizabeth Peat of Kirkhamgate, Yorks.”
On 25th September 1943 the Wakefield Express published news of his death:
“KILLED IN ACTION – News has been received by Mrs Pierce of 212, Batley Road, Kirkhamgate, that her son, Private Albert Pierce, serving in the Green Howards, has been reported killed in action in the C.M.F. He was 23 years of age and was employed at Thomas Ambler and Sons, East Ardsley Mills. He was educated at Kirkhamgate Council School.”
Family Life
Albert was half-brother to Robert Pierce (also on the Kirkhamgate Memorial) as they shared the same mother, Elizabeth Pierce, although at the time of his death she had remarried and was called Elizabeth Peat.
Albert was born in 1920 and when the 1939 Register was taken, he was living at 212, Batley Road, Kirkhamgate with his mother and working as a cotton jobber. Also living at home were his three sisters, Doris (b 1915 so was half-sister to Albert and sister to Robert) and Phyllis (b 1921) who were cotton spinners and Lillian (b 1926) who was still at school, and a brother Leonard (b 1924) who was a Cotton Bobbin Setter.
Catania War Cemetery
