PERCY REGINALD COOPER was serving as a Private with the 2nd Battalion, The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry when he was killed in action on 30th July 1916 during the Battle of The Somme. He was aged 25 and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, having no known grave.

He was the son of William and Isabella Edith Cooper, of Sibford Road, Hook Norton, having been born in Swerford and had worked as a labourer before the war.

The 2nd Battalion were involved in the bloody battle for Delville Wood, a thick tangle of trees, with dense hazel thickets, intersected by grassy rides, to the east of Longueval. As part of a general offensive starting on 14th July, General Douglas Haig, Commander of the British Expeditionary Force, intended to capture the German second position between Delville Wood and Bazentin le Petit. The attack achieved this objective and was a considerable though costly success. British attacks and German counter-attacks on the wood continued for the next seven weeks. On 30th July 1916 at 0445 they attacked German positions but were beaten back by heavy machine gun fire and took heavy casualties of 217 killed, missing or wounded. Private Cooper was reprted missing and assumed dead.

Steve Kingsford