Photo courtesy of © Richard Price
Remembering the Fallen: on this day in 1918, Private Robert James Evans Johnstone, Army Service Corps, Motor Transport, died while in service in France. In his role as a driver, he was involved in a fatal accident while at General Headquarters.
Born and raised in the British West Indies, he had moved to England before the outbreak of the Great War, married in 1916, and settled in Dorking in Surrey. He joined the army, serving with the 9th (Queen’s Royal) Lancers and also the 21st (Empress of India’s) Lancers before being attached to the Army Service Corps. Towards the end of 1918, the Army Service Corps was given the prefix “Royal” in recognition of the essential services provided in supplying troops during the war.
Private Johnstone is buried in the Etaples Military Cemetery, Pas-de-Calais in France, and he is remembered on the Crawley and Ifield war memorial, as well as the St. John’s Church war memorial in Crawley.
Robert was 27 years old.