THE Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is holding events at sites both in the UK and around the world this week until May 28 in celebration of its work.

Cemeteries across England contain CWGC war graves, including in Wellington.

About 50 names of local residents recorded on the town’s war memorial in Wellington Park served in the Somerset Light Infantry during the 1914-19 Great War, according to the book Our Boys, which was complied by Mike Perry, Ray Hitchcock, and members of Wellington Local History and Museum Society.

Nearly all of them lie buried overseas.

One casualty was Lieut Arthur Bowerman, a former pupil of Wellington School, who was aged just 20 when he was killed.

Initially he joined the 8th (Service) Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry, fighting on the Western Front, but later transferred to the Army’s new air arm the Royal Flying Corps (RFC).

It was not unusual for an officer to transfer into the RFC during the war, according to local historian Chris Penney.

Mr Penney said: “Army regiments became a major source of new recruits - especially officers - for the RFC once the new aerial force was established in northern France.

“After the early bloody experiences suffered by cavalry units and their subsequent abrupt withdrawal, hundreds of cavalrymen chose to swap their horses for armoured vehicles and aeroplanes in an age when many aircraft in frontline service were still two seaters.”

The RFC was heavily engaged in the Somme offensive of 1916, and, like the rest of the Army, suffered accordingly during the failed British operation.

Between July and November, 1916, the RFC lost more than 250 aircrew killed, including Arthur Bowerman.

Although buried in Allonville Communal Cemetery in the Somme region of France, he is remembered in St John’s Church, Wellington.