TASKER Richard Greaves

The battle of La Boisselle was fierce with bomb and bayonet fights over successive lines of trenches.  The companies became confused, control became impossible and the platoons stormed forward as best they could, led by their subalterns and N.C.O.’s.  The battle continued among the shattered buildings and ruins of the village.  The battalion lost a third of its fighting strength including 9 officers, one of whom was Captain Tasker.

Source for additional information: The Worcestershire Regiment in the Great War by Captain H. FitzM. Stacke of the Regiment, 1928.

Richard Tasker was born in 1888. He attended Bromsgrove School from 1900 to 1908 in Gordon House where he was a Head Monitor and played for the school XV team. Tasker was an Exhibitioner of Worcester College, Oxford. When the war broke out he was a student of the Inner Temple and about to be called. He obtained a commission in the Worcestershire Regiment and received his €œsecond star€ (i.e. Lieutenant) three months later. In January 1915 he married and went to the Front in July being promoted to Captain in September. Only son of the late Mr W.B.G. Tasker of Worcester. He leaves a widow and a son aged three months.

Source: Bromsgrove School at War 1914-19 by Philip Bowen and Bromsgrove School at War 1914-19 by David Cross.

A photograph of Captain R.G. Tasker can be found in Berrow’s Worcester Journal Supplement, Saturday 22nd July 1916, available at Worcestershire Archives.