For casualties whose surnames begin with other letters of the alphabet please visit the main Roath Virtual War Memorial page.

MARY ANN ELIZA YOUNG

Nurse, 57th General Hospital, Voluntary Aid Detachment

Mary Ann Eliza Young was born in Cardiff in 1883, eldest child of John Roger Young, a newspaper printer, originally from Newport and Mercy Young née Bray originally from Thornbury, Herefordshire.  She was baptized on 12 Apr 1884 at St Mary the Virgin church when the family were living at Green Street, Riverside. By the time of the 1901 census they had moved to nearby 7 Machen Place and Mary, aged 17, is described as a pupil school teacher.  From 1903 to 1905 she was a student at Cheltenham Training College where she trained to be a teacher and went on to be Assistant Mistress at Lansdowne Road Council School.   In WWI she served as a nurse. Her record shows she was with the Western General Hospital, Cardiff from Oct 1915 which was based at the Infirmary on Newport Road. From Jul 1917 she was abroad with the Voluntary Aid Detachment at the 57th General Hospital in France stationed at Boulogne and then Marseilles.  She was awarded 2 Scarlet Efficiency Stripes in Sep 1918.  Nurse Mary Young stayed on after the conflict ended to nurse soldiers with influenza. She caught the disease herself and died of pneumonia on 13 Feb 1919, aged 35.  She is buried at the Mazargues War Cemetery, Marseilles (grave III.A.57).  She is remembered on a Roll of Honour of Council employees at Cardiff City Hall and on the Wartime Nurses Memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum, Alrewas, Staffordshire.  Commonwealth War Graves Commission record. Mary’s sister Alice married an American, Thomas Frank Burt in Cardiff in 1919.  They had a daughter Josephine Mary Burt in Cardiff in 1922 and shortly after emigrated to Wisconsin.  Josephine Mary ‘Jill’ Burt served as a lieutenant in the Woman’s Medical Specialist Corps of the US Army in WWII and afterwards. She died in 2016 and is buried at an Army Veterans Cemetery in Pennsylvania.

Mary Ann Eliza Young. (Picture credits: left – Cheltenham Training College archives, centre – Imperial War Museum, right – findagrave.com )

DOUGLAS ALBERT JOHN ZERK

Assistant Cook, S.S. Empire Progress, Merchant Navy

Douglas Albert John Zerk was born in Cardiff in 1920 to Andre Gustev Zerk, a ship steward, originally from Antwerp, Belgium and Clare Evelyn May Zerk née Setchfield originally from Cardiff.  In 1921 the Zerk family were living at 27 Plasnewydd Road, Roath and in 1939 at 208 Pearl Street.  Douglas joined the merchant navy and worked as an assistant cook.  He was killed on 22 May 1941 aged 21 when the S.S. Empire Progress was bombed by enemy aircraft off the Needles in the English Channel with the loss of four crew. The S.S. Empire Progress was beached the next day at Totland Bay but was later repaired but sunk a year later in Apr 1942 in the North Atlantic after being torpedoed. Douglas Zerk is buried in  Southampton (Hollybrook) Cemetery (Sec. M. 12. Grave 89).  Commonwealth War Graves Commission record.