Arthur Slater was born in 1896, in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire. He attested on the 17th October, 1914 in Ashton-under-Lyne with a group of pals and they joined the 1/9th Manchester Regiment.
Arthur fought in Gallipoli, where he was wounded and evacuated to Hospital in Cairo for a month. He later rejoined his regiment in Gallipoli and left there for Egypt on 29th December, 1915. The 1/9th Manchesters spent 1916 in Egypt and then in March 1917 left Alexandria for France. Arthur was wounded again in France and after recovering in the UK returned to France with the 1st/Sherwoods in April 1918.
Leonard John Monks was born in 1898 in Warrington, Lancashire. He attested in February 1915 in Warrington when he was 16 years old and was assigned as an orderly to the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC).
He trained at Aldershot before shipping out to Alexandria in May 1915 as part of the mobilization of the 21st British General Hospital, arriving in Egypt on May 29, 1915. From here he was assigned to the Hospital Ship VITA where he remained for the rest of the war spending time sailing between Bombay and Mesopotamia and then up and down the East Coast of Africa.