Subject

M.C., King's African Rifles, died in East Africa.

Andrew Behan has researched Pascall and writes:
From what I have been able to find, this would seem to be the case of a young, sensitive theological student at Oxford University being thrust into war, exemplarily discharging his duties, but finding that the traumatic stress became to much. A sad end to a promising life.

Lieutenant Paul Mervyn Pascall. He was born in late 1891 in Stroud, Gloucestershire, the youngest son of James and Stella Pascall, nee Lewis. His father was a Draper's Manager. The 1901 census shows the family living at 18 Ferme Park Road, Stroud Green, Hornsey. He was shown as a Theological Student in the 1911 census, living with his widowed mother and an elder brother and sister at 34 Wood Lane, Highgate.

He enlisted as a private in the Honorable Artillery Company, service number 3008, and entered France on 27 April 1915 where he remained until 16 June 1915. He was commissioned as an officer and served in the 14th Battalion of the Duke of Cambridge's Own (Middlesex) Regiment and was later attached to both the Royal West Indies Regiment and to the King's African Rifles. He was awarded, in his absence, his Master of Arts from Oxford University on 10 July 1916. He commanded his column's Stokes Mortar Battery and at one point during the campaign he remained on his own on the mortar line to face an enemy attack and fired all his bombs at the enemy. He was covered by a small party of the 1st/2nd King's African Rifles' Askari and he broke up the enemy attack. He was awarded the Military Cross in King George V's Birthday Honours List, published on 4 June 1917.

He died, aged 26 years, on 13 January 1918 and is buried in Grave 5. C. 3. in the Dar es Salaam War Cemetery, Bayamoyo Road, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Probate records gives his address as Schaedats Farm, British East Africa, and his effects totalled £328-0s-8d. He was posthumously awarded the 1914-15 Star, the British War Medal 1914-1918 and the Victory Medal. The circumstances of his death are not known, but the WW1 Service Medal & Award Roll records his death as suicide.