Sergeant Hatton Dunnica TOWSON (1913)

328th US Infantry, 82nd Division
Born 11 December 1891 in Kobe, Japan
Died 27 September 1919 in Cairo, Grady County, Georgia, USA, aged 27
Buried at Cedar Grove Cemetery, Lebanon, Wilson County, Tennessee, USA.

Hatton Towson was the son of missionaries Revd Willard E Towson and Emily, née Hatton, of Ashbeven, Georgia, USA.

He was educated at the Webb School, Bell Buckle, Tennessee, and Emory College, Georgia—where he won the College’s tennis championship cup for three successive years—before coming to Merton as a Rhodes Scholar in 1913.

Refusing to claim the exemption open to him as a Theology student, he served with the US Army in France. He was discharged in January 1919 as unfit for service due to his wounds.

After the war he returned to Merton before going back to the United States; he was offered the role of Pastor of the Pelham Circuit of the South Georgia Methodist Conference, but declined as he planned to continue his missionary work in Japan.

He died on 27 September 1919, failing to recover from an operation made necessary by the wounds he received on active service at the Battle of Argonne.