200280 PRIVATE FREDERICK HERBERT JAMES COWLES
1/4TH BATTALION SUFFOLK REGIMENT (T.F.)
KILLED IN ACTION
23RD APRIL 1917
AGE 22 YEARS
Frederick or Fred as he was known had been born in the town during the second quarter of 1895. He was the first child of nine born to Herbert, a coach trimmer and his second wife, Sarah (née Cornish). All of Fred’s early life had been spent living in Chediston Street which at that time had a not very desirable reputation and was commonly known by some as the slums of Halesworth. On leaving school in 1909 he originally found work as a draper’s boy, possibly for Roe and Co who had premises in the Market Place. Later, his father Herbert, wishing his son to learn a trade, managed to obtain a position for him with the East Suffolk Carriage Works in Bridge Street, a company that Herbert himself had been employed by from the age of twelve years some forty-five years earlier. He also encouraged Fred to enlist in the Halesworth Territorials, having himself been a long-serving and keen member of the town’s Rifle Volunteers, the forerunner of the Territorial Force that had been formed in 1908, Fred’s original Regimental number of 1788 shows that he had enlisted in November 1913. Sadly, Herbert passed away in July 1914 at the age of sixty, which left Fred as one of the main sources of income for the family.
A short time after the outbreak of World War 1 the Halesworth Times newspaper of the 25th August 1914 printed an article by the rector of St Mary’s Parish Church, the Reverend A.C. Moore, in which he listed everyone of the one hundred and twenty-eight men from the town who were at that time serving in the Armed Forces, including those who were members of the local ‘F’ Company of Territorials. These men had been mobilised on the 6th August and had joined with their comrades from other towns in the east of Suffolk to undergo intensive training at Felixstowe. Each of these men fell into one of two categories, the first being Officers and men who had signed the Imperial Service Obligation which committed them, if it was considered necessary, to serve overseas. For this they received a small sum of money and were then authorised to wear above their right tunic pocket a small badge known as the ‘Imperial Service Brooch’. The second group consisted of men who for whatever reason, felt that they were not able to make this commitment and were only prepared to serve under the original terms of service, being purely that of home defence.
Fred was listed in the second category. It is possible that he felt, after his father’s recent death, he should remain in England to support his mother. Another factor was that several of the younger members of the company who had not reached the minimum age required under the Territorial Force Regulations for men to serve overseas being that of 19 years of age. It was later reported that a number of these boys claimed that they celebrated their birthdays over the previous few days before they had sailed to France, to which their Officers and Sergeants must have turned a blind eye. As such was the excitement of what they must have felt was the beginning of a great adventure. Little did they know of the horrors that lay ahead of them. It is not known when Fred was eventually reunited with his pals from Halesworth who remained serving in the 1/4th Suffolks but as the British casualty numbers increased daily there was a desperate requirement for men to replace them, so irrespective of their original Territorial commitment, Home Defence men were now being sent to the front line as replacements.
There are two items of research that would suggest that his time came sometime in the Spring of 1916. Firstly, at the war’s end, each man or woman who had served overseas would have qualified to be awarded service medals. Their entitlement would have been listed on an individual index card. These can still be seen today. Fred’s card shows that he had not been awarded either of the medal stars awarded for the years 1914 or 1915, indicating that he must have landed in France sometime after the first day of 1916. Further research shows that in the first quarter of 1916 he had married a Harriet Manning in her hometown of Colchester in Essex. The town having been a Garrison, with several military barracks and camp, it is possible they could have first met when he had been stationed there after the men of the 1/4th Suffolks had gone their separate ways.
On the 16th April 1917, the 1/4th Suffolks were serving in the 98th Brigade of the 33rd Division where they were in the process of taking over a section of trenches that had recently been captured from the Germans who had named it the Hindenburg line. On inspection the Tommies were shocked at the construction and facilities their enemy enjoyed in comparison to their own trench systems, for they found underground sleeping quarters with properly constructed bunk beds etc. After four days they were relieved and moved back to outside of the French village of Neuville-Vitasse in preparation for a forthcoming attack that was due to take place in the early hours of 23rd April. After barely twenty-four hours rest, they were moved back into the front line, relieving the 20th Royal Fusiliers. Zero hour was set to be at 4.45am on the morning of 23rd April, St Georges Day. At the allotted time, the Suffolks climbed out of their trenches and advanced along the line of the Hindenburg trench system that remained in German hands. Initially all went well, with the hastily built barricades erected by the retreating enemy quickly torn down. The advance of the Suffolks was now so rapid that those battalions to their left and right were unable to keep pace with them. The battalion war diary for that day reports that by 6.30am their companies were just two hundred yards short of their final objective but, with both flanks exposed, they were forced to halt their advance and prepare for the inevitable counter-attack, which the Germans mounted against them just three hours later. With the Suffolks’ numbers dwindling and the enemy now able to attack them from the rear, they were compelled to carry out a hasty withdrawal over open ground, back to their original positions. By 5.30pm the remains of the battalion had regrouped in their section of the line. When the Roll was called it was found they had lost one officer and forty-one other ranks confirmed killed, with another one hundred and sixty men wounded and a total of one hundred and four men missing. The last figure possibly included young Fred; whose body was never identified. Today he is remembered on the Arras Memorial to the missing.
Although the day had proven costly in casualties for the 4th Suffolks, they had inflicted equally heavy losses on the Germans, with an unknown number of dead and wounded as well as over six hundred and forty prisoners taken. Regarding the number of prisoners, a humorous anecdote included in the Regimental History illustrates the unshakeable humour of the British Tommy. When one of the smallest men in the battalion appeared in the rear area, escorting some seventy prisoners on his own, he was asked how he had managed to collect so many by himself. He replied that “He had surrounded them”.
The Halesworth Times of the 8th January 1918 reported that Fred’s mother, who had since married Arthur Driver of 58 Chediston Street, had received notification that her son Fred, who had been missing ever since the 23d April of the previous year, was now listed as having been Killed in Action. It also stated that his young wife Harriet remained living in Colchester where she would have been awarded a widow’s weekly pension of 13s 9d (69p) which was followed during 1918-19 by a total of £18.17s.8d (£18.88p) in war gratuity.
She would also have been entitled to have received Fred’s British War and Victory medal pair and his named memorial plaque and scroll.
The location of these awards is not known.
20 YEARS
VOLUNTEER LONG SERVICE MEDAL
AWARDED TO
701 PRIVATE HERBERT COWLES
‘F’ COMPANY
1ST VOLUNTEER BATTALION, SUFFOLK REGIMENT
MARCH 1901
FRED’S FATHER