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Lance Corporal 18150 Frederick William Mobbs
32nd Battalion, the Royal Fusiliers
Frederick was born in and a resident of Holcot,
and enlisted from Northampton. He was killed in action 7th June
1917 in France, aged 21 on the first day of the Flanders Offensives
that would continue until the mud all but broke the British
Army in December that year. Frederick was the son of Mr. and
Mrs. C. Mobbs, of Main St., Holcot, Northampton.
He has no known grave but is remembered on panels
6 and 8 of the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial.
Private 4695 Edward Sabin
10th (Prince of Wales' Own) Hussars.
Edward was born in, a resident of and enlisted
from Northampton.
He was an "Old Contemptible" who served in the
regular British Army before the war and was wounded twice during
his service. The first time on the 12th November 1914, whilst
his unit was holding the trenches at Zillebeke and Klein Zillebeke
as part of the 6th Brigade, who were in support of the 4th Guards
Brigade.
The second time was in one of the very rare and
perhaps the last cavalry charge of the war, during the infamous
carnage at Monchy-Le-Preux on the 11th April 1917, one of the
phases of the Battle of Arras. The 8th Cavalry Brigade, including
Edward, charged German positions as a part of a combined attack
in the driving snow to take several fortified positions east
of Arras. A squadron of the Essex Yeomanry made a probing advance
to Lone Copse, North West of the village, while a detachment
of 10th Hussars galloped towards the village itself and were
met by machine-gun fire and high-explosive artillery fire. The
artillery fire also hit the rest of the 8th Cavalry Brigade
on the slopes of Orange Hill, but a snowstorm allowed them to
escape. From "Stalemate" by J.H. Johnson, attributed from "And
All for What" by D.W.J. Cuddeford, 1933:
"During a lull in the
snowstorm an excited shout was raised that our cavalry were
coming up! Sure enough, away behind us, moving quickly in extended
order down the slope of Orange Hill, was line upon line of mounted
men covering the whole extent of the hillside as far as we could
see. It was a thrilling moment for us infantrymen, who had never
dreamt that we should see a real cavalry charge, which was evidently
what was intended. In their advance the lines of horsemen passed
over us rapidly, although from our holes in the ground it was
a rather 'worm's eye' view we got of the splendid spectacle
of so many mounted men in action. It might have been a fine
sight, but it was a wicked waste of men and horses, for the
enemy immediately opened on them a hurricane of every missile
they had"
A passage in Gibbs' "From Bapaume to Passchendaele"
1917, includes part of a journalist's battle report, which adds:
"It is a small place
that village, but yesterday, perched high beyond Orange Hill,
it was the was the storm-centre of all the world conflict, and
the Battle of Arras paused till it was taken. The story of the
fight for it should live in history, and is full of strange
and tragic drama. Our cavalry- the 10th Hussars, the Essex Yeomanry,
and the Blues- helped in the capture of this high village, behaving
with the greatest acts of sacrifice to the ideals of duty. I
saw them going up over Observation Ridge and before they reached
that point; the dash of the splendid bodies of men riding at
the gallop in a snow-storm which had covered them with white
mantles and crowned their steel hats. Afterwards I saw some
of these men being carried back wounded over the battlefield,
and the dead body of their general, on a stretcher, taken by
a small party of troopers through the ruins of another village
to his resting place.
Many gallant horses
lay dead, and those which came back were caked in mud, and walked
with drooping heads, exhausted in every limb. The bodies of
dead boys lay all over these fields. But the cavalry rode into
Monchy and captured the north side of the village, and the enemy
fled from them.
Meanwhile English troops
of the 37th Division - Warwicks and Bedfords, East and West
Lancashire battalions, and the Yorks & Lancs- were advancing
on the right and linking up for the attack on Monchy in conjunction
with the Jocks (15th Division). On the left bodies of cavalry
assembled for a combined attack with Hotchkiss and machine guns;
and at about five o'clock yesterday morning (reported on the
12th April 1917) they swept upon the village."
Although the early phases of the Arras offensives
went well, by this action, the weather conspired to slow the
advance down and British casualty figures started to take on
their familiarly high look. Lance Corporal Harold Mugford of
the Essex Yeomanry won a Victoria Cross for his actions helping
to hold the village that day, as Edward lay in the snow, wounded,
and waiting to be evacuated.
Edward was evacuated back through the medical
system, eventually finding himself in the sprawling Administrative
areas around Etaples.
He died from his wounds on the 21st April 1917
in France, aged 28 having been wounded some ten days earlier
at the Battle of Arras. He was the son of Thomas and Ann Sabin,
of Holcot, and is buried in grave XIX. E. 12A. in the Etaples
Military Cemetery.
Signaller (Private) 7012 Frederick Tarry
1st Battalion, the Royal Fusiliers
Frederick was born in, a resident of and enlisted
from Northampton. He was killed in action 11th October 1918
in France, aged 27, during the "Pursuit to the Selle" in the
final phases of the war. He was the son of Mr. D. Tarry, of
'Halcott' (this should read Holcot) Northampton and is buried
in Grave V. B. 13. of the St. Aubert British Cemetery.
Lance Corporal 73722 Gordon Clark Drage Winder
28th (Saskatchewan Regiment) Canadian Infantry
Gordon was killed in action 15th September 1915
in France, aged 24. The son of the late William John Winder
and Fanny Garratt Winder, he has no known grave but is remembered
on the Vimy Memorial
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