Tag Archives: Colonel Fowler

On this day 15th October 1915

Orders were received on the night of the 14th-15th informing Colonel Goodman that he was to proceed with his Battalion and relieve the 8/Sherwood Foresters currently holding the Hohenzollern Redoubt. Their place in the British front line was be to be filled by Companies of the Guards Brigade, however this relief did not fully develop and it was shortly before dawn when three platoons of “C” Company under the command of Capt EH Heathcote arrived in the redoubt. At this time Colonel Fowler of the 8/Sherwood Foresters was killed and Colonel Goodman was ordered to return to the British Front line leaving Capt Heathcote in command of the Hohenzollern garrison. During the following night the relief was completed and the 6/Sherwood Foresters moved back Fouquereuil and thereafter to billets in Verquin.

During the fighting of the previous few days the 46th Division had suffered 180 Officers and 3583 men killed, wounded or missing. The 6/Sherwood Foresters had 13 men killed, one man missing believed killed and 2nd Lieutenants Percival and Gardiner and 48 men wounded.

The bodies of all of the men who were killed were not recovered or identified after the War and are commemorated on the Loos Memorial. The fact that so many bodies were not recovered is a testimony to the severity of the fighting and only Bernhard White from Grassmoor who died at a casualty clearing station in the Chateau at Vermelles has a known grave.

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Amongst the men killed were Benjamin Savage from Tideswall who had played in the summer cricket match and 21 year old John Steggles (“C” Company) from Chesterfield who had a number of letters published in the Derbyshire Times over the previous six months.

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