History > Barford War memorial > Debt of Honour Register

 

Reminiscences 

If you have any information to add to this particular page, or would like to contribute to our History pages, please contact us.

 

Home  What's new  What's on  Community  Sherbourne  Wasperton  Church  Picture Gallery  Travel  Local Business  History  Parish Plan  Nature  People  ByPass  Recreation  Features  SmallAds  Genealogy  Guestbook  ContactUs  SiteSearch  SiteMap  Policies  Links 

  Wreaths at the Memorial
   


In Memory of FRANCIS HUBERT FREEMAN
Private
242326
“C” Coy. 2nd/6th Bn., Royal Warwickshire Regiment

who died on
Sunday 26 August 1917. Age 28.

Additional Information:
242326 Private, “C” Company 2nd/6th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire Regiment. (T.F.). 182nd (2nd Warwickshire) Brigade, 61st (2nd South Midland) Division. Killed in action during the attack on the Schuler Galleries on Sunday 26 August 1917. Age 28. The son of Joseph and Frances Freeman, 8 High Street, Barford. The husband of Sarah Louisa Rudman (formerly Freeman), of Alderham Cottages, Barford. He was born and he enlisted in Warwick, he resided in Barford. He served overseas at some time after Saturday 1 January 1916. Commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Zonnebeke, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium. He is also commemorated on a Memorial Screen, St. Peter’s Church, Barford. Holder of British War Medal, Victory Medal.

Cemetery:
TYNE COT MEMORIAL Zonnebeke, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium
Grave or Reference Panel Number: Panel 23 to 28 and 163A


Location:
The Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing forms the north-eastern boundary of Tyne Cot Cemetery, which is located 9 kilometres north east of Leper town centre, on the Tynecot-straat, a road leading from the Zonnebeekseweg (N332). The names of those from United Kingdom units are inscribed on Panels arranged by Regiment under their respective Ranks. The names of those from New Zealand units are inscribed on panels within the New Zealand Memorial Apse located at the center of the Memorial.

There are two separate registers for this site - one for the cemetery and one for the memo-rial. The memorial register will be found in the left hand rotunda of the memorial as you face the memorial. The Panel Numbers quoted at the end of each entry relate to the panels dedicated to the Regiment served with. In some instances where a casualty is recorded as attached to another Regiment, his name may alternatively appear within their Regimental Panels. Please refer to the on-site Memorial Register Introduction to determine the alter-native panel numbers if you do not find the name within the quoted Panels.


Historical Information:
The Tyne Cot Memorial is one of four memorials to the missing in Belgian Flanders which cover the area known as the Ypres Salient. Broadly speaking, the Salient stretched from Langemarck in the north to the northern edge in Ploegsteert Wood in the south, but it varied in area and shape throughout the war.

The Salient was formed during the First Baffle of Ypres in October and November 1914, when a small British Expeditionary Force succeeded in securing the town before the onset of winter, pushing the German forces back to the Passchendaele Ridge. The Second Baffle of Ypres began in April 1915
when the Germans released poison gas into the Allied lines north of Ypres. This was the first time gas had been used by either side and the violence of the attack forced an Allied with-drawal and a shortening of the line of defence.

There was little more significant activity on this front until 1917, when in the Third Battle of Ypres an offensive was mounted by Commonwealth forces to divert German attention from a weakened French front further south. The initial attempt in June to dislodge the Germans from the Messines Ridge was a complete success, but the main assault north-eastward, which began at the end of July, quickly became a dogged struggle against detennined opposition and the rapidly deteriorat-ing weather. The campaign finally came to a close in November with the capture of Pass-chendaele. The German offensive of March 1918 met with some initial success, but was eventually checked and repulsed in a combined effort by the Allies in September.

The battles of the Ypres Salient claimed many lives on both sides and it quickly became clear that the commemoration of members of the Commonwealth forces with no known grave would have to be divided between several different sites. The site of the Menin Gate was chosen because of the hundreds of thousands of men who passed through it on their way to the battlefields. It commemorates those of all Commonwealth nations except New Zea-land who died in the Salient before 16 August 1917.

Those United Kingdom and New Zealand servicemen who died after that date are named on the memorial at Tyne Cot, a site which marks the furthest point reached by Commonwealth forces in Belgium until nearly the end of the war. Other New Zealand casualties are com-memorated on memorials at Buttes New British Cemetery and Messines Ridge British Cemetery.

The TYNE COT MEMORIAL now bears the names of almost 35,000 officers and men whose graves are not known. The memorial, designed by Sir Herbert Baker with sculpture by Joseph Armitage and F V Blundstone, was unveiled by Sir Gilbert Dyett in July 1927. The memorial forms the north-eastern boundary of TYNE COT CEMETERY, which was established around a captured German blockhouse or pill-box used as an advanced dressing station.

The original battlefield cemetery of 343 graves was greatly enlarged after the Armistice when remains were brought in from the battlefields of Passchendaele and Langemarck, and from a few small burial grounds. It is now the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in the world in terms of burials.

At the suggestion of King George V, who visited the cemetery in 1922, the Cross of Sacrifice was placed on the original large pill-box. There are three other pill-boxes in the cemetery. There are now 11,952 Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War buried or commemorated in Tyne Cot Cemetery. 8,365 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to more than 80 casualties known or be-lieved to be buried among them. Other special memorials commemorate 20 casualties whose graves were destroyed by shell fire. The cemetery was designed by Sir Herbert Baker.


Regiment, Corps etc.

Royal Warwickshire Regiment

Battalion/etc.

2/6th Battalion.

Surname

FREEMAN

Christian Name(s)

Francis Hubert

Born

Warwick

Enlisted

Warwick

Residence

Barford

Died Date

26/08/17

Rank

PRIVATE

Number

242326

Died How

Killed in action

Theatre of War

France & Flanders

Supplementary notes

 

[Back to top]

[Next]

[Previous]