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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.
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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 |
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