Name
John Monk
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
15/10/1917
41
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
14177
Bedfordshire Regiment
2nd Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
1914 /15 Star, British War and Victory medals
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
BOULOGNE EASTERN CEMETERY
VIII. I. 58.
France
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Great Offley Village Memorial
Pre War
Son of Joseph and Ann Monk and he was born in Offley and enlisted on Sep 1914 in Hitchin, while living in Offley.
Wartime Service
John was sent to the Western Front in 1915 and fought at Arras and Ypres and was killed in the Ypres Sector.
The battle in which he died was known as the Battle of Pilckem Ridge took place on the 31 st July 1917 over rain sodden ground that had been shelled for days making movement in the clay mud very difficult. The 30th Division of which the 2nd Bedfords were in its 89th Brigade, had failed to keep up with the artillery barrage going through Sanctuary Wood and failed to take a strongpoint immediately north east of Clapham Junction on the Menin Road two miles east of Ypres. This was their only major engagement prior to John's death and if he was not wounded in it he almost certainly took part.
He is buried at Boulogne Eastern Cemetery, France, meaning that he must have been wounded badly enough to have been moved back from the Front for treatment or repatriation. He was aged 41 years old.
Additional Information
Service number in various records appear as14127 or 14177.
Acknowledgments
Adrian Dunne
