Redditch war heroes are remembered - The Redditch Standard

Redditch war heroes are remembered

Redditch Editorial 22nd Jan, 2017   0

IT MAY be 2017 but 100 years ago there was no let up in the fighting in the First World War.

Two soldiers from Redditch who died on January 25, 1917 were both serving with the 9th Battalion of the Worcestershire Regiment on the frontline a 1,000 miles away in what is now modern day Iraq.

Here their unit was set to attack Turkish positions around Kut, 200 miles north of Basra where modern day British soldiers served in the Second Gulf War.

William Henry Freeman was born in 1895, the eldest of Frank and Bertha Freeman’s seven children. Frank was a cycle machinist and they lived in Highfield Road, later moving to 182 Evesham Road, Headless Cross.




By the time he was 16, William was working as a fish hook filer, before joining the 9th Battalion.

Joseph George Brooker was born around 1873 in Astwood Bank and worked as a bike chain maker.


He married a woman called Alice and together they had nine children. Their eldest son Victor, born in 1896, had been killed in the Gallipoli campaign of 1915.

By 1911 the family had left Redditch and were living in Tyseley and later Sparkbrook.

on January 25, 1917 the 9th Battalion was to lead an attack with the 7th North Staffordshires along the left bank of the Hai canal, which links the Tigris River with the Euphrates in Iraq.

At 9.30am the British artillery opened up and at 9.40am the battalion went ‘over the top’ to attack the Turkish trenches 300 yards away.

More than 100 soldiers were hit in that first assault but the first Turkish trench was captured.

However a series of counterattacks were launched by the Turks and by 3.15pm, the Worcs were nearly out of ammunition and, too exhausted to run, the men retreated back to the British lines under continuous bombardment.

In all their brigade of four regiments had lost more than 900 men – including William Freeman and Joseph Brooker – all killed in a single day – and for no gain.

However the following day, January 26, 1917, the British attacked again, this time successfuly, the assault of the day before being credited with ‘softening up’ the enemy.

Joseph is remembered on the war memorial at St Stephens Church and William on the one at St Lukes (The Bridge).

With thanks to Remembering Redditch’s Fallen Heroes and the war diaries of the Worcestershire Regiment.

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