11 - RECORDS OF THE MEN OF LOCHBROOM
1915
CAPTAIN A. A. FOWLER,
Cameron Highlanders, 2nd Bn. "B Coy."
Aged 27
Son of the late Mr. Alexander Maclean, Coast, Inverasdale, Poolewe, and
Mrs. Maclean, The Gardens, Leckmelm.
Enlisted in the Scots Guards |
1904 |
Upon transfer to Reserve joined the Metropolitan Police. |
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Mobilized |
August, 1914. |
Younger son of the late Sir John Arthur Fowler, Bart., of Braemore, Ross-shire, and of Alice Janet Clive, daughter of the late Sir Edward Clive Bayley, K.C.S.I., and grandson of Sir John Fowler, engineer of the Forth Bridge. His only brother, Capt, Sir J. E. Folwer, Bart. (O. H.), Seaforth Highlanders, was killed in action on 22nd June, 1915.
R.M.C., Sandhurst.
Married, in 1912, Alice Mary, youngest daughter of Sir Charles Bayley, G.C.I.E., Lieut.-Governor of Bihar and Orissa, and an old member of Rendalls, and leaves one daughter.
Captain Alan Fowler received his Commission in 1907, joining his Battalion in South Africa and accompanying it to China and India. He returned to England in November, 1914, and three weeks afterwards left with his Regiment for France. At this time he acted as Transport Officer, and was afterwards on the Staff of his Brigadier. By the middle of April the greater portion of his brother-officers had been killed, wounded, or invalided home, and when his Battalion was sent to the relief of other troops on Hill 60, he was in command of B Company, which occupied the front trench on the lip of a huge crater forty feet deep, formed by the explosion of a mine.
It was on 28th April, 1915, the last day that the Battalion was occupying these trenches, that he, his subaltern, and several men were killed by the same shell, a minenwerfer bomb. So long as the Camerons held it, the Germans gained no footing on Hill 60.
Brigadier-General Macfarlane, commanding 81st Brigade, writes :-
“He was a first-rate soldier and a dear good fellow, for whom I had a great regard, and I always wished I had him on my Staff. He will be dreadfully missed, both in his Regiment and in the Brigade.”
Colonel John Campbell, commanding 2nd Camerons, writes :-
“He died a soldier’s death about 12 noon to-day, when holding a trench in a difficult and important position. I cannot speak too highly of the truly gallant way in which he has behaved and kept his men together and cheerful.”
A brother-officer writes :-
“During the week on Hill 60 he was never once depressed, though all of them, and his Company in particular, were having a very rough time.”
““Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie,
Glad did I live and gladly die
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be,
Home is the sailor home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.”
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