My great uncle Guardsman Ernest Leonard Dowden, 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards was born on 23/5/1895 at Buckland Dinham Somerset a small village near Frome. He had 7 siblings, his father Charles was an agricultural labourer and his mother Elizabeth cared for the family. He was already a regular soldier on the outbreak of war in August 1914 and was stationed at Chelsea Barracks London. On 12th August 1914 the 2nd Battalion left Southampton on the vessel "Cawdor Castle" arriving in Le Havre on 14th August 1914., The Battalion entered the front via Rouen,, Amiens, Cambrai and Busigny to Vaux. where the BEFwere concentrating. Contact from the enemy was not long coming and the German columns in overwhelming numbers were thrusting in on the Army Divisions. The Battle of Mons was fought on 23rd and 24th August with heavy losses on both sides. Outnumbered the fighting retreat from Mons began on 24th August and continued until 5th September. The 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards to which Ernest belonged fought a desperate rearguard action in a heavily forested area to the north & north east of Villers Cotterers. They were surrounded in the woods at Rond de la Reine and bitter fighting took place. In this action Ernest was killed with 97 of his comrades. They were unceremoniously thrown into a pit by the enemy but the French villagers reburied the bodies with religious services and took care of the grave. Several months later following the recapture of the area Lord Robert Cecil whose son Lieutenant George Cecil Grenadier Guards was one of the officers who fell in this action, arrived with a party having obtained permission to exhume the bodies to search for his own son. This was duly carried out and the officers were found and buried individually with the remaining 94, most unrecognisable, were buried together in a grave and headstones arranged around the perimeter wall with multiple inscriptions chosen by next of kin. I have the letters written to Ernest's mother, my great grandmother from Lady Cecil telling her about the action and the reburials

Trudy Crew