7631. Private Ernest Walter Cole

1st. Battalion, Northamptonshire Regiment. Born 1886 in All Saints, Northampton. Enlisted in Northampton. Killed in Action on Sunday 11th. October 1914, aged 28. Lost Without Trace. No Known Grave. Known unto God. Commemorated on La Ferte-sous-Jouarre Memorial to The Missing, Seine-et-Marne, France. Son of the late Thomas Cole of Bridge Street, Northampton. Ernest was the only Soldier from the Battalion to be Killed in Action on this day.

“THE NORTHAMPTONSHIRE REGIMENT, 1914-1918” notes:

“. . . as the brigade war diary records with a fine gesture of precision - on August 4th the Army received orders to molilize . . . In this fighting machine the place of the 1st Northamptonshire Regiment was in the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Division . . . The whole business worked extraordinarily smoothly, and by midnight of August 7th/8th the 2nd Brigade was complete to the last button . . . Thus all the rank and file of the 1st Battalion were fully-trained soldiers . . . On August 11th their Majesties the king and Queen motored to Blackdown and inspected the troops there quartered, including the 1st Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment . . . On August 12th the 1st Battalion Northamptonshire Regiment left Blackdown and marched to Frimley station, where it entrained for Southampton. Here it embarked on the Union Castle liner “Galeka” with the 60th Rifles and details, sailing for an unknown destination . . .

Barry Jenkins