Frederick Westlake. Died 29th October 1914
Frederick was born in Wokingham in 1886 the fourth of John and Ellen’s five sons. They lived at 59 Havelock Road, Wokingham, which is just opposite the town’s railway station. Frederick, joined the Royal Berks long before the war started and was already in the 1st Battalion by the time the census was recorderd in 1911. The Battalion saw almost instant fighting and Frederick’s war was a short one, being killed in the middle of the First Battle of Ypres. Ypres was, by the end of the war to account for a huge part of the regiments loss to the point of its virtual obliteration by the war’s end.
John Chapman, in his excellent web site, www.purley.eu describes the 1st Battalion’s first engagements: ‘The 1st Battalion was at Aldershot when war was declared. They departed for France on the
12th August 1914 and participated in the retreat from Mons as part of 6th Brigade. Their first major action was at the Bridge on the Sambre 25th/26th August. The end point of the Retreat was reached on 7th September when they reached Le Poteau. The flow of fighting was reversed on 9th September when they crossed the Marne and then the Aisneon the 14th. They then settled into trench warfare based at La Metz Farm.
Frederick Westlake Grave
One of the first executions of the war took place there on 26th September when 9641 Pte George Ward was shot for cowardice. The Bn were involved in the 1st battle of Ypres from the 22nd October to the 13th November’.