SOLDIER OF THE MONTH

Lieutenant Henry Bowen, Quartermaster No. 3565
2nd and 8th Battalion Scottish Rifles

Henry ‘Harry’ Bowen was born in Kensington, London on 24th February 1871. A small stockily built man, he enlisted on 20th Oct 1890 and served in the 2nd Battalion Scottish Rifles. He married Harriett McKew in London on March 6th 1896.   Stationed at Aldershot they moved to Glasgow’s Maryhill Barracks and the Bowens’ son Vernon was born there on Oct 2nd 1899.  Days later the battalion received orders to mobilise for South Africa to fight in the Boer War.   With success at Spion Kop the battalion moved on under heavy shell fire to take Vaal Kraantz, a flat topped hill, in an effort to relieve Ladysmith. It was captured and entrenched. Harry, at the time Regimental Transport Sergeant, obtained two mentions in despatches:

'On the morning of the 6th February 1900 at the action at Vaal Krants, I, as Transport Officer received an order to send up ammunition to the firing line… heavy artillery fire opened upon them from Dornkloof, the result being that some considerable confusion ensued.

 

Cr Sergt Bowen at once realising what had happened jumped on his horse and galloped under heavy fire to the spot. He….led the party up to the firing line, handed over the ammunition and withdrew ….with a loss of only two mules.

 

‘During the operations at Pieters Hill on 24th February 1900, Cr. Sergt Bowen received an order to send up ammunition to the firing line. He had despatched several pack mules loaded with the ammunition ….. but received information that the ammunition could not be got forward owing to the heavy firer…upon a certain bridge over the railway…

 

‘Cr Sergt Bowen….ordered his transport men to pick up a box each and to follow him. He himself taking a box on his shoulder was first to cross the bridge exposed to a heavy fire. He succeeded again at a critical juncture in replinishing (sic) the failing ammunition of the firing line.

 

During the whole campaign Cr Sergt Bowen….displayed a determination and strong attitude which example was responsible for the gallantry of the men who were with him.’

Bowen’s conduct was rewarded with medals and promotion.

‘He is a splendid type of soldier – very painstaking and thoroughly reliable. The officers hold him in so much regard that he is being promoted to Quartermaster.’

After serving for 23 years Harry was discharged from the army in November 1913. Although recommended for an additional pension for gallant conduct, his retirement was short-lived.  At the outbreak of WW1 he volunteered and served with the 8th Battalion Territorials. Writing from the S.S. Ballarat in May 1915 on route to the Dardanelles he describes his journey..

‘My darling kiddies… We have had, I must say, a very nice voyage….  I am the sailor right up in the Crows Nest (that’s right up the top of the mast).  Well dears that is all at present so I will conclude I remain with heaps of love and kisses from your fond and loving Dad. Be good to Mum till I come home.’

His convivial journey on the S.S. Ballarat  contrasted starkly with his stay in Gallipoli. Col. J. M. Findlay wrote in his 8th Battalion memoirs,

‘Our chief hardships were, of course, the great heat, shortage of water, and the swarms of flies. Add to these the stench of half-buried bodies which we experienced in the front line, and you have a pretty good idea of our distasteful experiences. Moreover, we had come from fairly decent food ex Ballarat to bully and biscuits.’

Mainly a volunteer force, many like Harry Bowen were professional soldiers but too many were inexperienced. Despite the desperate efforts of the few staff-trained brigade majors the Gallipoli campaign was disastrous.

The 8th Battalion was among those finally successful evacuated from Gallipoli and they embarked for Alexandria in February 1916. Harry marched to Kantar with the Mobile Transport Column, their first experience of using camel transport.

On 11th May 1916 the column of camels and men arrived at the outpost of Sabket-Al-Romani, nicknamed ‘Hells’ Gate’ since it regularly reached 127 degrees farenheit in the shade. Tongues were swollen with the heat despite a daily ration of a half gallon of water.  The three mile march to Chabrias was the ultimate trial, digging in and wiring the trenches on the redoubt.

In October the 8th Battalion trekked across the Sinai desert reaching  Palestine on 24th March. The first Battle of Gaza was fought on the 28th and the second on 19th April by which time they were in the area of El-Sireh. Things were not going well and they were dug in during May 1917.

Lt Bowen was killed on 21st May, not in action but by a stroke of devastating bad luck. A splinter from a Turkish shell aimed at a British aeroplane killed him as he sat in tent reading a letter from home.

 ‘He was an ideal Quartermaster, liked and admired by all, and he had the sunniest temperament ever gifted to man. We mourned his loss deeply, and when he was buried, despite our acquired feeling of accustomedness to death, there was hardly a dry eye among us’.

Harry was 46 when he died and is buried in Gaza War Cemetery.  After all he had come through in the Boer War and Gallipoli it was a tragic end. In retirement things could have been so different but perhaps he would never have easily settled to civilian life. He continued to serve his country the best way he knew armed with his sunny and ‘most conspicuous personality’.

Group photograph in front of the Sphinx, Egypt, c.1915

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Photographs courtesy of the Bowen family