Military History

The information is slightly confusing but it appears (from his War Gratuity) that Frederick originally enlisted as a Private in November 1914 but for some reason was not deemed fit enough to serve. He was then engaged on 2 June 1915 under service number 3962. He arrived in France on 6 Feb 1916. Some of his military records, including CWGC, are in the name of Holliss and his birth was recorded as such but his family were known as Hollis.

Circumstances of Death

Frederick is listed as being killed in action on 27 August 1917 having originally being 1 of the 12 men reported missed in action. Frederick was a member of C Company. The 1st/8th Battalion war diary entries for the 26th to 28th July are transcribed below.

Aveley – 26.8.16: Position unchanged. 60 men working party, Bombing section & ? Brigade instructors ? at 4pm.

Aveley – 27.8.16: Situation as for 26^th. At 6.30am. A Coy provided a working party of one officer & 80 men to form forward Bomb & R.E. Dumps at points 59, 99 & 88, they returned about 11.30am.

At 12.15am: B Coy sent a party of 1 officer and 60 men to carry ladders into the jumping off trench near 59. They could not find the ladders at place appointed (40) so returned as about 6am. The Bde was asked for the position of the ladders but could not give it for some time so after the men had breakfast they returned to the job and eventually got the ladders into position at about 2pm. It is feared that the movement of the ladders gave the show away to some extent. The ladder party returned to Aveluy on completion of work.

Ovillers Trenches - 27.8.16 & 28.6.16: At 2.30pm the Battalion moved up in the line to carry out an attack on the German line as per Appendix A [it is not transcribed as there is not too much difference to the war diary]. The men moved out of our trench in splendid style, there was not a single waverer among them!!. Unfortunately the objective – 03 – was only a very indistinct mark & when the barrage commenced it was impossible for the Company’s to discern this mark & as a consequence many of D Coy left flank men veered off too much to the left & lost touch. Capt Dickinson and Lt. Barton of D Coy were killed very early in the advance & the one remaining officer of this Coy was amongst those who had gone off to the left early leaving the Coy without officers. Unfortunately the line broke with the double & as a consequence got into our barrage and furthermore it is certain that owing to the objective trenches being so badly obliterated many of the men overshot the objective & pushed too far ahead thus encountering our own barrage again as it lifted to the second objective.

C Company managed to get into their objective but were heavily bombed from trenches running from 69 to 23 & 62 to 25 & 65 to 03 & owing to D Coy overshooting the mark & getting off too much to the left they also encountered resistance from our objective trench 25-03. They were accordingly forced to retire & appear to have lost heavily whilst doing so.

It was exceedingly difficult to obtain any information during the operations not withstanding the fact that patrols were continually being sent out. The three platoons engaged in digging the Communication trenches worked in a splendid manner but the job was too big for them to complete.

At 5.20am [29^th] , as C Coy’s one remaining officer had come in & reported that his company had retired & [as] no trace could be found of D Coy the Battalion was ordered to withdraw to Bouzencourt having first of all made a stop in the Communication trench about 150 yards forward where trench remained in our hands & handed over to the R.I.R [Royal Irish Rifles] who relieved us.

The Battalion formed up at the entrance to Ovillers Village, had breakfast & called the roll when it was found that the casualties were: Officers killed 3; wounded 4 and wounded & missing 1. Rank & File 7 killed; 146 wounded & 12 missing. After breakfast the Battalion moved into Bouzencourt from there were taken on by buses to Bois-de-Marmimont where the Battalion was accommodated in huts.