Doctor Lt. Benjamin Cohen (S Afr.)

[Geert Spillebeen]

Dear all,

Can anyone deliver more information on this medical doctor, the South African Lieutenant Benjamin COHEN (Royal Army Medical Corps) ?

Died 3rd July 1917, age 26. His grave is on Mendinghem Cemetery in Proven (near Poperinge, Flanders, Belgium).

I HAVE A PICTURE OF his HEADSTONE. (Anyone interested? Mail me)

He was hit by shrapnel at Boezinge (Ypres, Flanders) when trying to help some officiers whose pillbox or dugout was shelled. He accompanied 2Lt Marc A.P. Noble, who ran for help after his fellow officers were hit. Noble & Cohen took an ambulance and drove to the incident. They had to continue on foot... and were hit by more shells & shrapnel.

I know everything about M.Noble, but very few about that young doctor, Benjamin Cohen. His background, family, his story, picture maybe...? Can YOU help?

G.S. (I live at 20 miles from Ypres, Flanders, Belgium)

[azureus]

Name: Banjamin Cohen

[benjamin Cohen]

Regiment or Corps: RAMC Att 122 Bde RFA

date of entry to theartre of war 27/12/16

address on the back of card

j cohen esq

31 mill street

cape town

south africa

[azureus]

Name: COHEN, BENJAMIN

Initials: B

Nationality: United Kingdom

Rank: Lieutenant

Regiment/Service: Royal Army Medical Corps

Secondary Regiment: Royal Field Artillery

Secondary Unit Text: attd. 122nd Bde.

Age: 26

Date of Death: 03/07/1917

Additional information: Son of Mrs. A. Levitan, of 31, Mill St. Gardens, Cape Town, South Africa.

Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead

Grave/Memorial Reference: II. E. 57.

Cemetery: MENDINGHEM MILITARY CEMETERY

[AndyV]

Have just been looking up that date in Stephen McGreal's Boesinghe (bought at the military book shop just down the road from the Menin Gate last june)

p 119 to 120 describes a mortar attack on a deep command post at Turco farm during the first week of July 1917.

The 51st Highland division were in place then.

Your man is not mentioned although the report extracted from "Passchendaele, Steel and Hart p77 may have more.

The description says that 3 were killed and 32 wounded out of 38 occupants. It does not mention injuries or deaths within the rescuers.

Might this be the event?

Andy

[Guest Ann Cowie]

Lieutenant Benjamin Cohen was my husband's uncle. We have aformal portrait photograph of him in his RAMC uniform and a letter from his unit after his death describing his bravery and his death. In November 2006 we visited his grave in Mendinghem Cemetery, possibly the first family members to visit the grave. We were very impressed at the care taken of the cemetery by the War Graves Commission.

Ben was born in Glasgow in 1891 and taken as a young boy with his older brother Joseph and his younger brother Gustav to Cape Town, where his mother later remarried, and had another 5 children, 4 girls and one son. He was educated there at Wynberg High School and later at Allan Glen's school in Glasgow, taking his medical curriculum at Glasgow University and graduating in 1913. At the close of the same year he returned to South Africa and he was appointed Medical Registrar at the New Somerset Hospital in 1914, and later opened his own practice in Cape Town,when its previous owner Dr. MacGowan Kitching died. He practised for only for a few months before returning to England in 1916, and joined the Royal Medical Army Corps in 1917.

His older brother Joseph C. Cohen was, as far as we know, in the RoyalEngineers during WWI. Gus Cohen died of tuberculosis in the 30s, and Joseph (who was my husband's father) died in South Africa in 1961. We also have photographs of the brothers taken in Glasgow when they were boys. Joseph Cohen changed his name to Joseph Coleman Cowie some time after 1925 when his mother died. We would be interested if anyone else knows anything about his first wife and family in England, possibly in Chelmsford.

You can contact me at cowie.annATgmailDOTcom for more information about othermembers of his family and for a copy of the letter from the Unit to a Mrs.Kitching, the widow of Dr. MacGowan Kitching, whose practice Ben had purchased in Cape Town. I can also send you a photograph of Ben, and of him as a boy with his brother Joseph.

Ann Cowie

(email edited by Moderator)

[Geert Spillebeen]

Thanks, Ann Cowie.

I sent you a reply. See your e-mail box.

I just forgot to ask why did Joseph Cohen change his name?

G.

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Lieutenant Benjamin Cohen was my husband's uncle. We have aformal portrait photograph of him in his RAMC uniform and a letter from his unit after his death describing his bravery and his death. In November 2006 we visited his grave in Mendinghem Cemetery, possibly the first family members to visit the grave. We were very impressed at the care taken of the cemetery by the War Graves Commission.

Ben was born in Glasgow in 1891 and taken as a young boy with his older brother Joseph and his younger brother Gustav to Cape Town, where his mother later remarried, and had another 5 children, 4 girls and one son. He was educated there at Wynberg High School and later at Allan Glen's school in Glasgow, taking his medical curriculum at Glasgow University and graduating in 1913. At the close of the same year he returned to South Africa and he was appointed Medical Registrar at the New Somerset Hospital in 1914, and later opened his own practice in Cape Town,when its previous owner Dr. MacGowan Kitching died. He practised for only for a few months before returning to England in 1916, and joined the Royal Medical Army Corps in 1917.

His older brother Joseph C. Cohen was, as far as we know, in the RoyalEngineers during WWI. Gus Cohen died of tuberculosis in the 30s, and Joseph (who was my husband's father) died in South Africa in 1961. We also have photographs of the brothers taken in Glasgow when they were boys. Joseph Cohen changed his name to Joseph Coleman Cowie some time after 1925 when his mother died. We would be interested if anyone else knows anything about his first wife and family in England, possibly in Chelmsford.

You can contact me at cowie.annATgmailDOTcom for more information about othermembers of his family and for a copy of the letter from the Unit to a Mrs.Kitching, the widow of Dr. MacGowan Kitching, whose practice Ben had purchased in Cape Town. I can also send you a photograph of Ben, and of him as a boy with his brother Joseph.

Ann Cowie

(email edited by Moderator)

[Guest Ann Cowie]

We are not sure, because he never told his second family about it, but from some comments from family friends it may have been that Joseph felt his life was circumscribed by his being Jewish and it prevented his advancement and he didn't want to hamper his children's lives. Perhaps it was foresight?- given that we think he changed his name in the thirties when Jews in Germany were being so mistreated. He moved to South Africa round about 1925 (he had lived there for part of his childhood and went to Wynberg Boys High School and was in the cadets - as was his brother Benjamin.) Benjamin did not change his name as he died in 1917.

We have to build a persona from the comments heard from friends and family! In his later life Joseph was a Senior Lecturer at Pietermaritzburg Technical College in Natal, South Africa. We only learned of his early history after my mother-in-law died from a chance finding in a letter. We are trying to find a birth certificate or other proof of his place of birth (which on all the paperwork we have found) says he was born in Glasgow, Scotland.

I will send the other documentation on Benjamin Cohen to your email address. I am not sure if the attached file will go through. It is a rather dark portrait of Benjamin Cohen taken before he was killed, in his RAMC uniform. When I can someone to take the picture down for me (far too heavy) I will try to put it in a better place to photograph. The glass is reflective and so I must find just the right spot. It will not load so I will send it by email.

Regards,

Ann Cowie

Thanks, Ann Cowie.

I sent you a reply. See your e-mail box.

I just forgot to ask why did Joseph Cohen change his name?

G.

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[CGM]

Hello Ann,

I have emailed you re Joseph.

Regards

CGM