2 cousins KIA 25 September 1915 - Sjt Charles Gordon Herbert Moberly, 9th Battalion Rifle Brigade and Capt. Henry Stuart Moberly, 74th / 69th Punjabis.

[andrew moberly]

Gordon Moberly was part of the unsuccessful diversionary attack at Bellewaarde Farm, just outside Ypres, before the main assault at Loos – an engagement which all but wiped out the 9^th Battalion Rifle Brigade and which is described in detail in John Cooksey’s ’s recent and excellent book “Blood and Iron – Letters from the Western Front”.     Gordon has no known grave – he is listed as one of the Missing on the Menin Gate and commemorated on the War Memorial at his old school, Cranleigh.

 

Harry was part of the equally unsuccessful diversionary attack 25 miles away at Pietre, in France.      He too has no known grave – his name is recorded on the Indian Memorial at Neuve Chapelle.     

 

Gordon and Harry were second cousins.   Both men were born in India – their Moberly grandfathers were both Generals in the Madras army.    Gordon’s enlistment papers describe him as a “clerk” in 1914, but he had previously been a “licenced victualler” and the proprietor of the “Five Horseshoes” at St Margaret’s, Herts (see photo). 

 

Harry was a professional soldier, commissioned into the Dorset Regiment in 1907 and appointed to 74^th Punjabis in 1910.   He was a competent sportsman, earning cricket, football and swimming colours at Bedford Grammar School, who provided the attached photograph of a sleek-haired, handsome young man with a dimpled chin.       When war broke out 74^th Punjabis were based in Hong Kong – but when his regiment went off to war a few months later Harry did not go with them.   Instead he headed north to Tsingtao in China, assisting peripherally in a little-known episode involving Britain’s ally, Japan.   With the outbreak of war in Europe the Japanese army quickly launched a campaign against the German concession at Tsingtao.  When the resulting German prisoners  were transferred to Japan Harry was on escort duty.

 

Gordon and Harry were the only Moberlys to be killed in WW1.    It is curious they died on the same day, in separate actions.