Alderley -World War 1. August 1915

We will remember them…

                                    August 1915           

By the end of July, Allied forces on the Gallipoli peninsula were still confined to the two bridgeheads at Cape Helles and Anzac Cove.  The commander, Sir Ian Hamilton, therefore decided to establish a third bridgehead at Suvla Bay, 5 miles north of Anzac Cove. 

The landings at Suvla Bay began on 6^th August. Three days later the 4^th and 7^th Battalions of the Cheshire Regiment landed and began to entrench themselves.  It was in the course of this operation that CSM Powell was killed.  His Company Captain, wrote to his widow:

On the morning of August 10^th I was with him from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m., and during the whole time he was most assiduous getting all the men to entrench themselves at 6 o’clock.  We chatted for half an hour when at 6.30 we got the order to advance. I gave the order and we advanced, the whole line in perfect order and your husband was as cool as on parade.  The men went forward with him and soon afterwards I heard he had been hit in the foot, and while he was attending to this wound, he was fatally wounded.

George Powell was the son of John and Jane Powell, of Mottram St. Andrew and the husband of Amy Powell, of 16 Duke St. He had four children: George, Jane, Edward and Mary Alice. In civilian life he was a foreman bricklayer.   He had served for 25 years with the 5^th Cheshire Volunteers and as a member of the Territorial Forces was one of the first men to be mobilised after the outbreak of the war.  He is remembered on the Helles Memorial and on the Roll of Honour in Mottram St Andrew Methodist Church, as well as on our War Memorial .

                           If you know of Alderley Edge men who served in the war

and returned home afterwards, we should be glad to hear of them.