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“If you think, have a kindly thought, If you speak, speak generously, Of those who as heroes fought And died to keep you free”
Set up by the Black Country Society. Our aim is to highlight local men who died in the Great War and how they have been commemorated on war memorials. Its scope covers the whole of the present Dudley Municipal Borough and therefore includes the places which have come within its bounds since 1914.
There are over fifty memorials and the number of names exceeds three thousand. Research on the names has been extensive but inevitably errors and omissions occur. We would like to hear about them concentrated on life and work before 1914, involvement in military campaigns and where each man is buried or commemorated.
Harry Cook lived with his parents at 33 Park Lane, Netherend, Cradley, and worked as a chain-maker in Lye. He was a pre-war Territorial in the South Staffords and went with the 1/5th Battalion to the Western Front in Spring1915. They experienced huge losses at the Hohenzollern Redoubt on the 13th October 1915 and again on the first day of the Somme in July 1916. On the 29th September 1918 they were able to reverse the account with the German forces in the breaking of the Hindenburg Line near St. Quentin. It was a famous action, carried out with great spirit and ingenuity and involved the crossing of the Canal at Riqueval. The German forces were in steady retreat from that defeat and the armistice was only two months away. The casualties, however, included Private Harry Cook who was killed in action on that day. He was 28 years of age and is buried at Jeancourt Communal Cemetery (VI F 6) and commemorated on the Cradley and Halesowen Memorials.
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STOURBRIDGE FOOTBALL AND CRICKET CLUB Amblecote Dudley West Midlands England, DY8 4HN
