Passchendaele 29 October 1917. Frank Hurley.
Australian War Memorial A.N. E01220
Private Alfred William Tremlett
8th Battalion, Devonshire Regiment
Killed in Action
Date of Birth: 15 September 1897
Place of Birth: Woodbury, Devon
Date of Death: 26 October 1917 aged 20
Buried: Remembered on Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium; and All Hallows Church Memorial Window, Ringmore, Kingsbridge, Devon.
Awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal
Private Alfred William Tremlett age 20.
Born on the 15th of September 1897 and baptized on the 17th of October at Woodbury, the son of William, a coastguard, and Louisa Tremlett. His baptismal record shows the family was living at Beaulieu in Hampshire.
In 1901 the family was living in Wyke Regis, Weymouth. Alfred is shown at school in Woodbury in 1903 and in Lympstone School in 1904. The 1911 census shows him at Greenwich Naval School, his parents are living at the Coastguard Station, Challaborough, Kingsbridge. His parents later moved to Teignmouth and were living at 11 Coombe Vale Avenue.
Alfred William Tremlett 1897-1917
Devonshire Regiment
cap badge
Army records show that Alfred was later residing at Exmouth when he enlisted at Totnes with 8th Battalion, Devonshire Regiment, service number 290342.
Alfred William Tremlett
He was serving with this regiment during the attack on Ghulevelt (part of the Third Battle of Ypres) where the battalion sustained heavy losses when he was presumed to be killed in action on the 26th of October 1917.
Alfred William Tremlett 1897-1917 in uniform
Remembered on Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium; and All Hallows Church Memorial Window, Ringmore, Kingsbridge.
Total gratuities paid to his parents amounted to £21.18s.0d
Alfred William Tremlett Souvenir War Card
The Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele)
This was one of the bloodiest campaigns fought on the Western Front.
It was made up of a series of battles and attacks between 31 July to 10 November 1917.
It started to rain heavily during the afternoon of the first day of the battle.
The rain then continued, quickly turning the war-torn landscape into a quagmire, thousands of men and animals drowned in the mud.
I died in hell, They called it Passchendaele.
Soldier poet Siegfried Sassoon
Hundreds of thousands of men died on both sides.
The bodies of more than 35,000 men from the battle were never found, they were lost in the mud.
