Albert George Chandler Died 1st November 1914
Albert was born in 1889 in Thatcham, Berkshire to father, James and mother Caroline. He was the second born and had two siblings, a brother James and sister, Mary. The 1901 census tells us the family were living in Cricket Hill and lived next door to the Murrell family. Coincidentally, they too were to lose a son Sidney, who is also named on the Memorial. By the age of 22, Albert had become a bricklayer’s labourer and in 1911 lived with his parents in Common Field Lane, Finchampstead. His father was a waggoner at a local farm.
We believe Albert joined the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry and as a regular in the second battalion would have soon been on his way to France. It is likely he joined sometime between 1911 and 1914, but we do not have the precise record (they were burned during the Blitz). From his photograph, we learn that his brother James had been killed even earlier in the war as he too was a regular. By the end of 1914, James and Caroline were left with a daughter, but no sons.
Name: CHANDLER, ALBERT
Rank: Private
Regiment/Service: Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry
Unit Text: 2nd Battalion.
Date of Death: 01/11/1914
Service No: 7524
Grave/Memorial Reference: Panel 37 and 39. Memorial: YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL
The Menin Gateis one of four memorials to the missing in Belgian Flanders which cover the area known as the Ypres Salient. Broadly speaking, the Salient stretched from Langemarck in the north to the northern edge in Ploegsteert Wood in the south, but it varied in area and shape throughout the war. The Salient was formed during the First Battle of Ypres in October and November 1914, when a small British Expeditionary Force succeeded in securing the town before the onset of winter, pushing the German forces back to the Passchendaele Ridge. The Second Battle of Ypres began in April 1915 when the Germans released poison gas into the Allied lines north of Ypres. This was the first time gas had been used by either side and the violence of the attack forced an Allied withdrawal and a shortening of the line of defence. There was little more significant activity on this front until 1917, when in the Third Battle of Ypres an offensive was mounted by Commonwealth forces to divert German attention from a weakened French front further south. The initial attempt in June to dislodge the Germans from the Messines Ridge was a complete success, but the main assault north-eastward, which began at the end of July, quickly became a dogged struggle against determined opposition and the rapidly deteriorating weather. The campaign finally came to a close in November with the capture of Passchendaele. The German offensive of March 1918 met with some initial success, but was eventually checked and repulsed in a combined effort by the Allies in September.
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The battles of the Ypres Salient claimed many lives on both sides and it quickly became clear that the commemoration of members of the Commonwealth forces with no known grave would have to be divided between several different sites. The site of the Menin Gate was chosen because of the hundreds of thousands of men who passed through it on their way to the battlefields. It commemorates casualties from the forces of Australia, Canada, India, South Africa and United Kingdom who died in the Salient. In the case of United Kingdom casualties, only those prior 16 August 1917 (with some exceptions). United Kingdom and New Zealand servicemen who died after that date are named on the memorial at Tyne Cot, a site which marks the furthest point reached by Commonwealth forces in Belgium until nearly the end of the war. New Zealand casualties that died prior to 16 August 1917 are commemorated on memorials at Buttes New British Cemetery and Messines Ridge British Cemetery. The YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL now bears the names of more than 54,000 officers and men whose graves are not known.
Cricket Hill, Finchampstead, Berkshire 1901
Common Land Lane, Finchampstead, 1911