Private Fred Townsend

Army Number: 20328

Battalion: 1st Battalion Sherwood Foresters (Notts & Derbys) Regiment.

Prior to enlistment he lived at Mason’s Square, Pelham Street, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire and was a coal miner. Husband of Clara Townsend, of 21, Langford Street, Sutton-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire. He enlisted at Mansfield on 2nd December 1914. He served in Egypt from 1st July to 8th December 1915 and was wounded in August 1915, suffering gunshot wounds to both buttocks. He was admitted to the Government School Hospital at Port Said, Egypt on 15th August 1915 and then to the 19th General Hospital at Alexandria, Egypt, on 16th November 1915. He was then invalided to England on the Hospital Ship Llanfranc on 17th November 1915. He went to France on 10th February 1916, suffered gunshot wounds to his left thigh and back on 15th April 1916, and was sent to hospital at Wimereux, being evacuated to England via Hospital Ship New Haven on 19th April 1916. Was admitted to Huddersfield War Hospital. He returned to France on 30th August 1916 and was taken prisoner of war on 26th August 1918. He died of wounds at 07:30 pm on 23rd October 1918 at a German prisoner of war hospital in Gottingen, Germany.

Buried/Commemorated : Niederzwehren Cemetery, Kassel, Germany. Plot VII. Row B. Grave 16.

Private Fred Townsend is also commemorated on the following local memorials:–
Sutton-in-Ashfield War Memorial (St. Michael and All Angels Cross), Nottinghamshire.
Sutton-in-Ashfield Cemetery War Memorial, Nottinghamshire.