Bernard John Mann

A Corporal with 15th (Suffolk Yeomanry) Battalion, Bernard died on 5th of September 1918 aged 20. 

Bernard was born at Lowestoft on 27 January 1897, a son of Joseph and Eliza Jane Mann. In 1901 his family lived at 2 Raglan Street and in 1911 at 51 Roman Road. Later his parents lived at 103 Clapham Road. Bernard was educated at Lowestoft and subsequently worked in the office of his uncle, Jabez Mann, engineers, at Sevenoaks, Kent. 

In May 1915 Bernard enlisted in the 10th Battalion Suffolk Regiment, at Lowestoft, service number 20308. He passed various courses, including one at Chelsea Barracks, and was a Sergeant in England, but went down a rank when he went overseas. He arrived in Egypt in 1917 and was posted to the 15th Battalion, service number 320836. 

Bernard served in the Palestine campaign and was wounded, when within four miles of the city, in the advance on Jerusalem on 8 December 1917. He was sent to hospital and, once recovered, he rejoined his battalion, but was disappointed at not being part of the guard of honour with his battalion when they entered the city (See also Sevenoaks Chronicle 27 September 1918, page 4). From May 1918 he served in France. He was killed instantaneously by shrapnel in the attack to take Larris Trench and advance toward Templeux-la-Fosse, north-east of Peronne, and buried where he fell. Bernard’s grave, at map reference 62c.J.4.c.5.2. was marked with a cross and after the war he was reburied at Peronne. John Hellen, also of Lowestoft, was in Bernard’s battalion and died at the same place and on the same day as Bernard and was buried in an adjacent grave.