5th Battalion, Duke of Edinburgh’s (Wiltshire Regiment)
Information on Raymond Hawkes’ military service is scant but sufficient to give a reasonable insight into it.
Raymond Hawkes was born in Poole Keynes, a small village about four miles south of Cirencester in 1889. According to records he was baptised on 30 June of that year. His parents were Humphrey Hawkes (1848-1906), an agricultural worker and his wife, Sarah Ann (née Ritchings: 1850-1919).
The couple had two children, Eleanor, born in 1886 and Raymond By 1901 the family had moved to The Street, in Somerton Keynes. Humphrey Hawkes died in 1906 and at the time of the 1911 Census Raymond, now an undercarter on a farm, was living with his widowed mother at Somercote Keynes. Sarah Ann Hawkes was making ends meet by working as a school cleaner.
No Army Service or Pension Record appears to have survived for Raymond particularly as about 60% of the former being lost during the Blitz in 1940 and therefore it is not possible to ascertain exactly when Raymond voluntarily enlisted for military service. It was probably in early 1915. He joined the Duke of Edinburgh’s (Wiltshire Regiment) and the regimental Medal Roll shows that he was posted to the 5th Battalion.
His Medal Index Card (MIC) is endorsed with the date of his first overseas posting to the Balkans, on 4 September 1915.
On 1 July 1915 the 5th Wiltshires (part of 40 Brigade, 13 Division) had sailed from Avonmouth for Mudros, an island in the Aegean used as a base for British and Anzac operation on the Gallipoli Peninsular. After arriving at Mudros on 16 July, the battalion landed at the ANZAC sector of Gallipoli on 4 August. From 6 to 10 August it took part in an attack to capture Sari Bair Ridge and suffered greatly when the Turks mounted a counter attack which drove the British and ANZAC forces off Chunuk Bair.
The battalion War Diary notes that on the 19th and again on the 24th of September the 5th Wiltshires received a draft of 48 men, to replace the casualties of Chunuk Bair. It is highly probable that Private Raymond Hawkes was in either of these drafts.
In January 1916 all Allied forces were evacuated from Gallipoli and the 5th Wiltshires transferred to Egypt: a month later they were sent to fight the Turks once again, in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq).
According to some local research, conducted in 2014, into those from Somerford Keynes, who fell in the Great War and published on ww.somerfordkeynes.org.uk.churchmemorials.htm there was a report in the Wilts & Gloucestershire Standard of 17 June that Private R Hawkes had been wounded in the left arm and leg.
The extent of the injury and where he was treated is not known but evacuated casualties from Mesopotamia were often sent to India to recover.
A recently released Pension Record Card notes that Raymond was discharged from the Army on 7 April 1919.
His Medal Index Card indicates that this was into the Class Z Reserve, which indicates that he was still a capable and fit soldier. Had the Germans broken the terms of the 11 November 1918 Armistice and hostilities re-commenced he would have been recalled immediately.
Some Public Member research published on Ancestry states that Raymond Hawkes died at home on 7 May 1920, aged 30, following entry into a diabetic coma (information derived from a death certificate).
He was buried in the churchyard of All Saints, Somerford Keynes, where a standard Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone marks his grave. As his death occurred subsequent to the placement of a War Memorial tablet inside the church, he name does not feature amongst the fallen.
Researched by Graham Adams 8 October 2020
POST SCRIPT 12th October 2024: Further information provided by Andrew Hawkes (via a comment) as follows: R Hawkes headstone is placed within an area of Hawkes burials. The family in the area as far back as the 1630s but had recently fallen on hard times hence his birth in Poole Keynes. His father Humphrey was the sexton in the church and his grandfather Humphrey innkeeper at the pub , The Bakers Arms. His sister, Eleanor also has a headstone in the same church dying in 1952.
R Hawkes headstone is placed within an area of Hawkes burials. The family in the area as far back as the 1630s but had recently fallen on hard times hence his birth in Poole Keynes. His father Humphrey was the sexton in the church and his grandfather Humphrey innkeeper at the pub , The Bakers Arms. His sister, Eleanor also has a headstone in the same church dying in 1952.