Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred John Hamilton BOWEN (1903)

2nd Battalion, Monmouthshire Regiment
Born 15 December 1885
Killed in action 2 March 1917, aged 31
Buried at the Guards’ Cemetery, Combles, Picardy, France. Also commemorated on the Usk war memorial, Monmouthshire.

Alfred Bowen was the elder son of Alfred E. Bowen and Emily Marianne Bowen of Castle Vale, Usk, Monmouthshire, Wales. He married Jean Gertrude (née Wilton) of Winnipeg, Canada.

He was educated at Monmouth Grammar School and at Marlborough College, and matriculated at Merton in 1903. Before the war he practiced as a solicitor in Pontypool.

A Major in the 4th Volunteer Battalion, South Wales Borderers, he was mobilized as Captain on 4 August 1914, and was sent to France in November. He was awarded the DSO on 3 July 1915. His DSO citation reads:

On the 13th May, 1915, east of Ypres, though wounded in two places in the head before dawn, he refused to leave his company, and continued to command it with conspicuous ability. After the action was over and the battalion returned to La Brique, he was found to be suffering from two other wounds in the body. He was then sent to hospital.

He was placed in command of the regiment in August 1915, promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in September, and awarded a bar to his DSO on 12 March 1917. He was also Mentioned in Dispatches three times.

Alfred Bowen was killed in action at Saillisel, on 2 March 1917.