COMMEMORATED IN PERPETUITY BY THE

Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Fred left England in April 1910 travelling on the HSS Campania, bound for New York. He moved to Canada in July 1913 and lived in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba working for the Lake of the Woods Milling Company for several months before enlisting.

He enlisted with the Canadian 8th Infantry Battalion (90th Winnipeg Rifles) on September 22, 1914 at Valcartier, Quebec. The 8th Battalion were known as ‘ The little black devils’, purportedly, a name given to the soldiers by an enemy force due to their almost black (dark rifle green) uniforms. On October 1st 1914 they embarked for England, aboard the SS FRANCONIA, for training at Salisbury Plain. The men were billeted in tents and huts for several months, but due to the cold, wet winter many of them became sick with severe colds and pneumonia. In December they were given a period of leave for the Christmas season, it is likely that Fred spent his last Christmas with his family in Steventon.

In February 1915 the men were sent to France and by April they were in the trenches on the western front. Frederick served through the Battles of Ypres and Langemarck and the Canadian 8th endured some of the first Chlorine Gas attacks of the war - *At four o'clock on the morning of Saturday, 24 April 1915, a blue-green-yellowish cloud was seen rolling over No-Man’s Land towards the Battalion trenches. The second enemy gas attack, in as many days, and in a few moments the 8th had its first experience of this ghastly new weapon of modern warfare. The effect was paralyzing. Half the Little Black Devils succumbed to the poisonous fumes. Frederick may have survived the enemy's deadly weapon but, later that day, was killed while returning from binding a comrade's wounds. Due to the pandemonium and general confusion caused by the gas attacks, the exact location of Frederick's body is not known. However, his name is immortalised on the Menin Gate Memorial. Also at the Portage La Prairie War Memorial, Manitoba, Canada and Lake of the Woods mining company plaque in Keewatin, Ontario, Canada.

The Menin Gate Memorial is dedicated to the British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the Ypres Salient of World War I and whose graves are unknown. More details about Frederick's last battle can be found on the Steventon village website, courtesy of John & Steve Roberts.

 * Source: https://cefrg.ca/blog/8th-battalion-little-black-devils

Frederick, son of Richard and Sarah Fletcher, of Hill Farm & Castle St., Steventon. Fred was the youngest of 10 children (two died very young). The 1871 Census shows Frederick's Grandfather born in Steventon in 1796. from 1871 to the 1911 Census - whole Fletcher family born and lived in Steventon, worked as agricultural labourers on the Betteridge's farms.