2ND LIEUT. CHARLES CECIL NOTT-BOWER, INDIAN ARMY RESERVE OF OFFICERS. ATTACHED 3RD Q. A. O. GURKHA RIFLES. KILLED IN ACTION, AT RICHEBOURG L'AVOUE, MAY 16TH, 1915. AGED 22 YEARS. At the School 1908—11 (Day Boy). Charles Cecil Nott-Bower was the third son of Sir William Nott-Bower, Chief Commissioner of the City Police since 1902, formerly of Ivy Chimneys, Tunbridge Wells, and now of 5A, Woodborough Road, S.W. 15, and of the late Lady Nott- Bower, who died in March, 1920. He was the second of the four brothers who came to Tonbridge, and entered the School in May, 1908, with his elder brother, John Reginald Hornby Nott- Bower, and his younger brother, Edward Elwyn Nott-Bower. The eldest of the four, 2nd Lieut. J. R. H. Nott-Bower, I.A.R.O. (D.B. May, '08-July, '11; Mod. VI. Sept. '08- ; House Prae. May, '09 ; Sch. Prae. Jan. '10; XV. '10) had passed into the Indian police in the summer of 1911, and was therefore debarred from coming home to serve, but ultimately received a commission in the I.A.R.O., dated June 21st, 1918, and served with the 2/131st (U.P. Police) Regiment till March, 1919. The fourth son, Capt. E. E. Nott- Bower, M.C., R.E. (D.B. May, '08-July, '13 ; A.Cl. Sept. '10- ; Ho. Prae. Sept. '11 : Sch. Prae. Sept. '12; XV. '10-'11-'12),, passed into the R.M.A. in 1913 and was appointed Senior Under Officer in October, 1914, and was awarded the King's Sword of Honour, the presentation being made by the King himself, and it is noteworthy that Sir William Nott-Bower had been awarded the Sword of Honour, when at Sandhurst. Being gazetted to the R.E. November 17th, 1914, he served with the 25th Airline Section, Med. E.F., at Lemnos from October, 1915, till he went in April, 1916, to Mesopotamia. There he served with the same unit, and later with the 1st Indian Corps Signal Company till September, 1918, and subsequently with the 5th Field Company in Persia and Kurdistan till April, 1920. His captaincy was dated November 3rd, 1917, and he was mentioned in despatches and awarded the M.C. in 1917. The fifth and youngest son, Lieut. Leonard Lefroy Nott-Bower, R.E. (D.B. and P.S. '12-16; Foundation Scholar, '13; Ho. Prae. Sept. '15; Sch. Prae. Sept. '16 ; XV. '15; R.M.A. Nov. '16; Under Offr. '17), died on October 18th, 1921, of illness contracted on active service in France in 1918. Lieut. C. C. Nott-Bower left comparatively young from the Modem Vth, in July, 1911, to enter the Bank of England. He did not, therefore, become so prominent in the life and athletics of the School as his brothers. Early in 1915 he went out to India, and was in the Alliance Bank of Simla at Calcutta, Simla and Lahore. Immediately after the War broke out he severed his connection with the Bank in order to take a commission in the Indian Army Reserve of Officers. He was at first attached to Queen Victoria's Own Corps of Guides at Mardan, in the North-West Frontier Provinces, but applied to be sent to the Front as soon as possible, and in March, 1915, sailed for France, proceeding immediately on his arrival to the trenches to join the 2/3rd Queen Alexandra's Own Gurkha Rifles, to which he had been transferred. His letters, we are told, were full of Tonbridge and of all the old Tonbridge friends he daily met. He was " mentioned " for gallant and distinguished service in the field in France in the despatch dated November 30th, 1915, and the following are two versions of an incident that occurred a few days before his death. In writing home he said:— " In taking a party with ammunition to the trenches, I had to cross some open ground under rather heavy fire, but I got the men over with little loss, and I can assure you I never ran so fast in my life." A brother officer tells the following story:— "A few days before his death, he was sent in command of 100 men to convey ammunition to the front line of trenches. He found he had to cross an open space, some forty yards across, swept by heavy German fire. He feared that doing this might entail severe loss, and he therefore decided to race his men across in parties of ten. He himself led the first party, then returned for the next, leading it over, and. so on, thus himself crossing the zone of fire no less than nineteen times, but succeeded in getting his whole detachment across with the loss of three men only." The splendid story of how he gave his life on May 16th, 1915, at Richebourg; L'Avoue, in the Battle of Festubert, in a successful attempt to save a wounded man is told below. Lord Birkenhead, in his " Indian Corps in France," wrote :— " At 2.45 a.m. on the 16th May . . . the 2/3rd Gurkhas attacked. . . . Lieut. Robertson and 2nd Lieut. Nott-Bower led two platoons each . . . advancing by short rushes from shell hole to shell hole. . . . The attack was shortly afterwards held up all along the line, the Londons on the left, and the Worcesters on the right, being unable to advance. . . . In retiring from the position reached during the assault, 2nd Lieut. Nott-Bower was killed in a gallant attempt to bring in a wounded private of the Leicesters." His Colonel wrote to Sir William as follows :— " I must send you a short and hurried line to tell you how deeply we regret the death of your gallant son in action yesterday. I have not yet been able to get full and concise reports, but I believe he was killed in trying to help, or bring in, a wounded man, when the attack had failed. I do know that he led his party most gallantly over the parapet in face of a withering fire. I shall make full inquiries as soon as time permits, and hope I shall be able to recommend some recognition of his deed. " you will be glad to know that his death was absolutely instantaneous and painless ; he was shot straight through the brain. " Please accept the deepest sympathy of myself and my brother officers." His double Company Commander also, in writing to Lady Nott-Bower, gave a full account of what happened :— " I am writing to you as I was last with your son, who was in my double company during the last few days. To say how very sad we are seems to convey no idea of our feelings and how we sympathise with you in your sorrow. " I will try to tell you briefly what happened. " On Sunday, the 9th, we were reserve brigade to the Division, and moved up to support an attack. Capt. Stone, your son's double company Commander, was wounded by a shell, and I took his place and was with your son since. " We stayed, holding the front line from the 9th to the 16th. " On the night of the 15th-16th two of our double Companies were ordered to support the Leicesters in a night attack on the German trenches, which were about a hundred yards off. " Our double company was one of these. " The Leicester's attack failed, and we were told we were to try again at 3.15 a.m. on the 16th. " The front trench was full of stretcherbearers and wounded, and we had barely ten minutes to arrange for our attack. " Your son went out in the front line with the right half companies. They got a short distance with very slight loss, when a storm of fire pinned them to the ground, and the Colonel decided that it was useless to continue the attack. Your son sent me a note saying he was in a shell hole with four men, and asking what he had better do. I found it impossible to communicate with him. " He dug some cover there, but decided to move back, as the enemy were throwing bombs. He got back with his men to a big ditch full of water outside our parapet, where he found a wounded Leicester. They put the wounded man on a raft made of ladders, etc., and pushed him for about eighty yards down the ditch to a place where a smaller ditch joined it from our parapet. They took the man out and crawled towards our parapet. A few yards outside the ditch was filled up by a shell-burst, and it was not possible to cross this without coming into the enemy's view at pointblank range. When they got as far as that I went with a few men and tried to dig away this obstruction. We got under heavy fire and had to give it up. I told your son to stay where he was till the evening, when he could crawl in under cover of the dark. " He eventually decided that the wounded man would die of cold, so he attempted to drag him over this mound. In doing so he was shot through the head and killed instantaneously without any possibility of pain. The other men managed to crawl in, and the wounded man, too, was pulled in. " We fetched your son's body in the evening, and he was buried yesterday morning in a little cemetery by Capt. Grigg, of ours, who was killed the same morning by a shell. His grave will be distinctly marked, and all his private papers, etc., will be or have been forwarded to you. " He met his death in an absolutely unselfish and very gallant way. Had it not been for the wounded man he would certainly have got back to us safely. " This is briefly what happened, and I can only tell you that I personally have lost a great friend in him, and I feel sure that the manner in which he met his death will be a source of pride to you in your great sorrow. I hope he will get the recognition he has so bravely earned."