{"id":1796,"date":"2015-04-15T00:32:22","date_gmt":"2015-04-15T00:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plattwarmemorial.org\/?page_id=1796"},"modified":"2024-05-23T11:32:48","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T11:32:48","slug":"harry-cecil-bowen-1895-1923","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/world-war-one\/harry-cecil-bowen-1895-1923\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Cecil Bowen (1895 &#8211; 1923)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"fusion-fullwidth fullwidth-box fusion-builder-row-1 nonhundred-percent-fullwidth non-hundred-percent-height-scrolling\" style=\"background-color: rgba(255,255,255,0);background-position: center center;background-repeat: no-repeat;padding-top:0px;padding-right:0px;padding-bottom:0px;padding-left:0px;margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top: 0px;border-width: 0px 0px 0px 0px;border-color:#eae9e9;border-style:solid;\" ><div class=\"fusion-builder-row fusion-row\"><div class=\"fusion-layout-column fusion_builder_column fusion-builder-column-0 fusion_builder_column_1_1 1_1 fusion-one-full fusion-column-first fusion-column-last\" style=\"margin-top:0px;margin-bottom:0px;\"><div class=\"fusion-column-wrapper fusion-flex-column-wrapper-legacy\" style=\"background-position:left top;background-repeat:no-repeat;-webkit-background-size:cover;-moz-background-size:cover;-o-background-size:cover;background-size:cover;padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px;\"><style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><div class=\"fusion-title title fusion-title-1 fusion-sep-none fusion-title-text fusion-title-size-three\" style=\"margin-top:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-bottom:31px;margin-left:0px;\"><h3 class=\"title-heading-left fusion-responsive-typography-calculated\" style=\"margin:0;--fontSize:24;line-height:1.5;\">STO Harry Cecil Bowen (1895 &#8211; 1923)<\/h3><\/div><span class=\" fusion-imageframe imageframe-dropshadow imageframe-1 hover-type-zoomin\" style=\"-webkit-box-shadow: 3px 3px 7px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);box-shadow: 3px 3px 7px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);margin-right:25px;float:left;\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"175\" height=\"165\" title=\"diligence\" src=\"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/diligence.jpg\" alt class=\"img-responsive wp-image-3606\"\/><\/span><div class=\"fusion-text fusion-text-1\"><p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Harry Cecil Bowen was born<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0on New Year\u2019s Day 1895 in Wrotham Heath, the second eldest of eight children of Henry Bowen, a local brickmaker, and his wife, Alice Ada Terry. He\u00a0was christened in St Mary\u2019s Platt Parish Church and attended Platt School, afterwards working\u00a0as a farm labourer. Before the war, he was employed by Chittenden &amp; Simmons, a road engineering firm engaged in government work in France.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Cecil, as he was more commonly known, enlisted in the Royal Navy on 9 December 1915. He initially served as a second-class stoker at\u00a0<\/span><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">HMS Pembroke II<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, a shore establishment in Sheerness primarily used for the Chatham barracks. Men returned there between ships for leave, training, and administration.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">On 8 March 1916, Cecil transferred to\u00a0<\/span><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">HMS Diligence<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, a depot ship based at Scapa Flow, which acted as a \u201cPost Box\u201d and accounting, pay centre, etc., for the Destroyers\u2019 equipment, munitions and men. Cecil would have been serving as part of the support team and\u00a0<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">was promoted<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0to 1st class stoker<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, but eighteen<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0months later, he returned to\u00a0<\/span><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Pembroke II<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0and was invalided out of the Navy on 17 October 1917, suffering from tuberculosis. Several periods of sanatorium treatment followed, and Cecil made some improvement; however, on 28 August, he suddenly relapsed and died on the 31st. In his final years, Cecil lived in a shed at the end of the garden at Forge Cottages in Wrotham Heath and passed away with his family by his bedside.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">As Cecil died after the construction of the Platt War Memorial, his name wasn\u2019t included on the original memorial plaques. However, he was commemorated on another memorial in the church that was created in 1923 and mounted at the back of the church. In 2016, his name (as Harry) was included on a new plaque added to the relocated Platt War Memorial.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><div class=\"fusion-clearfix\"><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":53,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1796","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1796"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7419,"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1796\/revisions\/7419"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/53"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/plattmemorialhall.org\/warmemorial\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}