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81125 17th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers
Francis Chaplin known as Harry was born in 1898 in Cavendish, the son of George and Caroline Chaplin. His father was employed as a gardener and groom and the family lived in Sudbury at 5 Queen’s Terrace, Newton Road. As a schoolboy Harry was an errand boy for a local tobacconist. He enlisted and served with the Yeomanry Cyclists (formerly 3862) before transferring to the Royal Fusiliers. The 17th Battalion formed part of 5th Brigade, 2nd Division.
In November 1917 the battalion saw action at the Battle of Cambrai when the Allies attacked using a large concentration of tanks for the first time. The initial attack successfully broke through the heavily defended Hindenburg Line gaining 7km of ground. On the 30th November the Germans launched a counter attack using elite regiments known as Stormtruppen and recaptured much of the lost ground. The result of the Cambrai operations was a status quo with both sides suffering similar heavy losses of almost 45,000 killed, missing or wounded each.
Harry died aged 19 on 30 November 1917. There is no known grave and he is remembered on the Cambrai Memorial, Louverval, Nord, France. He was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal.
A Cross of Remembrance was laid by his grave in March 2014.
Harry was also remembered on the Trinity Congregational Church Memorial which was moved to the United Reformed Church, School Street when Trinity closed. The United Reformed Church closed in 2017 and it is proposed that the memorials from both churches will be relocated to the Sudbury Cemetery Chapel.
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