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240425 1st/5th Battalion, Suffolk Regiment
Frederick Keeble, known as Fred was born in Sudbury in 1895. He was one of four known children of Charles Henry (known as Harry) and Jenny Keeble (née Mills). His father was a mat trimmer and had moved from Sutton in Lincolnshire to Sudbury possibly when William Armes relocated his factory from Kings Lynn. In 1906 his widowed father married Eliza Anne Abbott and Fred and his sister Theresa lived with their father and stepmother at 15 Upper East Street.
Fred enlisted in Sudbury, and served with the Suffolk Regiment (formerly 2127). He joined the battalion after the evacuation from Gallipoli to Alexandria in Egypt in December 1915. The battalion spent 1916 defending the Suez Canal. In the spring of 1917 the Allies were trying to push the Turks out of Palestine; the battalion saw action in the failed attempt to capture the town of Gaza which was an important costal gateway from Egypt.
In the autumn of 1917 the battalion, which formed part of 153rd Brigade, 54th (East Anglian) Division saw action during the Third Battle of Gaza (31 October – 7 November). This was a decisive victory for the Allies but at a cost of 18,000 British, Australian and New Zealand troops killed, missing or wounded. Fred served alongside other Sudbury men in his battalion including: William Bunn, Frank Harrison and Frank Hopes, who all lost their lives in this battle.
Fred died aged 22 on 2 November 1917 and lies buried in Gaza War Cemetery, Israel. He was awarded the British War Medal and Victory Medal.
Private Beavis wrote to Fred’s father after his death stating that he had been sleeping when a shell landed killing him ‘practically instantaneously’. He also described the fighting: ‘It was a bit of a warm shout but we got through (the attack) all right and did well. I don’t think there were many of us who did not make away with a few Johnny Turks. We were told that we had done all that was required except taking prisoners. Our reply was that the prisoners were there all right but that being ‘a bit tired’ they were having a ‘long sleep’. So you can be proud that Fred did his duty and made away with a few before he, poor lad, was himself called.’
Fred is 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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