4245 Rfm Frederick George Alexander, 4th Rifle Brigade
Arrived Overseas: 20 December 1914 Connection: postcard 4245 Rifleman Frederick George Alexander of the 4th Rifle Brigade was the recipient of a postcard from his parents when he was a patient at the Wish Rock hospital in Blackwater Road, Eastbourne on the 8th February 1915. Frederick had arrived overseas with the 4th Battalion on the 20th December 1914 and so to be back in an English hospital six weeks later suggests that he had either been wounded or fallen sick in France. Frederick had joined the Rifle Brigade in May 1911, and he would have been about 23 years old by February 1915. He obviously recovered sufficiently to bhe sent back to France as he was killed in action on the 8th May 1915 and, having no known grave, is commemorated on the Menin Gate at Ypres. The postcard in my collection, and my connection to Frederick, is a scene of the memorial at Hastings. The message on the reverse reads, "Are they anything like this? M&D. This is M's idea not mine. D." The C...