2ND LIEUTENANT ALAN PERCY ROSLING, 2ND BATTALION WORCESTERSHIRE REGIMENT.


2ND LIEUTENANT ALAN PERCY ROSLING, 2ND BATTALION WORCESTERSHIRE REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION, 4TH MARCH 1917, AGED 19


At 5.30am on the morning of 4th March 1917 the 2nd Battalion Worcestershire Regiment rose from the trenches near to Bouchavesnes, just north of Peronne in the Somme area, to attack the German lines. The Worcesters advanced steadily behind a curtain of British shell fire called a 'creeping barrage' designed to protect the advancing troops. On this day the tactic was successful and the Worcesters reached the enemy positions relatively unscathed. As the British jumped into the German trenches bombing fights and hand to hand fighting broke out amongst the dugouts. One of the Worcesters platoons was led by a 19 year old 'rookie' officer Alan Rosling who had only been with the battalion for a couple of months and this was first taste of front line action. The battle was brief and vicious but the Germans were beaten and retreated. But the action was not without casualties to the Worcesters including young Alan Rosling who was killed. 


Alan Percy Rosling was born in Ilkley in December 1897 and baptised in All Saints Parish Church. His parents Percy and Amy lived in a large house called Woodlands on Clifton Road with Alan and his two sisters. 

In 1907 Percy Rosling, an electrical engineer decided to move his family to Australia where they took up residence in Melbourne. Alan was sent first to Wesley College in the city and then to the prestigious Melbourne Grammar School. His mother Amy died in 1913 and this may have influenced the families decision to return to England where they took a large house in the London suburb of Ealing. Alan continued his education as a boarder at St Lawrence College, Ramsgate and at the age of 17 became a cadet at the Royal Military School, Sandhurst. In April 1915 he was gazetted into the 2nd Worcesters and arrived on the Western Front in January 1917.

Although buried near to where he fell, today 2nd Lieutenant Alan Percy Rosling has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing. He is remembered on the war memorials in Ealing and at Melbourne Grammar School.

The colonel of the 2nd Worcestershire regiment wrote the following to his grieving parents "........Your son was killed in action on the 4th March in an attack of a German position which was completely successful. Your sons conduct throughout until he fell was of the most gallant and inspiring description, and he fell whilst leading on his men in some hand to hand fighting with the enemy. Though your son had only been a short time with us, he made himself universally liked and assumed his standing as a competent and efficient officer above the ordinary"

Melbourne Grammar School 7th from the right 3rd row






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