Pte 269677 Isaac Cohen

• Age: 18
• From: Manchester
• Regiment: 13th Kings
• Died on Thursday 4th April 1918
• Commemorated at: Cabaret Rouge Bc
  Panel Ref: XIX.A.8

Isaac was born on the 18th March 1898 at 42 North Kent Street, Manchester. His mother was Winifred Murthough.

There is a birth of an Isaac Murthough (spellings differ) in 1897 in Manchester, and he appears on the 1901 census at 81 North Kent Street, Manchester, with his mother Winifred Murtough, a woolen sorter, her married sister Ellen Bowden, 25, and her brother Edward Murtough, a soldier, age 20.  There is also a daughter Leah, age 1 (likely Winifred Leah Murthough, born 1900).

Confusingly, there is a family, in 1911 at 31 Rockingham Street, Manchester. Mother, Winifred Cohen 29, married 13 years, a woollen clip sorter, with Isaac 13, Nellie 8, and Frances 3, (all children born in Manchester), plus James Newton, a boarder.  

His service record has not survived, so the details of his early life and military service are unknown.  We do know that Isaac enlisted in Manchester.  He served in the 20^th (Pals) Battalion of The King’s Liverpool Regiment. The battalion diary records that Isaac was wounded on 20th June 1917. He was subsequently transferred to the 13^th Battalion, ‘A’ Company of the same Regiment.

Isaac was wounded and captured (and declared Missing) during the German Spring Offensive, when the order to British troops was told to hold the line to the Last Man Standing.

Details taken from the 13^th Bn War Diary give an indication of the severity of the fighting at this time:

At midnight on 27-28^th March, “C” and “D” Coys relieved “B” and “A” Coys respectively in the front line – “A” and “B” coming back into the support positions.

At 4.30 a.m. on the 28^th the enemy put down an intense barrage on the whole of our sector.  The Trench Mortar barrage on the front line was more intense than anything previously experienced.  The Reserve Line was barraged with field guns and heavies.  Under cover of this barrage the enemy launched a terrific attack with masses of troops. In spite of the intensity of the bombardment the front line stood firm and poured a devastating fire into the enemy whose attack was beaten off with colossal casualties to the attackers.  The value of this steadfastness against tremendous odds cannot be estimated – it gave the enemy his first check at a point where he was to be subsequently checked throughout the day.  The enemy came back again in a second attack with even greater numbers.  The Battalion on our right were pressed back and the enemy poured in behind “C” and “D” companies from the right flank.  What happened on the left flank is not known.  All that is known is that these two companies, attacked on all sides, mounted the parapet and fought to a finish on the ground on which they stood.

It is not known what information Isaac’s family received or when they learned his fate.

According to the International Red Cross POW records, Isaac’s name appears on a List of Dead Prisoners Of War dated 11/5/1919:  Pte Isak Cohen, 7 T.F. (Rcs), 18 years old, died on 04^th April 1918 in a field hospital at Estrees (east of Arras) following a stomach wound. 

He was buried in Estrees military graveyard, group/section 41, grave 6.  After the war, when graves were concentrated, Isaac’s body was transferred to Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery, Pas de Calais, where he now rests.

"Cabaret Rouge" was a small, red-bricked, red-tiled café that stood close to this site in the early days of the First World War. The café was destroyed by shellfire in March 1915 but it gave its unusual name to this sector and to a communication trench that led troops up the front-line. Commonwealth soldiers began burying their fallen comrades here in March 1916. The cemetery was used mostly by the 47th (London) Division and the Canadian Corps until August 1917 and by different fighting units until September 1918. It was greatly enlarged in the years after the war when as many as 7,000 graves were concentrated here from over 100 other cemeteries in the area. For much of the twentieth century, Cabaret-Rouge British Cemetery served as one of a small number of ‘open cemeteries’ at which the remains of fallen servicemen newly discovered in the region were buried. Today the cemetery contains over 7,650 burials of the First World War, over half of which remain unidentified.

The 1939 register shows Winifred Knowles, born on 01st September 1877, at 6 Batty Street, Manchester, with son John Knowles born in 1915.

Isaac is commemorated on the Colleyhurst Memorial.

We currently have no further information on Isaac Cohen, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.