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RAMC profile of:
Harold CHAPIN
[Service No:  1802]
 
 


Place or Date
of Birth:
Brooklyn U.S.A. on 15th February 1886

Service Number: 1802

TF Number:

Rank: L-Cpl

Unit: 6th London Divisional Field Ambulance

Attached To: 1/6th London Field Ambulance

Enlistment Location: Chelsea SW (St John's Wood, Middlesex)

Also Served:

Outcome: Killed in action

Date Died: 28/09/1915
Age Died: 29

Where Buried and/or Commemorated: France - Loos Memorial, Pas de Calais

Awards:

Gazette Reference:
 


Other Information:

Harold was born in the U.S.A. but by the autumn of 1888 he was taken to Europe by his mother - first staying in Paris, and then onto England. His mother was an actress, and living in this environment Harold became an actor and playwright starting at the age of seven years old. He was educated at North London Collegiate School and afterwards at the Norwich Grammar School, finishing his education at University College School in 1902. He continued with his acting career right up until the declaration of war on 4th August 1914, when he could no longer write or act due to his thoughts and interests being firmly fixed on war news and attending classes in first aid. On 2nd September 1914, he finally enlisted into the R.A.M.C. He entered the war in France on 16th March 1915. 1798 Cpl Richard Capell, one of Harold’s comrades, wrote a letter to Harold’s wife: “MY DEAR MRS CHAPIN, I beg you to accept my heartfelt condolences. I would not se much as hint at the word consolation to you after this unutterably cruel blow, - even to us, his chance friends of less than a year, it seems too cruel to be realisable, - were it not that I can give you sone account, at first hand, of the splendid work of your husband on these days, September 25th and 26th. It must surely be, eventually, a consolation to you to think that he died no means, casual death, but that he was shot down (on the afternoon of Sunday a week ago) when actually on an errand of help, and after giving himself up for hour after hour to heavy and perilous toil for the wounded. I have been some pains to get for you some details of that fatal afternoon, but I cannot - the reason will be obvious - now tell you quite all there is. The essential is that on Sunday morning an appeal came to our station for stretcher-bearers to assist a battalion, seven of whose bearers were out of action. Your husband and two other bearers set out for the trenches in question, which were to the south-west of Loos. The journey, itself, had its perils. Over the distance of two miles or thereabouts, the Germans, who were rallying after their defeat of the day before, could enfilade out ground. One day I will explain the position with precision. The three of them eventually reached the series of trenches at a moment when the Germans were counter-attacking, and were told by an officer that stretcher-work was impossible at such a moment. It was suicide to show one’s head above the parapet. This was, of course, one of the old German trenches, and the enemy fire came both from front and right flank. Chapin consequently told the two others to wait for him while he reported to the medical officer who had appealed in the morning, his intention being to return to collect the wounded after dark, as we did during the week as a matter of routine. The two never saw him again. Our line that afternoon wavered for a moment, before the counter-attack. There was a short period of confusion, and some of our men where caught in the open by German rifle and machine gun fire. You may possibly one day get an exact account from an actual eye witness, but from what I can piece together, your husband went over the parapet to fetch in sone wounded man. He was certainly shot in the foot. It appears that he persisted and was then killed outright by a shot through the head. Our work was so exacting at that moment, that hours passed before Chapin’s absence was noticed at our station, and it was not till the following morning that we felt anxious. I pass over a series of extravagant adventures that befell me as I made my way, then, to your husband’s destination of the day before, with the idea of getting first-hand information. I found myself on the scene when the English were making a further attack. It was impossible, in daylight, to go into the open, but I found from a medical officer that a lance-corporal of the R.A.M.C. had, the night before, been seen dead over the parapet. The English attack, that afternoon, improved the position. The next morning, we had a run out there; your husband had been buried in the night near where he fell. I went down on Wednesday to the trenches, say the officer who had been in charge of the burial party, and eventually got the papers, watch, etc, which were found on his body. These you will have received by now, I suppose. There can be no harm in telling you that he lies with six other London Territorials, within a few hundred yards of Loos Cemetery. If I have the pleasure of seeing you again, when this ghastly business if over, I will tell you something of Chapin’s fine work on the Saturday, collecting wounded on the wire before the first captured German trench. For many hours I was out there with him; - heart-breaking conditions, twenty appeals for help where one could only heed one; rain for hour after hour, and no little announce from crossfire. On on journey, three of us (your husband was one) came in for a tempest of wire. Two of us lay low with the laden stretcher on the grass, while your husband volunteered to go ahead into the village, using a communication trench to bring back the “wheels” by which we get stretchers along at a good pace over roads. Eventually the tempest ended, and the whole day ended without a casualty for us. We went to bed at midnight for two hours. Before daybreak I joined a party that was going to Loos, and so began the fatal Sunday. If, dear Mrs. Chapin, you succeed in getting more detailed information of yoru husband’s death it will be from some one or another in the 17th Battalion London Regiment. I fell that I am intruding on your grief. Excuse me, and believe me, with profound sympathy. Yours very sincerely. Richard Capell.” (Taken from the book ‘Soldier & Dramatist’) Harold was the son of Mrs Alice Chapin; and the husband of Calypso Valetta Chapin of 2/25 Pembridge Crescent, Notting Hill Gate, London - they were married on 4th June 1910.


 
Additional Information: Date Added: Tuesday 08 December, 2015
 
Harold's name commemorated on the Loos Memorial.


  
 
 
 
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