Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Hubert Edward Cook

d.19/08/1940

Bombardier in the Royal Artillery, served in WWII

  View CWGC record

• Janice Boakes

Bombardier 815533
2 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery

Hubert Edward Cook was born in Pinner in the spring of 1914. He was the second son of Ernest Edward and Margaret née Stanton. His parents moved to a house called ‘Yser’ in Lye Green near Chesham.

In 1931 Hubert joined the Royal Artillery and served with them for 6 years until 1937. On 17 September 1937 he was transferred to the army reserve list. He had married Rose Hartley (Amy R L Hartley) in Berkhamsted in early 1937. On leaving the army he found employment at Hoffman Bearing company in Chelmsford. His son Terence J Cook was born in Chelmsford Q2 1938.

When war broke out in September 1939, Hubert was recalled immediately and sent to France on 20th September. His wife and son moved to Lye Green to live with his mother. He was a Bombardier with the Royal Artillery, in 1920 corporals were abolished in the Royal Artillery; bombardiers became the equivalent and acquired the normal two chevrons. He saw much action in the first year of the war in France and Belgium. The 2nd field Regiment Royal Artillery consisted of 35th 42nd 53rd and 87th Batteries. They were involved in the Dunkirk evacuation 26 May to 4 June 1940. Hubert was badly wounded at Dunkirk, he was cared for at Sutton Emergency Hospital in Surrey where he died on 19 Aug 1940 from complication connected to the wounds he sustained.

His was the first military funeral in Berkhamsted of World War II. The firing party was supplied by the Dorset regiment. If Hubert had survived his wounds he would have been guaranteed a regular job with his old employer in Chelmsford having been freed from any further military service. He is remembered on the Chesham War memorial but is not listed on the Berkhamsted one.

Hubert’s wife went on to marry Henry J Morley in Berkhamsted in 1942 and then Edward E Forder in Berkhamsted in 1949. She died in Headington, Oxfordshire in 1993.