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Major Charles Milne Cholmeley Dowling of 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards killed 21/11/1920, who died in Dublin having survived three wounds on the Western Front. Wounded in the hand 1914; seriously wounded April 1918. His service record
1891 Mar 6. Born and the birth was registered at St Georges Hannover Sq Vol 1a, p 431. He lived at 13 Eaton Square. Son of Charles Cholmely Dowling, a stipendery magistrate, deceased, and who had been Irish. And Lavinia Dowling
1901 census I cannot find him in census
1905 to 1908 at Rugby School
1909 Private Tuition with a Mr W D Partridge of Sloane Square.
1909/1910 At Edinburgh Mansion, Westminster with Dr Wright and Mr Paton - appears to have been tuition
1910 Apr 16. Applied for Sandhurst
1911 census At Royal Military College For Training Officers For The Army, Sandhurst. "Gentleman Cadet", born Belgravia
1914 Aug 39 landed in France
1914 Dec 10. Medical Board recommends a further month off duty as a result of a hand injury due to shrapnel.
1915 Oct 16. Injured at Hollenzollen Redoubt. He was buried in a dugout by the explosion from a large shell. He suffered dizziness, and nausia afterewards, and was invalided back to UK
1920 Jan 5 applies for 1914 Star. He was said to be "awaiting demobilisation" and was associated with a number of linen manufacturing companies
1920 Feb 7. writes to CO asking to resign commission. He is at that time in Hotel des Anglais in Menton, France
1920 Apr 16 Gazette records Grenadier Guards. — Capt.C. M. C. Dowling resigns his commission.
1920 Apr 16 Gazette Records Grenadier Guards .C. M. C. Dowling, late Capt., G. Gds., to be Capt., 16.th Apr. 1920, with seniority from 15th July 1915.
1920 Apr 16 Gazette Records C. M. C. Dowling, late Capt., Grenadier Guards, to be Major 16th Apr. 1920. (Substituted for the notification in the Gazette of 13th Apr. 1920.) in General Reserve of Officers
1920 Jul 5. Remobilised. Gazetted to coincide with other officers joining on this date. Graded Class II
1920 Nov 21 Bloody Sunday
IRA men present included
The operation began at 9:00 am, when about members of the Squad entered 28 Pembroke Street. The first British agents to die were Major Dowling and Captain Leonard Price. Andy Cooney of the Dublin Brigade removed documents from their rooms, before three more soldiers were shot in the same house: Captain Keenlyside, Colonel Woodcock, and Colonel Montgomery. The leader of the unit, Flannigan, arrived, pushed Mrs. Keenlyside out of the way and shot her husband.
Dalton had done most to find the information to condemn the men in the house in Pembroke Street. He had courted the maid there, got an IRA man employed as the porter ; he watched until he knew that the two men he wanted slept in rooms on the third floor. The rest of the British officers in the house were lives that may or may not be taken on the day. Dalton met Paddy Flannigan at five minutes to nine as they had arranged the night before. There were brief introductions to the men Flannagan had brought along. And then as Dalton explained to Ernie O’Malley :
I was with Flannagan and 2 fellows and we went up the left hand stairs to the third flight. I knew the one where Dowling and Montgomery were for the girl had told me. The other doorway was adjacent and there was a landing …The two lads were in bed in pyjamas and Paddy Flannigan said for us and they got up rather startled and I thought this was the [time?] and I wanted the papers. They were against the wall when Paddy fired. The fellows fell and they made a gurgling sound. Said I to Paddy Flannigan ‘ I want to search the bloody room.’ ‘Get to hell out of this ’ said Paddy. The other fellows brought their men to the hallway. They had the men in pyjamas and they had their hands up. I was stopped by the 3rd Bn officers. ‘Who are you they asked?’ ‘I’m an intelligence officer’, I said and here were not more than 6 or 7 in the house. The[y] were lined up. They were held up on the staircase to the cellers. I saw one hit the floor and [fall] down the stairs. Paddy Flannigan said goodbye and went up by Earlsfort Terrace.
The "two lads in the pyjamas" were Major C. M. C. Dowling and Captain Leonard Price. It was not Montgomery as Dalton suspected. Paddy Flannigan shot Dowling twice and Price once and Flannigan was an accurate shot. The bullets to the chest killed both Colonel Hugh Ferguson Montgomery and Captain H. B. C. Keenlyside were lined up downstairs in the hall as Dalton said. Montgomery gave his name and was shot twice in the body. Keenlyside followed and was shot four times, in the arms and in the jaw. Montgomery was the one who later died. Colonel W. J. Woodcock was shot in the shoulder and the back but managed to climb up the stairs to his room. Lieutenant Murray was wounded as he came down the stairs. Judging even by Dalton’s fevered description there was panic and confusion in Pembroke Street, especially when British officers seemed to be emerging from every door. And this was not to mention all the pushing past scratching, struggling, screaming wives. Dalton may have felt pity for the men later when he wrote his book, a pity which even the Dominions Office acknowledged when a call to suppress the book was voiced in 1931. But that morning he seemed in too much of a hurry to ‘get the bloody hell out of it ’ to feel very much else at all.
Hansard reports. 28, Upper Pembroke-street. Two officers murdered and four wounded. The residence of Mrs. Gray was raided at 9 o'clock this morning by about twenty men, some of whom came on bicycles. The house consists of several flats. The raiders, who were armed and undisguised, held up a maid on the stairs, and Mrs. Gray, the proprietress, who was leaving her room, was simultaneously detained. The house appeared to be familiar to them, as they broke up into parties, and went with evident knowledge to various parts of the house. From ten to twelve shots were heard, and, following these, the assassins decamped. Mrs. Gray and her maid visited the rooms immediately and found that Major Dowling, of the Grenadier Guards, had been shot dead at his bedroom door. Captain Price, of the Royal Engineers, was found dead the next room door. Captain Kenlyside, of the Lancashire Fusiliers, whose wife most gallantly struggled with the murderers and thereby frustrated their purpose, was wounded in the arm. Colonel Woodcock was fired at as he came downstairs. He appeared to have taken unawares the raiders who were in the hall. Be called out to Colonel Montgomery who was coming out of his room and was wounded in the body. Turning towards his room to secure a weapon Colonel Woodcock was also wounded. Colonel Woodcock and Colonel Montgomery both belong to the Lancashire Fusiliers. A sixth officer, Mr. Murray, of the Royal Scots, was also wounded as he descended the stairs. A lady resident in the house went from room to room seeking help and in every room found only dead, dying, or wounded men.
CWGC site says "Recent research has shown that Major Dowling is buried at Kensal Green (All Souls) Cemetery. He does not appear to have married
