Kaiserschlacht 1918

Stabler, Percival

31 March 2017 by Boro1418 Leave a Comment

Name: Percival Stabler

Rank: Company Serjeant Major

Service No: 23524

Date of Death: 28/03/1918

Age: 35

Regiment/Service: Leicestershire Regiment 11th Bn

Awards: D C M

Grave Reference: I. J. 28. Cemetery: Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension

Additional Information: son of Joseph and Louisa Stabler, of Scarborough; husband of Florence Stabler, of Storer House, Highfields, Coalville, Leicester.

CWGC reference

Paul Allen writes:

Back in the comparative safety of Fremicourt the surviving Midland Pioneers paraded for the customary post battle roll call to ascertain the number of the battalion’s casualties. This revealed the unit had lost 3 officers killed, and a further 7 were wounded, whilst the ‘other ranks’ had suffered 30 men killed in action and a further 80 were missing. In addition, 160 ‘other ranks’ were wounded during 21 March 1918. Many of these men were evacuated to various hospitals behind the front in places such as Abbeville, where another Scarborough-born Midland Pioneer succumbed to his injuries by 28 March 1918: 23524 Company Serjeant Major Percival Stabler.

The holder of the Distinguished Conduct Medal (‘gazetted’ in the London Gazette of 22 October 1917), ‘Percy’ was born in Scarborough during 1883, and was the son of Louisa Jane (formerly Shaw) and Joseph Stabler, a joiner and carpenter by trade who lived for many years in Scarborough at 39 Castle Road. For a number of years prior to the war Percy worked in the grocery trade in Scarborough. However, Percy was married in Lincolnshire in the Church of St Peter’s and St Paul’s in the village of Gosburton, on 26 December 1907 to Florence Harriet Wheat and, by the time of the 1911 Census, he was living in the north-west Leicestershire market town of Coalville, at ‘Storer House’, Highfields (the couple’s only son, Ernest Arthur Edward Stabler, was born on 14 June 1911 at Ashby de la Zouche).

Employed as a ‘grocer’s manager’ before the war, Percy became a member of the ‘Midland Pioneers’ from the battalion’s formation during October 1915, and he enlisted into the unit as a Private for the duration of the war at Leicester on 29 December 1915. However, having already served for a number of years in the pre-war 2nd Battalion, the East Yorkshire Regiment, Percy was soon promoted to the rank of Acting Corporal on 1 January 1916 and then to full Corporal on 15 February. An Acting Serjeant by mid March 1916, Percy arrived in France with this rank on the 18th of the month. Further promotion followed and on 27 March 1916 he was promoted to full Serjeant.

The Midland Pioneers were attached to 6th Division as the formation’s Pioneer unit and joined the Division ‘on the Somme’ in time to take part in the Battle of Flers/Courcelette that took place between the 15 – 22 September 1916. Here Percy displayed courage under fire that eventually earned him the Distinguished Conduct Medal. Promoted to Company Serjeant Major by this time, towards the end of 1916 Percy Stabler was admitted into the 20th General Hospital at Camiers suffering from ‘Myalgia’ on 22 December 1916; he was then evacuated to ‘Blighty’ for treatment and was at home by Christmas that year. (The majority of the information regarding Percy Stabler’s military career has been gleaned from his very tattered Service Record that is available online courtesy of Ancestry.com).

Out of action until May 1917, Percy returned to France on 25 May and rejoined the ranks of the Midland Pioneers, which at this stage of the war were stationed in the Arras Sector of Northern France.

The news of Percy Stabler’s death, at the age of 35, was included in a casualty list that had appeared in ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 12 April 1918.

‘D.C.M. dies of wounds

‘Company Sergeant Major Percy Stabler, D.C.M., Midland Pioneers has died in a French hospital from gunshot wounds in the chest. Sergeant Major Stabler volunteered for service early in the war, and joined the Midland Pioneers. He won the D.C.M. by organising a dozen men to unload an ammunition wagon which had become derailed, and was being heavily shelled by the enemy. Though under fire all the time they succeeded in saving many thousands of rounds of ammunition. Before the war Sergeant Major was manager of a business in Coalville where his wife and child reside. He was born in Scarborough, being the son of the late Mr Joseph Stabler, joiner and cabinetmaker, who resided in Castle Road, and a nephew of Mrs. Matthew Procter. He went to Leicester from Scarborough several years ago … ’

Following his death at Abbeville’s No 5 Stationary Hospital, the remains of Percy Stabler were taken to the town’s Communal Cemetery Extension which still is located on the side of the road leading to Drucat, where he was interred in the Cemetery’s Section I, Row J, Grave 28.

Despite being a native of Scarborough, for some unknown reason Percy Stabler’s name is not included on the town’s Oliver’s Mount War Memorial. The Memorial does, however, contain the name of; 240975 Private George Frederick Stabler.

Paul Allen

Stonehouse, Herbert

10 March 2014 by Boro1418 Leave a Comment

Name: Herbert Stonehouse

Rank: Private

Service No: 28092

Date of Death: 21/03/1918

Regiment/Service: West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales’s Own) 1st Bn

Panel Reference: Bay 4. Memorial: Arras Memorial

CWGC reference

Paul Allen writes:

During the dry, fine, moonlit night of 20 March 1918 the area immediately behind the German lines came alive as over 1 million men along with over 10,000 guns and mortars began to assemble in their assault positions. The first to move was the artillery, many of the guns having not yet been moved into their battery positions. Each gun with its already prepared stock pile of ammunition was heaved into position manually by the gunners who, following their labours, had settled down to grab what sleep they could before the beginning of the bombardment at 4.20 am.

For 50 miles, from the village of Cherisy down to La Fere, the German front line trenches were crammed with storm troopers and infantrymen, trench mortar men, machine gunners, and men armed with flamethrowers. Behind the front stood the main force of the artillery, along with the various pioneer and medical units that were to accompany the assault teams. Behind these were the second wave units awaiting their turn to go into action in ruined villages and farms and, behind, these a massive 77 reserve divisions stood in readiness.

On the British side of the wire life went on pretty much the same as usual depending on how seriously local commanders viewed the situation. A number of patrols were, however, sent out find if anything was happening. Some came back to report having not seen or heard anything untoward, whilst others told of finding gaps in the wire and of hearing the rumble of moving vehicles and guns. Nevertheless, 2 miles to the north of St Quentin, a patrol from the Royal Warwick’s was sent out on reconnaissance into the German trenches and had returned with a machine gun and around 13 men from various German units. These men freely told the assembled group of British officers that they were assault troops and were due to take part in a large operation scheduled to begin in a few hours time, and that the artillery bombardment would begin at 0400 hours. The prisoners also pleaded to be taken to the rear of the British lines with all speed– please!

Despite the warnings the British did not order ‘Man Battle Stations’, and did little apart from opening a desultory artillery fire on the German lines. Apart from the occasional explosion of a British artillery shell the night remained quiet. There had been, of course, not a sound from the German side of the wire and many survivors would later recall the lack of flares throughout the night, which the Germans usually made much use of. However, despite no outward signs of trouble brewing, most of the British troops spent an uneasy night waiting for whatever the morrow might bring.

A dense fog developed soon after midnight of 20/21 March compounding the eeriness of the night. At 3.30 am on Thursday, 21 March 1918, British artillery opened fire on likely enemy troop concentration areas. However, 60 minutes later, soon after 4.30 am, the roar of the British guns was engulfed by the tumultuous thunder of the largest bombardment of the war, as over 6,000 enemy artillery pieces began to saturate the fronts of Third and Fifth Armies with gas and high explosives.

‘So intense was the bombardment that the earth around us trembled. It was a dark night, but the tongues of flame from the guns – 2,500 British guns replied to the German bombardment – lit up the night sky to daylight brightness. Mixed up with the high explosive shells crashing on our trenches were the less noisy but deadly gas shells. Trenches collapsed, infantry in front line positions, groping about in their gas masks, were stunned by the sudden terrific onslaught … Machine gun posts were blown sky-high – along with human limbs. Men were coughing and vomiting from the effects of gas, and men were blinded…’ [1]

The enemy bombardment was scheduled to last for 5 terrible hours, and designed, by its sheer weight and ferocity, to stun the defenders, destroy communications and silence artillery. The first 2 hours of the German artillery fire had concentrated mainly on the saturation of the British artillery positions in the ‘Battle Zone’ with gas. This was followed by a 3 hour bombardment with a mixture of gas and high explosives on the positions in the Forward and Battle Zones, focussing on the infantry stationed in the front positions. The situation in these positions at the end of the bombardment was one of total chaos. Underground cables were severed causing a loss of communications between the front and the various divisional headquarters, and also between the front and the artillery positions. This poor state of affairs was exacerbated by the fog, which prevented any visual communication by SOS flare, and also by air observation.

At Zero Hour (9.40 am) the bombardment was replaced by a ‘creeping barrage’, which heralded the advance of the infantry, spearheaded by stormtroopers. Equipped with sub-machine guns and flamethrowers, the storm troopers found the front line garrison virtually annihilated. The survivors, blinded by the fog and forced to wear gas masks for hours on end, first became aware of the infantry assault at the point where their positions were engulfed by the leading waves of what many would later call the ‘grey avalanche’: hordes of field grey-clad German infantry. Despite the apparent hopelessness of trying to hold out in the face of such overwhelming odds some units in the Forward Zone tried to make a stand but these were soon crushed and few men made it back into the Battle Zone.

Amongst the units which took part in that dreadful first day of the onslaught of the German Spring Offensive was 1st Battalion, the Prince of Wales’s Own (West Yorkshire Regiment). Attached to Fourth Corps of Sir Julian Byng’s Third Army, the battalion belonged to 18 Brigade of 6th Division which held over 4,000 yards of the front line near the village of Morchies.

Positioned close to the extreme left flank of the German 18th Army’s assault, the battalion, along with the remainder of 18 Brigade (2nd Durham Light Infantry and 11th Essex Regiment) nonetheless put up a stiff defence of the 2,000 yard perimeter until the late afternoon of the 21st, by which time the Brigade had virtually ceased to exist. Almost out of bombs and ammunitio,n the surviving members of the Brigade was ordered to make a fighting retreat to Fourth Corps’ ‘Defence Line’, which was to the east of Morchies. Scant records were – understandably – made at battalion level that day and, as a consequence, very little is known of what actually happened to the 1st West Yorkshires during that momentous day.

However, it is known that at around 10 am that day, the battalion’s Commanding Officer (Lieutenant Colonel A M Boyall) had reported that the enemy was advancing towards his positions in ‘masses’, and by midday he sent another more urgent message asking for more small arms ammunition. Unknown to him, by this time the enemy had almost surrounded 18 Brigade’s position and the ammunition was never sent. At 3 pm Boyall again telephoned stating this time, ‘… if no reinforcements were forthcoming the remains of the Brigade would fight it out to the last in the reserve line, for the situation was hopeless and retirement impossible …’ [2]

For 3 more desperate hours the tattered brigade held out against overwhelming odds. By 6.50 pm all of the formation’s bombs and most of the ammunition was used up; at this point Boyall ordered all the surviving men to make a fighting retreat to the Corps Reserve Line which was situated to the east of Morchies. Thankfully shrouded in a thick fog, the soldiers began their fight through the enemy’s line, stating afterwards that ‘… directly the withdrawal began the enemy, in great numbers, followed in rear, while violent machine gun fire from both flanks, swept the ground over which the intrepid troops of 18 Brigade were retiring, thus giving no chance for an organised retirement …’ [2]

In other words, a rout had taken place, and it became a case of every man for himself as the handful of survivors fought their way towards the flimsy British line of resistance. By 7.30 pm during the evening of 21 March the Brigade’s survivors made it to the Corps Line where they were ‘very badly handled’ by enemy fire until the evening of 22 March when the gallant band, numbering around 50 men by this time, were finally driven out of their positions to retreat through Morchies to a line which was tenuously held behind the village.

During the evening of 22/23 March the remnants of 18 Brigade were relieved in the line, the men marching back to the relative safety of Achiet le Petit, where the pitiful remains of the once proud battalion assembled for the customary post battle calling of the roll. This revealed that of the 30 officers and 639 men of the 2nd DLI who went into action a couple of days earlier, only 2 officers and 22 other ranks answered to their names being called. The 11th Essex consisted of 5 officers and 70 other ranks out of 25 officers and 501 men. The situation was little different with 1st West Yorkshire which had gone into battle on the morning of 21 March with a complement of 24 officers and 639 other ranks. By the end only 1 officer and 18 other ranks remained.

531 officers and men of 1st Battalion The West Yorkshire Regiment, including Lt Col Boyall, were reported as missing in action. Amongst them was 30-year-old 28092 Private Herbert Stonehouse.

Born in Scarborough on 6 June 1888, at 74 Trafalgar Street West (known locally as ‘Penny Black Lane’), Herbert was the eldest son of Sarah and Johnson Stonehouse, a ‘general labourer’, who was still living in Trafalgar Street West during 1918. [3]

A pupil of the Central Board School between 1892 and 1902, Herbert left the school at the customary age of 13 to become an errand boy in the Gladstone Road shop of local ‘grocer, provision dealer and Italian warehouseman’ William Vasey and remained in his employ until 1910 when Herbert began work in the Westborough shop of ‘family grocer, tea dealer, and provision dealer’, John Rowntree & Sons. However, by the outbreak of war, Stonehouse was employed in the grocery trade in the City of York, where he enlisted into the West Yorkshire Regiment during September 1915.

Initially stationed at York’s Fulford Barracks with the regiment’s 13th (Reserve) Battalion, Stonehouse remained in England until December 1916. During this time he was married by special licence on 27 June 1916 at Scarborough’s Bar Church to Clara, the 25-year-old eldest daughter of Elizabeth and Frederick William Nundy, who were residing at the time at 23 Roseberry Avenue.

During late December Stonehouse was placed amongst a draft of replacements for battle casualties sustained by the 16 battalions of the West Yorkshire Regiment which were serving in France and Belgium at that time, and he eventually joined 1st Battalion (one of two pre-war regular army formation belonging to the West Yorkshire Regiment) in Northern France, near to the town of Béthune, where the battalion manned the front-line trenches in the ‘relatively quiet’ Cambrin Sector of the Western Front.

Stationed at Lichfield at the outbreak of war, the 1st West Yorkshire’s landed at St Nazaire on 10 September 1914 with the 6th (Regular Army) Division in time to assist the hard pressed British Expeditionary Force in the fierce fighting on the Aisne. Soon moved up to the Ypres Sector, the battalion took part in many of the operations on the Western Front subsequently, including the recently shut down (November) Somme Offensive of 1916, where 1st West York’s had been involved in the Battles of Flers/Courcelette (15 – 22 September), Morval (25 – 28 September], and Transloy Ridges (1 – 18 October), where on 12 October the battalion sustained heavy casualties in a futile attack on 2 German-held positions known as ‘Misty’ and ‘Cloudy’ Trenches. This resulted in the sorely depleted battalion being forced to move from the Somme to the relative quietness of the Béthune area to recuperate.

The next 6 months of Herbert Stonehouse’s life were spent in the positions near Cambrin. Although described as a ‘comparatively quiet part of the line’, life there for Private Stonehouse and his comrades was far from tranquil. The battalion’s historian describes it as follows:

‘Months of trench warfare, at times of a very strenuous nature, now lay before the West Yorkshiremen, and from the Battalion Diaries it is evident that in 1917, despite the fact that the enemy was kept busy in other sectors of the line along the British front, he was nonetheless aggressive, and raids and counter-raids were frequent, whilst constant vigilance was necessary; bomb actions, heavy artillery bombardments, sniping and machine gunning took place at all times, while the repair of trenches and improvements of the defences occupied the troops during the brief periods when they were not otherwise engaged.’ [2]

Spared from the bloodbaths of the Arras Offensive (March – May 1917) and the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele) (July – November 1917), the 1st West Yorkshire’s next large-scale operation was the Cambrai ‘affair’ which began on 20 November 1917. During the night of 19/20 of November, 18 Brigade assembled to the south-west of the village of Beaucamp from where at Zero Hour the following day the formation launched its attack on the Brigade’s allotted objectives, namely: the capture of the ‘Hindenburg Front line system’; secondly, the ‘Blue Line’ (a line running between the Hindenburg Main and Support Lines), including the village of Ribecourt; and, thirdly, the Hindenburg Support Line.

The Brigade’s operation was very successful, all units taking their objectives for very little loss, with the 1st West Yorkshire’s by the end of the day being ensconced in positions on ‘Premy Chapel Ridge’ for the loss of just 1 man killed [57928 Private Henry Govens] and 2 officers and 11 men wounded. As a whole, the 1st West Yorkshire’s played no further part in the Cambrai Offensive, the unit remaining in their positions on the ridge above Premy Chapel until the evening of 24 November, when Stonehouse and the remainder of the battalion moved back to billets at Ribecourt.

The men of the 1st West Yorkshire’s spent the winter of 1917 either digging new trenches or repairing old ones. On 12 December the men of the battalion boarded buses, which transported them to billets at Blaireville. 3 days were spent in relative comfort there; however, on 16 December the battalion took over a sector of the front line opposite the German-held village of Riencourt, where the men had been set to work digging a new trench system.

Christmas was spent in Blaireville, where the unit received Christmas greetings from the regiment’s Commander in Chief, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales (who was in Italy at the time). Soon afterwards, on 27 December, the battalion moved to the Moeuvres sector where, until 17 January 1918, the men ‘enjoyed a well-earned rest’. This rest period was followed by a spell in the front line at Moeuvres ‘ … where several days of quietude were spent. The enemy appears to have been inactive though both sides were vigilant … ’

The battalion remained in the front line at Moeuvres until 13 March 1918, when the formation moved up into the right sub-sector of the front at Morchies, and where the unit remained in relative peace until the start of the German Offensive 8 days later (during the night of 20 March the Battalion’s War Diarist had recorded ‘ … quiet day and night … ’).

Having already lost a brother to the war, Clara Stonehouse [4] was no stranger to the shock of hearing that a loved one was missing. Nevertheless, one can barely begin to imagine her reaction on the terrible day in April when she received word that her husband had reportedly been lost in fighting to the south of Pronville, probably on 21 March. The terrible tidings were later included in a lengthy casualty list that appeared in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 26 April 1918:

‘Missing’

‘Official news has been received by his parents, 74, Trafalgar Street West, that Private H. Stonehouse, West Yorks, who is married, has been missing since March 21st. He has been in France for about two years’

No further news of Herbert’s fate was received until the beginning of July when Clara Stonehouse received information from the War Office telling her that her husband had been killed in action on Thursday, 21 March. Once again the news was featured in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ (Friday, 5 July 1918).

‘Missing man now reported killed’.

‘Mrs. Stonehouse, of 25 Roseberry Avenue, has received official news that her husband Private H. Stonehouse, of the West Yorkshire Regiment, who was reported missing on the 21st of March, is now reported to have been killed on that date. He has been in France for two years and was over on leave in February. He joined from York, where he was in the employ of a firm of grocers. Previous to which he was employed at Messrs. Rowntrees, grocers, Scarborough’…

Despite numerous post war searches of the Arras battlefield undertaken by the then Imperial (now Commonwealth) War Graves Commission, no remains of a soldier, identifiable as those of Herbert Stonehouse, have ever been found. To the present day still ‘missing in action’, Herbert’s name can be found on Panel 5 of the Arras Memorial. Located in the Faubourg-d’Amiens Cemetery in the western part of the city of Arras, the Memorial commemorates the names of almost 35,000 British, New Zealand, and South African servicemen who, like Private Stonehouse, lost their lives in the Arras Sector between Spring 1916 and 7 August 1918 (excluding casualties of the Battle of Cambrai) and for whom there exists no known grave.

A year after the death of her husband Clara Stonehouse placed an epitaph in the ‘In Memoriam’ section of the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 21 March 1919;

‘In loving memory of Private H. Stonehouse, West Yorkshire Regiment, the beloved husband of Clara Stonehouse, 25 Roseberry Avenue, who fell in action March 21st 1918. People think that that we forgot them when they see us smile. But they little know the sorrow the smile hides all the while. —From his loving wife’…

As well as the Oliver’s Mount Memorial, in Scarborough Herbert’s name is commemorated on a gravestone in the town’s Manor Road Cemetery (Section L, Row 19, Grave 28), which also commemorates the name of his younger brother, Francis Richard Stonehouse. Born in Scarborough during 1893, Frank also served during the war, as a Private (Regimental Number 205713) in the Labour Corps. Gassed during 1917 he died prematurely at the age of 31, from the effects of mustard gas, at the family’s home at 74 Trafalgar Street West on Monday, 11 August 1924 (interred on 14 August).

Herbert’s father, Johnson Stonehouse passed away (also at 74 Trafalgar Street West) aged 78, on Sunday, 5 September 1937 (interred on 8 September); his mother, Sarah Stonehouse, also died in the house in Trafalgar Street West on Thursday, 26 April 1945 (interred 30 April), at the age of 82. Both of their names are also featured on the gravestone.

Despite extensive research the fate of Clara Stonehouse is not known. Whether she remarried or moved away from the town is uncertain, as her name does not appear in any of Scarborough’s post-war electoral rolls. One can only hope that she found happiness at some stage in her later life.

[1] Machine Gunner 1914-18; C E Crutchley (editor) Bailey Bros & Swinfen; Folkestone; 1975.

[2] The West Yorkshire Regiment in the Great War 1914-18; Volume 2 1917-18; Everard Wyrall; The Bodley Head Ltd. London.

[3] Johnson Stonehouse and Sarah Horner married at St Mary’s Parish Church on 17 April 1886. At the time of the 1901 Census they lived in Scarborough at 74 Trafalgar Street West, the family by this time consisting of Johnson, aged 40, employed as a ‘general labourer’ born Scarborough, Sarah, aged 38, born Scalby, Annie E, daughter (14), Herbert, son (12), Francis R son (7); all the children were born in Scarborough. (At the time the family was recorded as living with Johnson’s father, Samuel Stonehouse, a widower aged 74, occupation also listed as ‘general labourer’.)

[4] Clara’s 19-year-old brother, 241315 Private Harold William Nundy, was also killed in action.

Paul Allen

Pottage, Thomas H

9 March 2014 by Boro1418 Leave a Comment

Name: Thomas Harry Pottage

Rank: Corporal

Service No: 761213

Date of Death: 19/03/1918

Regiment/Service: Royal Field Artillery “C” Bty. 317th Bde.

Grave Reference: P. VI. D. 2B. Cemetery: St Sever Cemetery Extension, Rouen

CWGC reference

Paul Allen writes:

By the beginning of another year of an extremely bitter and costly war the British Expeditionary Force in France and Belgium had quite simply run out of soldiers. Despite the introduction of conscription during 1916 fewer able bodied men had come forward and, by 1918, the army had begun to see the arrival of undernourished, poorly-built 18- and 19-year-olds who would never have been accepted for army service during the preceding years.

At the beginning of the year Haig (British Commander in Chief) asked the British War Cabinet for 334,000 reinforcements to see him through the immediate future. However, by March 1918, he had been sent just over 174,000 troops, most of whom were conscripts. To offset the deficiency in able-bodied troops Haig ordered the disbandment of 115 battalions of infantry and the amalgamation of a further 38 to form 19 full strength units. In addition, 7 more infantry battalions were formed into pioneer battalions to offset another deficit, an acute shortage of labour.

The German Army in France and Belgium on the other hand had been augmented by 33 divisions of first class troops, mostly grizzled veterans of the ferocious fighting on the Eastern Front who had been released to the Western Front following the collapse of the Russian and Rumanian war effort during December 1917. Despite outnumbering the British and French forces on the Western Front by 192 divisions to 156, the Germans were well aware of the arrival in France of the first elements of the massive American army which, by the beginning of December 1917, numbered some 130,000 troops on French soil.

Also knowing full well that the introduction of the convoy system was enabling the British to weather the German U-Boat campaign, the German military leaders resolved to seek a decisive victory in the west sometime during 1918 before the Americans could make their presence felt. Accordingly, Ludendorff (German joint Commander in Chief) had begun to make plans for a last ditch campaign, which eventually became known as the ‘Kaiserschlacht’, or ‘Imperial Battle’.

The ‘Kaiserschlacht’ operations were formulated during a meeting between Ludendorff and the Chiefs of Staff of the Army Groups belonging to the Crown Prince Rupprecht and the German Crown Prince. One idea put forward was for an attack to be made in Flanders, but the need to wait for the all-essential dry weather, perhaps in April, meant an unacceptable delay for this sector. Another offensive was considered for Verdun; Ludendorff, however, considered an attack at Verdun to be unacceptable as he thought it unlikely that the British would come to the aid of the French and he might therefore be faced with a second battle in Flanders.

Stressing that his available forces were only sufficient for one offensive only, Ludendorff suggested an offensive to be mounted further to the south, in the St Quentin area of northern France. Nothing concrete was arranged during this meeting and, over the next few weeks, the Generals mulled over their options. A further meeting between the German Generals took place at the end of December but, once again, nothing definite had been arranged. Nevertheless, during this meeting, the operations at Verdun were abandoned and preparations put in motion for possible offensives near the towns of Armentières (code-named ‘George’), Ypres (‘George 2), Arras (‘Mars’) and, on either side of St Quentin, (‘Michael’).

On 21 January 1918 Ludendorff finally made up his mind to undertake the ‘Michael’ operation as his main spring offensive. Over the next few weeks the detailed plans of ‘Michael’ were drawn up, with 21 March being set as the start date. Ludendorff’s plan of battle called for the Seventeenth Army, on the right wing of the operation and commanded by General Otto Von Below, along with the Second Army, under General Von Der Marwitz (both from Prince Rupprecht’s Army Group), to attack south of Arras, pinching off the salient which the British had occupied at Flesquières, near Cambrai, since November. These two armies were then to advance towards Bapaume, and Peronne, thence across the old Somme battlefield, to a line between Albert and Arras, before swinging north westwards in a gigantic left hook that would envelope Arras in the process.

On the left wing of the attack, General Oskar Von Hutier’s Eighteenth Army from Crown Prince Wilhelm’s Army Group, was given the task of advancing beyond the River Somme and the Crozat Canal to protect the flank of the offensive, defeating any French reserves which might be brought from the south and driving a wedge between the French and British forces. Once a significant success had been achieved south of Arras, the second phase of the operation, ‘Mars’, would be launched. In addition, planning for the ‘George’ operation had also been allowed to go ahead as an alternative operation should the Michael plan fail.

Throughout the winter of 1917-18 the Germans began a huge retraining programme in an effort to bring more units up to the standards set by the special assault battalions, or ‘Storm Troops’. Around a quarter of the old German infantry divisions were redesignated as ‘attack divisions’ and given the pick of new equipment, including the recently introduced light sub-machine guns. The remaining three-quarters of the German forces, mostly containing older men, were designated as ‘trench divisions’, which would chiefly be employed with holding the line during the forthcoming battle. The spearhead of the assault would be the so-called ‘Storm Troopers’. Their task would be to find the weak points in the opposing defences where they were to cause as much disruption and confusion as possible in the rear areas by deep penetration and envelopment tactics.

Probably the most important element of the initial assault would be the artillery. Carefully orchestrated fire plans had been designed around short, sharp ‘hurricane’ bombardments of immense weight and intensity, using predictive shooting. These so called ‘hurricane’ bombardments were to consist of high proportions of gas shells to neutralise, and silence, enemy gunners, whilst also paying particular attention to the disruption of the enemy’s lines of communications and assembly areas far behind the front areas.

Everyone, from Tommy Atkins to Douglas Haig, on the British side of the wire, knew that the Germans were up to something and at some point would attack the British lines during the new year, but the trouble was no one knew when or where. Throughout the first 2 or so months of 1918 there were no major operations and the Western Front had settled into an unusually quiet state. On 16 February Haig met with his army commanders at his HQ in the town of Doullens to discuss the uneasy state of affairs. The general feeling amongst the assembled officers was that they could hold their front. Haig thought that the attack might fall on a large front stretching from Lens to the River Oise. Another conference was held on 2 March where it was revealed that intelligence sources had indicted the attack would be aimed at General Sir Julian Byng’s Third and Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army fronts, which stretched southwards from Arras to the River Oise.

By the beginning of March 1918 the British defences on the Western Front were based on the German system of 1917 involving three zones of defence known as the ‘Forward’, ‘Battle’, and ‘Rear’. The ‘Forward Zone’ was the existing front line whilst the Battle Zone was usually 1 or 2 miles behind the Forward Zone, 2,000 – 3,000 yards in depth and containing two thirds of the artillery. This was the place where, should the Forward Zone be overrun, the enemy’s advance would be brought to a halt using, if necessary, all available reserves. The Rear Zone (sometimes known as the ‘Green Line’) was between 4 – 8 miles behind the Forward Zone and was the final line of resistance should all else fail.

It had become increasingly evident that something big was in the wind. British suspicions were further reinforced on 8 March when the Germans fired a series of test artillery barrages on positions held by the Royal Naval Division upon Flesquières Ridge, which caused many casualties. 4 days later the testing was continued with the Germans subjecting the division’s positions to a daylong bombardment with 200,000 ‘Yellow Cross’ (mustard) gas shells. [1]

The brunt of this attack was borne by the Hawke and Drake Battalions which, between them, lost over 970 officers and men between 12 – 21 March (the total number of casualties suffered, mostly due to gas, by the Royal Naval Division during this period was over 2,300 officers and men).

Also amongst those affected had been members of the RND’s various support units, in particular the gunners of the four attached brigades of artillery (315 – 318). Amongst 317 (2/3 Northumbrian) Brigade’s many casualties was 22-year-old 761213 Bombardier Thomas Harry Pottage of ‘C’ Battery.

Tom was born in Scarborough at 6 Wrea Lane during 1895 (baptised at St Mary’s Parish Church on 17 October], and was the eldest of seven children belonging to Clara and John Pottage, a well-known Scarborough cab driver who, by 1918, resided in the town at 59 Seaton Terrace, Hibernia Street. [2]

A former pupil of St Mary’s Parish, and Friarage Board Schools, at the outbreak of war Tom was working in the Gladstone Lane warehouse of local drapers, John Tonks & Sons, whose store was located in Scarborough at 104-105 Westborough. Also a part-time gunner in the Scarborough-based (St John’s Road Barracks) Territorial 2 (Northumbrian) Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery, Tom was mobilised for war along with the remainder of Britain’s armed forces during August 1914. However, being aged only 18 by this time Tom was considered too young for Foreign Service and was transferred during September 1914 to the newly-formed 2/3 (Northumbrian) Brigade of artillery, which was subsequently attached for coastal defence duties, to the 63rd (2nd Northumbrian) Division.

Pottage remained with this unit, serving in the north-east of England, until July 1916 when the division’s four artillery batteries were transferred to the newly-designated 63rd (Royal Naval) Division, which by this time had seen much bitter fighting in the Gallipoli campaign and on the Western Front. Tom had become a veteran of all of the RND’s operations since his ‘baptism of fire’ during the gruesome operations on the Ancre (Somme) during the winter of 1916.

Pottage, and hundreds of other gas casualties, was evacuated to the large group of allied hospitals which were situated to the south of the city of Rouen, where he was admitted into No 2 British Red Cross Hospital. Little is known regarding the extent of Tom’s ‘wounding’; nonetheless, the degree of suffering he may have endured can be gauged from an account written by a nurse serving in France.

‘Gas cases are terrible. They cannot breathe lying down or sitting up. They just struggle for breath, but nothing can be done. Their lungs are gone – literally burnt out. Some have their eyes and faces entirely eaten away by gas and their bodies covered with first degree burns. We must try to relieve them by pouring oil on them. They cannot be bandaged or touched. We cover them with a tent of a propped up sheets. Gas burns must be agonising because the other cases do not complain even with the worst wounds but gas cases are invariably beyond endurance and they cannot help crying out. One boy today, screaming to die, the entire top layer of his skin burnt from face to body …’ [3]

It is said that only 2 per cent of gas victims died, usually as a result of secondary complications such as pneumonia, and thus was the case with Thomas Pottage, who passed away during Tuesday, 19 March 1918. The news of her beloved son’s death reached Clara Pottage by Saturday, 23 March; the tidings being featured in a casualty list that appeared in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 28 March:

‘Died from gas poisoning’
‘News was received on Saturday that Gunner Thomas Pottage R.F.A., 59, Seaton Terrace, has died on the 19th inst. from the effects of gas. He was single and prior to joining up worked for Messrs. Tonks and Sons. His father Sergt. John Pottage, A.V.C. is serving in France’. [4]

Shortly after Pottage’s demise, his remains, and those of many more dead gas casualties, were transported to the Hospital’s burial ground known as St Sever Cemetery Extension, located some 3 kilometres to the south of Rouen. Tom’s final resting place is located in Section P 4, D, Grave 25.

A year after Tom’s death an epitaph to a fallen son had appeared in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 21 March 1919;
‘In loving memory of our dear lad, Corporal Thomas Pottage, R.F.A., who was killed in France March 19th 1918.

A devoted son, a faithful brother, One of God’s best towards his mother, He bravely answered duty’s call, He did his best for one and all…From his loving mother, Dad, sisters, and brothers’…

Apart from the Oliver’s Mount Memorial, Thomas Pottage is one of a handful of World War One casualties to be commemorated in Scarborough’s Woodlands Cemetery, on a grave marker in Section B, Row 10, Grave 34, which also bears the names of his Scarborough-born (1866) father John Pottage. The eldest son of Tom and Esther Pottage, John had passed ‘peacefully away following a long illness’ at his homage at 31 Oak Road, at the age of 75, on Monday, 13 October 1941. Also included on the stone is the name of Tom’s Scarborough-born mother, Clara Pottage, who died at 31 Oak Road, on Tuesday, 17 January 1950 at the age of 77.

[1] Looking like an oily-brown sherry and smelling of onions or garlic (some said radishes), the so-called ‘Yellow Cross’, or more commonly known ‘Mustard Gas’, was introduced by the Germans onto the Western Front during July 1917. It was considered a ‘humane’ form of gas in that its aim was to harass rather than kill. Nevertheless, the gas was the most potent gas to be used during the war. It could lay dormant in the bottom of a trench for many days and 2 hours after exposure to just one part of the gas in 10 million parts of air caused fearful injuries to its victim.

[2] John Pottage and Clara Fox were married in Scarborough’s St Mary’s Parish Church on 16 January 1895. At the time of the 1901 Census the family were still living at 6 Wrea Lane and consisted of John, aged 34 years, cab driver, Clara, 29 years, Tom (recorded as ‘Harry’) (5), Emma (‘Minnie’?) (aged 4). All were Scarborough born. The family was later augmented by Clara (1902), John (popularly known as ‘Jack’, born 1905, died 1969), George (born 1909, died 1983), and Frederick Albert (born 1910, died 1992), and Frances (1914). Jack Pottage served in the Merchant Navy during the Second World War, when he was torpedoed twice whilst on convoy duty.

[3] ‘I saw them die’, Nurse S Millard. Harrap, 1933.

[4] Despite being aged over 50 at the outbreak of war, Tom’s father, John Pottage, enlisted into the army soon after the outbreak of war and served with the Royal Army Veterinary Corps (Regimental Number SE 11204) in France on attachment to 280 Brigade, the Royal Fieled Artillery. Unlike his son, John survived to return to Scarborough following his demobilisation in 1919.

Paul Allen

Lazenby George A

8 March 2014 by Boro1418 Leave a Comment

Name: George Arthur Lazenby

Rank: Private

Service No: 39215

Date of Death: 27/03/1918

Age: 19

Regiment/Service: King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry 5th Bn

Panel Reference: Bay 7. Memorial: Arras Memorial

Additional Information: son of James and Alice Lazenby, of 54 Wykeham St, Scarborough.

CWGC reference

Paul Allen writes:

There was once again thick fog on the 3rd day of Kaiserschlact. During the morning of that day, despite stiff opposition, the Germans crossed the Crozat Canal and, by the afternoon, were across the Somme near the town of Ham, thereby threatening III Corps’ line of communications. Two divisions of French infantry shortly arrived to assist the British in trying to hold the ‘grey avalanche’; nevertheless, despite valiant efforts, the so-called ‘Great Retreat’ continued.

Whilst the infantry were fighting their gallant rearguard action, during the afternoon of 23 March a ‘calm and cheerful’ Haig who, up until this time, had played little part in the course of the battle and had been unaware of the disaster which had befallen his command, visited Gough (the commander of Fifth Army) at his Headquarters at Villers-Bretonneux. He would later note in his diary;

‘I was surprised to learn that his troops are now far behind the Somme and the River Tortville. Men very tired after two days fighting and long march back. On the first day they had to wear gas masks all day which is very fatiguing, but I cannot make out why the Fifth Army has gone so far back without making some kind of a stand … ‘ [1]

Following his meeting with Gough, Haig, now fully aware of the magnitude of the disaster facing Fifth Army, returned to his Headquarters where he met with his French counterpart, Marshal Petain. The two leaders discussed the impending crisis, and Petain eventually suggested that General Fayolle (the commander of the French Reserve Army) take command of all troops between the Oise and Peronne, extending the French left boundary along the line of the Somme from opposite Peronne as far as Amiens, thus with the exception of the British VII Corps north of the Somme, the remnants of Gough’s Fifth Army would in effect be commanded by Fayolle. Haig readily agreed to the suggestion, totally aware of the critical need for reinforcements.

For the troops on the ground the day had been one long, miserable, footsore retreat to the Somme, so reminiscent of a similar retreat from Mons almost 4 years earlier. A machine gunner (Lieutenant Richard Gale) with 42nd Division would later describe it …

‘Dumps of kit and valises lay on the side of the road, disorganised transport and guns were moving to the rear, all intermingled with pathetic groups of refugees … Canteens had been abandoned and their stores of spirits rifled. This was a retreat with all the horrors of panic. There was, as far as we knew, nothing behind us and the Channel ports, save this wretched rabble seemed to have lost all cohesion and the will to fight … ‘

During the afternoon of 23 March, Ludendorff issued orders that were to change the German campaign entirely. Faced with a slow and costly advance in the north of the assault, the German General decided to concentrate all his effort in the south, where his men had already advanced some 40 miles into Allied territory. Thus, the German Fourteenth Army were ordered to head for St Pol, due west of Arras, whilst the Second Army was to advance straddling the River Somme towards Amiens. In addition, the Seventeenth Army was to head southwest to prevent the repair of the junction between the British and the French sectors. In effect Ludendorff was scattering his effort in the assumption that the British were already beaten and that the French would look after number one and try to hold onto their own lines. He was almost proven right.

Often referred to as ‘Sad Sunday’, 24 March 1918 (Palm Sunday) dawned for a change with only a ground mist, which soon disappeared. Nonetheless, in the south, the German advance continued virtually unhindered. General Maxse’s XVIII Corps (consisting of 20th and 30th Divisions, by this time part of the French Third Army) still retained a tenuous hold on the Somme to the north of Ham. However, from there, 2 German divisions had pushed forward to fall on the already much depleted 36th (Ulster) Division, destroying 2 more battalions of infantry in the process. Nevertheless, on a happier note, due south of Ham, at Villeselve at around 2pm that afternoon,150 cavalrymen of the British 6 Cavalry Brigade charged units of the German 5th Guard Division, killing and wounding around 88 of the enemy with their sabres and taking a further 107 prisoners at a cost of 73 casualties to themselves.

The situation was equally bleak on Third Army’s front to the north. Whilst the VI and XVII Corps on the left flank had stood virtually in their original positions, the right of V Corps had been driven back over 15 miles and had taken up positions in the High Wood area of the old Somme battlefield of 1916 and, during the afternoon General Headquarters had ordered Third Army to fall back even further, to the line of the Ancre [a tributary of the Somme].

On Tuesday, 26 March, the British abandoned the city of Albert. Long a symbol of the enduring British presence on the Somme, the city fell with barely a whisper. Whilst the men of the German 3rd Marine, and 51st Reserve Divisions were making their victorious way into the already shattered city to savour the delights of the numerous abandoned wine cellars, away in the town of Doullens a high level meeting between the British and French took place to discuss the sorry state of affairs. On the French side were Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau, and Generals Foch and Petain, whilst on the British side Haig, Lord Milner, and Sir Henry Wilson attended.

Trouble between the two factions erupted almost immediately when Petain compared the British withdrawal to the recent flight of the Italians at Caporetto. However, a semblance of order was eventually achieved and the meeting continued. The restless Foch, who could barely control his emotions, exclaimed ‘we must fight in front of Amiens, we must fight where we are now. As we have not been able to stop the Germans on the Somme, we must not now retire a single inch … ’ Fighting talk indeed. Haig was impressed by the General’s words, words he had in fact been anxiously waiting for anyone to say. Soon a scheme was hatched between the British and French whereby Haig took the previously unimaginable step of committing his forces to the control of the French General Foch.

Foch, in his new overall command role ordered that there be no further retirement, that all present positions must be maintained, Amiens must be defended to the last, there was to be no separation of French and British forces, and that the Fifth Army front should be reinforced. Reinforcements were indeed on their way at that moment. The 5th Division would soon arrive from Italy, and 4 Australian and New Zealand Divisions were to come from Second Army, whilst the French ordered 5 of their divisions southwards.

Amongst those hurrying south were the men of 62nd (2nd West Riding) Division. A Territorial Army formation, which at the start of Kaiserschlact had been holding the line some 7 miles north of Arras in the Acheville and Arleux sectors. The division began to make its journey southwards on 23 March and reached the town of Bucquoy by a series of night marches by 26 March. Attached to Fifth Army’s IV Corps, the division, consisting of the customary 3 brigades of infantry and supporting artillery and transport units, was tasked with providing a rearguard in the line at Bucquoy for the depleted British formations that were retreating through the old Somme battlefield.

By late evening of 26 March the division’s 187 Brigade, consisting of the 2nd/4th, and 5th Battalion’s of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, (the 2/4th (Hallamshire) Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment were kept in reserve) took up a defensive flank in a labyrinth of old trenches in the Bucquoy-Puisieux line, on the extreme right of IV Corps facing an enemy-held position known as ‘Rossignol Wood’, from where the brigade came under heavy machine gun fire. Expecting an enemy attack at any moment the men of 2nd/4th and 5th KOYLI prepared themselves for a fight. Despite a feeling of impending danger the night passed quietly and without incident except for some sniping by the enemy; nevertheless, at around 9 am the following day large masses of enemy soldiers were spotted making preparations to attack their position

’The Officer Commanding (OC) ‘B’ Company reported them to be massing in a sunken road to his front. He asked urgently for bombs, but no bombs were available. The position was a network of old trenches up which the usual bombing parties might be expected to attack and, without bombs for countering the attacks, the defenders were at a great disadvantage. ‘B’ and ‘A’ Companies were attacked; the attacks were repeated throughout the day. Twice ‘B’ Company was driven out of the trenches, and twice it recovered them by counter-assault. Heavy casualties were inflicted on the attackers whenever they showed themselves in the open, but when they came bombing up the communication trenches there was no adequate means of opposing them … ’ [2]

Desperate fighting continued until around 4 pm when the West Yorkshiremen were shelled out of their positions by artillery and trench mortars, in addition to being bombed by aircraft and, despite a desperate attempt to hold on, the battered 2/4th was forced to retire having lost over 160 officers and men. Later that night the 4 companies (each consisting of many 18- and 19-year-old soldiers) of the 5th KOYLI moved into the line in readiness for a counter attack, which was to be mounted the following day.

The 5th KOYLI launched its assault before dawn (4.15 am) on 28 March, the attackers soon coming up against heavy fire from machine guns hidden in Rossignol Wood.

’Three of these, at least, were taken with a rush, but not before they had done fearful execution amongst the assaulting companies. Captain B A Beach saw about 25 men lying in the open and called on them to come on, but found that they were all dead men. Bombs had been issued in time for this advance and there were bombing fights all down the line. It was obvious that the companies had bumped into a strongly held outpost line … ’ [2]

Despite heavy losses the Battalion retook the Brigade’s old positions before daybreak and had just begun to consolidate their precarious hold on their old positions when the enemy launched a counter-attack their own, which fell on the Yorkshiremen with a vengeance. Outnumbered and virtually surrounded the beleaguered West Yorkshiremen managed to send a final message to battalion headquarters asking for more bombs and reinforcements, neither of which was received. A short while later the enemy launched another assault. One of the few survivors of the attack later recorded…

’It was not long before we saw the enemy in open order on the skyline to our left front, advancing in strength down the hill. The sun was in our eyes, making it hard to spot targets below the skyline. The enemy were well covered by machine guns, which harassed us greatly. Soon one gun was enfilading our straight line of trench making it untenable. 2/Lt. F.C. Lambert spotted this gun and with his Lewis gun he either silenced it or made it move. Our next trouble was from a [disabled] tank in front. The Germans were either in it or behind it, and we could not silence it. The position was becoming very unpleasant, we were suffering heavily too.

‘I made one or two journeys to get men from the higher end [of the trench]. On my way back from one of these journeys I noticed that the German machine gunners had crept closer, and I found that Lt. Lambert and the men around him were dead and their gun damaged. Shortly after I found that the men on my left were being driven back on me by a bombing party of the enemy; they were attempting to reply with their rifles. Some tried to leave the trench in an endeavour to extricate themselves, but they were immediately shot down. Bombing and machine gun fighting gradually died down. I found myself left with an officer and about four men, and discovered the enemy right in our rear to be advancing on us by way of the old communication trench; they were between us and Rossignol Wood. It was obvious that unless we moved quickly we should be hopelessly lost. We were already lost, but could not realise it … ’ [2]

[The unnamed author of the above account was eventually taken prisoner by men of the elite Prussian Guard, who he noted as ‘absolutely fresh, shaved, clean boots, with uniform and equipment in perfect condition. Their open fighting was excellent and outmatched ours, whose only experience had been in trench warfare’].

Spasmodic fighting continued throughout the remainder of that day. At around 5.30 pm5th Battalion’s CO, Lt Col Cyril Spencer Watson, set out with his sole remaining ‘D’ Company to try to reinforce his hard pressed front. By this time the KOYLI’s position was surrounded and Watson found his way solidly blocked by enemy troops. Deciding that there was no other sane option open to him other than to retire he ordered the company to fall back. Being the gentleman he reportedly was, Colonel Watson allowed his men to fall back whilst he remained behind in a communication trench to hold back the enemy for as long as he could, armed with little more than his service revolver. Inevitably, Watson was killed at some point during the withdrawal and his remains, like those of so many of his men, were never recovered. Lt Col Watson was subsequently awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross during May 1918 (‘Gazetted’ in the London Gazette of 8 May 1918).

Unbelievably, the remnants of the 2 battalions continued to hold their line until the welcome arrival of Australian troops during the evening of 28 March and, although their positions continued to be heavily bombarded by artillery, there were no further infantry attacks, with the surviving members of the 2/4th and 5th KOYLI finally being allowed to return to billets in the village of Authie during the first day of April.

Whilst in the relative comfort of Authie the customary post-battle calling of the 2 battalion’s rolls revealed the 2nd/4th KOYLI had lost over 180 men, the strength of the battalion being reduced to 7 officers and around 200 other ranks, whilst the 5th Battalion had lost 16 officers killed, wounded, and missing, and the ‘other ranks’ had lost 28 men killed, 80 wounded, and 268 missing in action. A number of these missing men were later found to have been taken prisoner but, nevertheless, many were never to be seen or heard of again; amongst these was 19-year-old 39125 Private George Arthur Lazenby.

Born in Scarborough at 54 Wykeham Street during 1899, George was the youngest son of Alice and James Lazenby, a labourer who worked for many years for Scarborough Council. [3]

One of a handful of Scarborough’s First World War casualties who died during the conflict leaving behind little or no personal information, the author has been unable to trace any information locally regarding Private Lazenby. Nevertheless, scraps of information indicate that he was conscripted at the age of 18 into the army at Scarborough during September 1917 and was originally been issued with the service number 82272, with which he initially trained and served in the north of England with 90th Training Reserve Battalion. Shortages of men at the front inevitably saw Lazenby being posted during February 1918 to an infantry training depot in France before being posted to the Western Front and the 5th KOYLI.

Officially recorded as having been killed in action during Wednesday, 27 March 1918, the remains of George Lazenby have never been recovered from the battlefield at Rossignol Wood; his name subsequently being commemorated in Bay 7 of the Memorial to the Missing at Arras. In Scarborough, George’s name is commemorated on the Oliver’s Mount Memorial (incorrectly spelt as ‘Lazemby’). Having lived all his life in Wykeham Street one would have imagined that Lazenby would have been a pupil of Gladstone Road School; however, his name is not commemorated on the School War Memorial. Neither can George’s name be found on any of Scarborough’s surviving church memorials. [4].

In addition to the Oliver’s Mount War Memorial, the missing George Arthur Lazenby is commemorated on two memorials in Scarborough’s Manor Road Cemetery. The first (broken) gravestone is located in the cemetery’s Section O, Row 9, Grave 5, and also contains the names of George’s grandparents, Charles (who had died on 6 June 1900 at the age of 57) and Eliza Lazenby (who had passed away almost exactly a year later, on 7 July 1901, at the age of 65). The second memorial is located in Manor Road’s Section P, Row 11, Grave 5; this also marks the final resting place of George’s parents, Heslerton-born James Lazenby, who died ‘suddenly’ at his home at 54 Wykeham Street on Friday, 21 October 1927 at the age of 61, and Burniston-born Alice Lazenby who subsequently passed away at the age of 83 in the house at 54 Wykeham Street where her children were born and the family lived for over 50 years, during Thursday, 9 March 1950.

[1] The private papers of Douglas Haig 1914-19; Eyre & Spotiswoode; London; 1952.

[2] History of the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in the Great War 1914-1918; Wylly & Bond; 1929.

[3] At the time of the 1901 Census the Lazenby’s were still residing at 54 Wykeham Street, the family by this time consisting of James, 35, employed as a ‘navvy’, Alice, 35, Thomas Charles, 11, Mary Elizabeth, 8, and 2-years-old George Arthur. All were Scarborough born.

[4] George is one of two Scarborough casualties of the Great War commemorated on the Oliver’s Mount Memorial with the surname of Lazenby, the second being George’s cousin: 3768 Private John William Lazenby (also incorrectly recorded as ‘Lazemby’)

Paul Allen

Harman, Charles A

7 March 2014 by Boro1418 Leave a Comment

Name: Charles Abraham Harman

Rank: Lance Corporal

Service No: 28694

Date of Death: 22/03/1918

Age: 34

Regiment/Service: 18th (Queen Mary’s Own) Hussars

Panel Reference: Panel 5. Memorial: Pozieres Memorial

Additional Information: Husband of Alice Harman, of 41 Elmville Avenue, Scarborough.

Paul Allen writes:

It was during Thursday, 22 March 1918 that another resident of Scarborough – and a veteran of the Boer War – also lost his life. Born at 9 Forsyth Street in Rotherhythe, South East London, during 1883, 28694 Lance Corporal Charles Abraham Harman was the 5th of 6 children and son of ‘Shipwright’ Henry and Eliza (formerly Caney) Harman. [1]

Following the death of his father at the age of 48 during 1884, Charlie and the remainder of his family resided in Rotherhythe at 14 Neptune Street with grandparents Luke and Emily Caney; he lived at this address until his enlistment into the army of Queen Victoria at London on 20 September 1898.

Aged 18 years and 8 months by 1898, Harman had already been a soldier in the Militia (the predecessor of the Territorial Army), in 3rd Battalion, the East Surrey Regiment. At his enlistment he described himself as a ‘labourer’. Given a rudimentary medical it was noted that he had measured at 4 feet 4½ inches in height, and possessed a ‘fair’ complexion, ‘blue grey eyes, and ‘red’ hair. Enlisting for ‘short service’ (7 years with the colours and 5 in the Reserve Army), into the East Yorkshire Regiment (The Duke of York’s Own), Charlie duly joined the Regiment at its Regimental Depot, located at Beverley, in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

Consisting of universally moustachioed soldiers (in Harman’s day it was forbidden by military law for men to shave above their upper lip) who drank, brawled, and womanised in every garrison town from Beverley to India, the Regular Army East Yorkshire Regiment (the Duke of York’s Own) had been raised in 1685 as Sir William Clifton’s Regiment of Foot, and nicknamed ‘The Snappers’. At the time that Harman joined the Regiment it consisted of two battalions of infantry, the First and Second, which had alternated between service in the United Kingdom and abroad.

Issued with the Regimental Number of 5900, Charlie began his service at Beverley on 21 September 1898 and he remained in training there until the following year. An inkling of harshness of the conditions Harman endured during that initial period of his army training is described by another recruit of the period;

‘The military vocabulary, minor tactics, knowledge of parts of a rifle, route marches, fatigues, semaphore [signalling], judging distance, shooting lectures on esprit de corps, and on the history of our regiment, spit and polish, drill, saluting drill, physical training, and other, forgotten subjects were rubbed into us for the worst six months of my life … In time we effaced ourselves. Our bodies developed and our backs straightened according to plan … Pride of arms possessed us, and we discovered that our regiment was a regiment, and then some’…(Private John Lucy; ‘Tommy’; Richard Holmes).

Despite the hardships, unlike many others, Charlie Harman survived the course to ‘pass out’ of recruit training on 9 January 1899 when he was posted to the 2nd Battalion, East Yorks. Stationed at Ireland at Templemore and Tipperary until late 1899, by the start of 1900 the 2nd battalion had arrived back in England to be stationed at Aldershot where the men began to hear rumours of the battalion being sent to the ‘troubles in South Africa’. Sure enough, during February 1900, the men of 2 Battalion (commanded at this time by Lt Col W W Ward) had exchanged their customary smart scarlet tunics for khaki ’Service Dress’, their equally impressive blue cloth helmets for khaki drab cork sun helmets and, by 14 March the battalion had arrived at Southampton where it embarked ‘for foreign service’ in the SS Nile.

After coaling at St Vincent, the Nile arrived at Cape Town during the morning of 3 April 1900, and soon the men of the battalion entrained for Kimberley and the start of their war in South Africa.

Charlie Harman remained in South Africa until January 1903 when, by March of that year, he was once again stationed at Tournay Barracks, North Camp, Aldershot. On 26 March he was amongst 14 officers and 170 men of 2nd East Yorks who were presented with the Queen’s South Africa Medal with clasps bearing the Battle Honours of ‘Cape Colony’, ‘Transvaal’, and ‘Wittenburgen’. In addition he also received the King’s South Africa Medal bearing the clasps’1901’, and ‘1902’. Posted back to the Depot at Beverley soon afterwards, Charlie remained there until 1910. During this time he extended the length of his service to 8 years with the colours and, in exchange, he was awarded the Good Conduct Badge. Married in Beverley’s St. John’s Church on 27 June 1908 to Beverley-born (1882) ‘spinster’ Alice Fallowfield, the couple began living in Beverley at 10 Vicar Lane with Alice’s parents, ‘cabinet maker’ Thomas and Emily Ann Fallowfield. Charlie and Alice eventually became the parents of two children: Alice Dorothy, born at Beverley on 28 July 1908; and Harry Charles, born on 25 September 1909.

By the time of the 1911 Census the 28-year-old Charlie was once again serving abroad with ‘F’ Company of 2nd East Yorks at Fyzabad in India. However, by the following year he had served for 12 years with the colours and he was soon making his way back to the Regimental Depot at Beverley where he was discharged from the army on 19 September 1912.

By the outbreak of the ‘Great War’ the Harman family was residing in Scarborough at 41 Elmville Avenue. By this time Charlie was employed as a ‘vanman’ by local confectioners Messrs Stuart & Co. However, upon the outbreak of war in August 1914, Charlie was not amongst the army reservist that called back to the colours hours after Britain’s declaration of war with Germany and he remained a civilian until 5 April 1915 when he enlisted for war service with the 18th Hussars.

Instead of joining his old regiment Harman, by then an experienced handler of horses, elected to serve in the cavalry and he was duly assigned to the 18th (Queen Mary’s Own) Hussars. Initially posted to the Cavalry Depot at Tidworth for training with the 11th Reserve Cavalry Regiment (Regimental Number 28694) Charlie eventually joined the 18th Hussars in France during 1916. He served in the majority of the major actions of the war, albeit on the sidelines whilst awaiting the all-important breakthrough of the German line that never materialised until the final stages of the war.

During the desperate days of March 1918, as had often been the case, the 18th Hussars exchanged their cavalry role for that of the infantryman and were thrown into the line wherever they were most needed at the time, therefore it has proved impossible to ascertain where on the Somme Sector Charlie Harman, and the majority of his cavalrymen, were serving at the time of his demise on 22 March 1918.

Aged 34, and promoted to the rank of corporal at the time of his death, the news of Charlie Harman’s demise was reported in ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 12 April 1918:
‘Killed in second war’

Corporal C. Harman, Hussars, 41 Elmville Avenue, has been killed in action. He was twelve years in the East Yorks, and took part in the South African War, for which he had two medals and several bars. He rejoined April 5th 1915 having been a vanman of Messrs. Stuart and Co. for seven years. He was a great lover of horses and many knew him for the care lavished on any animal in his charge. He was thirty five years of age and leaves a widow and two children … ’

No remains identifiable as those of Charlie Harman have ever been located on the Somme battlefield and his name was subsequently included on the Pozieres Memorial to the Missing. Located in the Somme Department of Northern France, the Pozieres Memorial is situated a little to the south of Pozieres, a village 6 kilometres north east of the town of Albert. It consists of a series of name-engraved stone panels set into a rubble stone wall surrounding Pozieres British Cemetery. Designed by W H Cowlishaw with sculptures by Laurence A Turner, the Memorial was unveiled by Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien on 4 August 1930 and contains the names of over 14,000 British and 300 South African servicemen who died on the Somme during the period from the German Spring Offensive of 21 March 1918 to the beginning of the Advance to Victory, 7 August 1918, and who have no known grave. Charlie’s name can be located on Panel 5 that is dedicated to the officers and men of 18th Hussars who lost their lives during that period.

In Scarborough, Charlie Harman’s name is commemorated on Oliver’s Mount War Memorial and on the large stone and marble ‘Roll of Honour’ located on the north interior wall of St Mary’s Parish Church that also contains the names of a further 155 former members of the parish who lost their lives whilst on active service during the Great War of 1914-1918.

[1] ‘Widower’ Henry Harman and ‘Spinster’ Eliza Caney were married in Bermondsey at St Mary Magdalene’s Parish Church on 15 July 1873. Although given the name of Abraham Charles Harman by his parents, Harman had always served under the name of Charles Abraham. He is also commemorated in Scarborough, and by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission by this name, and it is, therefore, the name I have used in the text.

Paul Allen

Goodrick, William H

4 March 2014 by Boro1418 Leave a Comment

Name: William Herbert Goodrick

Rank: Private

Service No: 46295

Date of Death: 22/03/1918

Age: 19

Regiment/Service: Leicestershire Regiment 6th Bn

Panel Reference:Panel 29 and 30.Memorial: Pozieres Memorial

Additional Information: son of Richard and Jessie Goodrick, of 38 Murchison St, Scarborough.

CWGC reference

Paul Allen writes:

By the onset of darkness of the first day of their ‘Kaiserschlacht’, although they had not achieved all of their objectives, the Germans had good reason to be reasonably pleased with themselves. On the British Fifth Army’s front the German infantry had overrun the Forward Zone, and in many places were across, or well inside the Battle Zone. In the south, from La Fere to the Somme Canal, the Battle Zone was already in their hands, and III Corps was making plans to withdraw overnight to a line some 2 miles behind the Battle Zone, located at the Crozat Canal, in the area known as the Rear Zone. The cost of the first day had been high. The Germans had suffered over 40,000 casualties and had inflicted nearly as many on the British who had lost over 38,000 men, of which 28,000 had been made prisoners of war by nightfall.

At 10.50 pm that night British General Headquarters had released a communiqué to the British Press. The ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 22 March 1918 reported:
‘Great German offensive
‘Biggest operations of the war
‘At about 8 this morning after an intense bombardment of both high explosive and gas shells on forward positions and back areas a powerful infantry attack was launched by the enemy by the enemy on a front of over fifty miles, extending from the River Oise, in the neighbourhood of Le Fere, to the Sensee, about Croiselles.

‘Hostile artillery demonstrations have taken place on a wide front north of La Bassée Canal and in the Ypres Sector. The attack, which for some time past was known to be in course of preparation, has been pressed with the greatest vigour and determination throughout the day.

‘In the course of the fighting the enemy broke through our outpost positions and succeeded in penetrating into our battle positions in certain parts of the front.

‘The attack was delivered in large masses, and have been extremely costly to the hostile troops engaged, whose losses have been exceptionally heavy.

‘Severe fighting continues along the whole front … ’

In some places, especially around the village of Epehy, the Germans had indeed come up against some stout resistance, and whilst those back home were reading the largely distorted accounts of the battle in their newspapers that evening a number of men were still waging a ferocious war of attrition against their opponents.

Immediately to the south of 6th Division, the defence of the British line was taken over by VII Corps of Sir Hubert Gough’s Fifth Army. Beginning at the southern end of the so-called ‘Flesquières Salient’, this sector of the front was held by (from north to south) 9th (Scottish), 21st, and 16th (Irish) Divisions. On the first day of the offensive it was the men of the South African Infantry Brigade who had borne the brunt of the German Second Army’s attack on 9th Scottish. Holding Gauche Wood, the men of the 2 South Africans held on to their positions until about mid-day when the 40 surviving members of the unit which had gone into action with a strength of around 130 officers and men, were finally been pushed out of the wood.

South of the South Africans the line was held by Major General D ‘Soarer’ Campbell’s 21st Division, which was responsible for the defence of ‘Chapel Hill’ on the left, ‘Vaucelette Farm’ in the middle, and the village of Epehy on the right. The capture of this sector was considered of vital importance to the Germans because it was through there that they intended to drive the southern arm of the Flesquières Salient.

At Chapel Hill, 1st Battalion, the Lincolnshire Regiment also put up a fierce resistance to the German hordes, and with the help of reinforcements from the neighbouring South Africans managed to hold on to the majority of their most important hill. At Vaucelette Farm, however, standing in a valley between Chapel Hill and Epehy, it was a different tale, and although the farm’s garrison from the 12th/13th Battalion the Northumberland Fusiliers had managed to hold on to their positions for 2 hours, until they were finally ejected by the Germans, also at around mid-day, with the assistance of trench mortars.

Standing between Cambrai and Peronne, and some 15 kilometres to the north of St Quentin, the defence of the tiny village of Epehy was the responsibility of 21st Division’s 110 (Leicestershire) Brigade, which consisted of three battalions: the 6th, 7th, and 8th of the Leicestershire Regiment.

On the morning of the attack, the left hand section of 110 Brigade’s sector (Pezieres to Epehy village) of the line was held by 7th Battalion, and on the right by 8th Battalion, whilst 6th Battalion was held in reserve to the west of Ephey in positions known as the ‘Yellow Line’. An hour before dawn the Leicesters’ front line positions were evacuated as planned thus minimising the risk of the defenders being surrounded and cut off and the number of casualties suffered in the preliminary bombardment. The two front line battalions then took up positions in the ‘Red Line’, a series of concrete blockhouses which had been dotted round the village, where they awaited the arrival of the enemy. They hadn’t long to wait. Lance Corporal Sydney North (7th Leicesters) tells:

‘The fog became less dense; the sun broke through and almost at once the fog cleared, revealing an amazing sight. The foremost of the enemy infantry, completely disorganised by the fog, were trying to get sorted out. Not far behind them came several platoons of infantry moving in solid blocks, four men abreast. Behind them were groups of cavalry coming on at walking pace and further behind, about 600 yards away, were horse-drawn general service wagons and horse-drawn ambulances. It was like a panorama on a huge canvas and we simply could not believe it….

‘The Germans were moving forward as if they expected no opposition. We opened fire. The Lewis Guns got busy and the enemy groups scattered. They had very little cover and no chance of survival … after a while nothing was moving throughout the whole visible front except for a few riderless horses, terrified by the shooting. We could here the screams of stricken horses; I was glad when they eventually galloped away from the scene. We watched, but there was no sign of any further attack and we wondered what had been going on on our right flank.

‘Looking to our right, we could see Jerry troops steadily making their way into territory we had been told was held by the 16th (Irish) Division. About half a mile to our right, we could see the Germans moving forward in single file and many were already well behind us. It was not yet midday. Jerry was moving as if there was no opposition and we reckoned we were in real trouble on the flank …’ [1]

The Leicesters were indeed ‘in real trouble’, and by mid-day they were embroiled in a ferocious fight for life which had lasted throughout the remainder of the day. The War Diary of the 7th Leicesters reports:

‘During the whole of the day the enemy made many futile attacks from NE of Fir Tree Support and Red Line, attempting to bomb down the latter from Squash Trench which he had entered early in the attack. The defence of Fir Support was conducted by 2nd Lieut (William Samuel) Wright with about 20 men against numerous bombing attacks in one of which flamethrowers were used but these were stopped on our wire by rifle fire and the cylinders, catching alight, the enemy were burnt with their own weapons. Good work was done by the whole of this platoon and particularly by Private (Thomas) Hickin who on 2 or 3 occasions walked along the parapet firing a Lewis Gun from his hip at the enemy concentrating in the trenches in the flanks. Private Hickin was eventually killed in making one of these attack … ’ [2]

Soon after the start of the battle Lt Col William Norman Stewart’s 6th Battalion of the Leicesters moved forward in support of their comrades in 7th and 8th Battalions, the three formations holding onto their positions until the afternoon of 21 March when the Germans finally secured possession of the ‘Red Line’, and broke through the 7th Leicesters’ positions in the village of the Pezieres, only to be driven out again by the Battalion’s reserve company aided by 2 tanks, which had both done sterling service until they ran out of petrol, at which point they were disabled by artillery fire.

By dusk the battle at Epehy had descended into a vicious street fight, the ruined houses and lanes lined with trenches providing cover for snipers of friend and foe alike. With the approach of night the enemy’s infantry attacks had slackened whereas the enemy’s artillery bombardment of the village was intensified to prevent the pushing forward of urgently needed reinforcements and supplies to the, by now, beleaguered garrison.

The second day of the ‘Kaiserschlacht’ dawned much the same as the previous day, with a thick fog. Ever watchful for the appearance of an enemy attack, there had been little sleep for the meagre garrison of the trenches in and around Ephey during the night 21 March, consisting of a mixed bag of cooks, typists, bandsmen, and anyone else who could hold a rifle now amongst those preparing for a last-ditch stand in a partially completed line of trenches known as the ‘Brown Line’. Hopelessly outnumbered the ‘Tommies’ must have realised that the end was almost upon them as they once again awaited the arrival of the enemy. Soon after dawn the enemy began a heavy bombardment of the Leicesters’ positions, which was inevitably followed by a series of infantry attacks, once again driven off. However, at 9 am the enemy captured three of the Leicester’s posts on the south-eastern edge of Epehy from where they had advanced through the ruined village.

The gallant stand at Epehy went on until around mid-day on 22 March, when the surviving members of the three battalions of Leicesters were ordered to make a fighting withdrawal to Longavesnes, the 6th and 8th Battalions slipping away through the village of Saulcourt, whilst Captain Vanner and the remnants of 7th Battalion blew up two bridges over a railway cutting just north of Peiziere in the hope of further delaying their pursuing foe.

Having delayed the German advance for over 36 hours the Leicesters’ gallant action at Epehy had obviously been a thorn in the side of the German advance and was described in one German history as a ‘flood breaker’. The 3 battalions of the Leicestershire Regiment had acquitted themselves admirably during 21 (and 22) March 1918. Middlebrook says of their action at Epehy, ‘Few regiments had upheld their reputations so well on this day … ’ [1]

Although the 3 battalions of the Leicestershire Regiment lived to fight another day, the price paid for their indomitable stand had been expensive, and by 30 March it was found that the Leicestershire Brigade had lost 31 officers and 1,200 men, killed, wounded, and missing. Many of the latter were subsequently found to have been taken prisoner during this period; nevertheless, a great many of them were to remain ‘missing’ forever. Amongst them was 19-year-old 46295 Private William Herbert Goodrick.

Belonging to ‘B’ Company of 6th Battalion, the Leicestershire Regiment, William was born during 1898 in the ‘bottom end’ of Scarborough at 69 Eastborough, and was the eighth of 9 children of Jessie and Richard Goodrick, who was employed as a postman. A pupil of St Mary’s Parish School and Friarage Council School, by the outbreak of war William was employed as an errand boy in the South Street shop of local grocers and wine merchants William C Land & Co., still only aged 15 and obviously considered too young for military service. However, by the autumn of 1917, shortly before celebrating his 19th birthday, William Goodrick enlisted into the army at Scarborough’s Castle Road Court House. [3]

Although one would have expected a Yorkshireman to serve in a local regiment, by late 1917 heavy casualties and an acute shortage of recruits had dictated that men like Goodrick, and the throngs of young men (many underage) who joined the army at this stage in the war had little say in the matter of which unit they had served with, thus, by the onset of winter, Goodrick found himself posted to the Leicestershire Regimental Depot at Wigston Barracks (also known as ‘Glen Parva Barracks’), which had been located in Saffron Road, South Wigston*.

Whilst William Goodrick underwent (with the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion) his basic course of infantry training at Leicester, the remnants of the 6th (Service) Battalion were moving from the Ypres Sector (having recently suffered heavy casualties in the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as Passchendaele) to the Cambrai sector where they were intended as reinforcements to help stem the German counter attack of 30 December 1917. Nevertheless, by the time that the division’s various units were in place, the repeated German attacks had petered out and the Battalion spent the remainder of what many would recall as the worst winter in living memory improving the defences of the Epehy district. This was a task which involved digging new emplacements and trenches in front of the village and assisting the Royal Engineers within the village itself with the construction of a series of concrete blockhouses, emplacements, and observation posts which, unknowingly, were to play a very important part in the battle of 21 – 22 March 1918.

At the beginning of January 1918 Private Goodrick was included in a draft of 18- and 19-year-old replacements destined for France to fill the ranks of the depleted 3 battalions of Leicesters.

In the same draft as Goodrick was 18-years-old 41367 Private Frank Pothecary, who would later recall his impressions of their first few days of life at the front:

‘The [6th] battalion was in the line at Epehy and we was at Saulcourt and we had to go up each evening as carrying parties and go out to repair the barbed wire which was very frightening at first. Our officer said ‘don’t worry, if you are going to get it, you wont know anything about it’ and that took some of the fear away … we lived in a deep dugout with two entrances (about thirty steps down). We had to pass through a gas prevention chamber half way down. The beds were wire netting racks, three tiers high, and the only light was a few candles. It was always hot and stuffy. At the top of the steps there was always a gas guard who would beat on a hanging shell case when there was gas about. He would also use a spinning rattle.

‘We had to go down to the front line every day and repair damage and do anything which needed doing, digging latrines etc (never a dull moment). We had three days of this and then the front line. Here we lived in slits cut in the front [beneath] the parapet, and covered with a groundsheet. Food came up in big containers from the field kitchens carried on stretcher type wooden frames, ‘no fires in the line’. At dusk, we had ‘stand to’ and then it was ‘two hours on, four hours off’ to stand on the fire step all night, which was a cold and dreary job. Sometimes great rats run just in front of you and put the wind up you. At dawn everyone ‘stands to’ after which we would have a foot inspection and whale oil would be issued to rub on the feet to prevent frostbite … ’ [4]

(Unlike Private Goodrick, Frank Pothecary survived the German Spring Offensive and the remainder of the war).

Due to the immense disruption caused during the Spring Offensive little is known of the fate of many of the Leicesters who went missing during the initial stages of the operation, whether their remains were buried by the Germans and the graves lost during the remainder of the war, or whether they simply were blown to bits by shellfire is not known. The Goodricks, like most families during the war, never found out what had really happened to their son and had only been told by the War Office, many weeks after the event, that he had been reported as missing in action, a report which had eventually been amended to ‘missing believed killed in action’, probably on the 22ND of March 1918.

Another Scarborough casualty possessing no known grave, the name of Private William Herbert Goodrick (incorrectly recorded by the CWGC as Herbert William) like those of many comrades who were reported missing during the Spring of 1918 was included on the Pozieres Memorial to the Missing along with the names of over 14,000 fellow missing casualties who had fallen in the Somme sector of France from 21 March to 7 August 1918. William’s name can be found amongst the names of the missing of the Leicestershire Regiment who are commemorated on Panels 29 and 30 of the Memorial, along with that of the gallant 25264 Private Thomas Hickin.

As well as the Oliver’s Mount Memorial, Private Goodrick’s name is commemorated in Scarborough’s Dean Road Cemetery (Section B, Row 18, Grave 3), on a gravestone which also includes the names of his parents: Jessie Goodrick, who died at her home at 5 Henrietta Court, St Thomas Street, on Sunday, 16 August 1931 at the age of 67 years; and a Scarborough postman for over 30 years, Richard Goodrick, who passed away at 38 Murchison Street on Wednesday, 22 October 1941.

William’s elder brother, Arthur Edward Goodrick, served during the war with the Royal Field Artillery and survived, together with his sister Edith Mary Goodrick who served as a Sister and Staff Nurse.

[1] The Kaiser’s Battle; Martin Middlebrook; Penguin, 1978.

[2] War Diary of the 7th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment; Leicestershire Records Office; 21/318, Wigston. Quoted from page 217 of Matthew Richardson’s ‘The Tigers’; Pen & Sword Books, 2000.

[3] At the time of the 1901 Census of Scarborough’s population the Goodricks resided at 69 Eastborough, the family consisting of Richard, 38 years of age, employed as a postman, Jessie, 37 years, Edith Mary (18), Jane Beatrice (16), Alfred (14), Thomas (12), John Richard (10), Alice (7), Robert Edward (4), William (2), and Jessie, aged 5 months. All were born in Scarborough.

[4] Manuscript recollections, F E Pothecary; Liddle Collections, University of Leeds; courtesy of Richardson’s ‘The Tigers’.

Paul Allen

* Editor’s note: by this stage of the war, with conscription, new locally-recruited men were not placed in local regiments. The growth of the New Army Pals battalions had meant, when they suffered severe losses in action (such as on the Somme), that there was a significant impact on small localities in terms of bereavements. Recruiting was subsequently altered and new enlistments could find themselves in any regiment including, for example, Scots units.

Davison, Albert

4 March 2014 by Boro1418 Leave a Comment

Name: Albert Davison

Rank: Private

Service No: 34486

Date of Death: 22/03/1918

Age: 27

Regiment/Service: Leicestershire Regiment 11th Bn.

Panel Reference: Bay 5. Memorial: Arras Memorial

Additional Information: son of Stephen and Patty Davison, of 27 Nelson St, Scarborough; husband of Eva May Davison, of 11 Victoria Rd, Scarborough.

Paul Allen writes:

Another of those killed during the second day of the ‘Kaiserschlacht’ was 27-year-old 34486 Private Albert Davison.

Born in Scarborough at 4 Bedford Street during 1891, Albert, popularly known as ‘Bert’, was the fourth of five children of Martha (‘Pattie’) and Stephen Davison, who was variously employed as a ‘coal porter, labourer’, and by the turn of the century as a ‘greengrocer’, the family living in Scarborough at 54 North Street. [1]

A pupil of Scarborough’s Central Board School between the ages of 4 – 13, Bert left the school during 1904 to work initially in the family greengrocery business, the family living by this time at 109 Prospect Road. By the outbreak of war, however, Bert was working in the grocery trade at Derby; nevertheless, Bert returned to Scarborough during 1916 to be married at Bar Congregational Church on Thursday, 14 December to Eva May Hall, the 26-year-old daughter of Eliza and shoemaker, George Hall. Bert Davison and his bride set up home with elder brother Fred and Frances Caroline Davison, at 108 Moorland Road (where Albert and Eva’s only son, also to be named Albert, would be born on 21 April 1918).

‘Called up’ for war service during June 1916, Davison was enlisted into the army at the Sherwood Foresters Depot in Derby on 21 May 1917 where, despite expressing a preference for service with the Royal Flying Corps, the 27-year-old was recruited into the Leicestershire Regiment. Bert served between 21 May and 25 September 1917 at Leicester’s Wigston Barracks with the Regiment’s 3rd (Reserve) Battalion until he was posted to the 7th (Service) Battalion of the Leicesters. Davison embarked for France at Folkestone on 25 September 1917. Arriving in France the following day, Davison duly joined his new battalion, which was serving on the Western Front with 110 Brigade of 21st Division. Bert remained with the 7th Leicesters until 8 February 1918, when he was posted to the 11th Leicesters.

One of 68 battalions of Pioneers which had been raised during 1915 to provide skilled labour for the newly formed Kitchener’s ‘New Army’ Divisions, by the time that Bert Davison joined the unit, the 11th Leicesters (dubbed the ‘Midland Pioneers’, and commanded by Lt Col Charles Turner) were stationed in France at Fremicourt from where the unit’s four companies were engaged in various work assignments at nearby Lagnicourt, including digging deep dugouts, the construction of a light railway, and scraping and cleaning of roads.

The battalion was still at Fremicourt on the opening day of the ‘Kaiserschlacht’. The battalion’s War Diary of 21 March reports:

‘12.10 am Received orders from Division to ‘Stand to’.

‘In the Vaulx –Morchies Line

‘Companies in position by 5 am ….

‘The enemy attacked heavily after an intense bombardment (which lasted from about 05.00 am) at 08.00 am and established themselves in position in front of the wire of the Vaulx-Morchies Line by the evening … ’[2]

Unfortunately, 11th Battalion’s War Diary records no further details of the action on 21 March except to report that at 5-30 pm Battalion Headquarters had, ‘Received message from Sgt. Barratt, acting Company Sergeant Major of ‘D’ Company, to the effect that all the officers of his company had become casualties and that he was in command of the company…Six officers and about 30 other ranks were sent up from H.Q. to reinforce ‘D’Company’…[2]

During the morning of Thursday, 22 March the surviving Midland Pioneers were ordered to retire to the so-called ‘Army Line’. The move was completed by mid-afternoon. Evidence suggests that during this operation only 1 man, possibly Bert Davison, was killed: ’Transport moved to Pioneer Camp, Logeast Wood, one man of the transport was killed by shellfire … ’ [2]

Like the relatives of all the casualties at this chaotic stage of the war, Eva Davison was initially informed that her husband had been reported as ‘missing in action’ and she lived for some time with the hope, like most of his relatives, that Bert had been taken prisoner. Whilst eagerly awaiting news of her husband, on Sunday, 21 April, Eva gave birth to a son, the happy occasion being marred some days later by the arrival of the official notification of Bert’s death. The tidings were included in an extensive casualty list, which appeared in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday, 26 April 1918:

‘Private A. Davison killed in action

‘Official news has been received by his wife at 108 Moorland Road, that Private Albert Davison, Leicesters, has been killed in action, March 22nd. He went out last August, and was expected to come on leave this month. He was the son of Mr. Stephen Davison, 27 Nelson Street, and son-in-law of Mr George Hall, bootmaker. Private Davison was married and leaves one child, born on Sunday last. He was aged 28. There are three brothers serving. Private Davison was well-known in local football circles … ’

No further news of Private Davison was ever received. Eva, living by this time in Scarborough at 11 Victoria Road, eventually received a small widow’s pension and two medals (the British War and Victory Medals) in recompense for her lost husband and father of a son that he had never seen. Probably blown to bits on 22 March, no remains of a soldier, identifiable as those of Private Davison, have been found so, to the present day, Albert Davison remains ‘missing, believed killed in action’ on 22 March 1918.

During the post war years Bert Davison’s name was included in Bay 5 of Sir Edward Lutyens’s Arras Memorial. Located in the Faubourg-d’Amiens Cemetery in the western part of the town of Arras, the memorial contains the names of almost 35,000 casualties of the British, New Zealand, and South African armed forces who, like Davison, lost their lives in the Arras Sector between the Spring of 1916 and 7 August 1918 (excluding the casualties of the Cambrai Offensive of 1917), and who have no known grave.

In Scarborough, as well as the Oliver’s Mount Memorial, Davison’s name is commemorated in St Mary’s Parish Church on the ‘Roll of Honour’ located on the north interior wall that lists 156 former members of the Parish who lost their lives during the ‘Great War of 1914-19’. Bert’s name can also be found on a memorial in the town’s Manor Road Cemetery (Section N, Row 13, Grave 34), which also bears the names of his mother, ‘Pattie’ Davison, who died in Scarborough Infirmary (69 Dean Road) on Sunday, 4 May 1914, at the age of 52, and father Stephen Davison, who had died at 6 Beechville Avenue on Thursday, 26 November 1942 at the age of 83.

Bert’s three brothers, Fred, Valentine, and Stephen Davison, also served in the army (Royal Engineers, Machine Gun Corps, and Yorkshire Regiment respectively), and all survived to return to Scarborough following their demobilisation in 1919. Eva Davison, and her son, Albert, resided with her parents at 11 Victoria Road until the mid 1930s when her name disappears from Scarborough’s Electoral Rolls. By the 1950s there were two Albert Davisons listed in the town’s ‘Street Directory’. One lived with wife Marjorie at 24 Murchison Street, whilst the second resided with wife Nora at 44 Candler Street.

[1] At the time of the 1901 Census the Davison family were residing in the house in North Street and consisted of Stephen (the eldest son of Rouse and Hannah Davison), aged 42 years, Martha, 39 years, Frederick, 16 years, employed as a ‘joiners apprentice’, Valentine, 15 years, employed as a ‘painters lad’, Amy aged 13, Albert aged 10, and Stephen aged 9. All were born in Scarborough except for Martha Davison, who was born in the Lincolnshire village of Glentworth.

[12] National Archives; WO /95/1601.

Paul Allen

Stabler, Percival

Stonehouse, Herbert

Pottage, Thomas H

Lazenby George A

Harman, Charles A

Goodrick, William H

Davison, Albert

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