The battle of Villers- Bretonneux 1918 (from the book "Neath a Foreign Sky" by Paul Allen)
In Remembrance of;
- Corporal William White
- Private William White
- Private Ernest Harold Frith
- Private George Harold Lancaster
There had been a welcome lull during the closing stages of Operation Michael. During this so called ‘quiet’ period, between the first and fourth of April, Ludendorff, still intent on capturing the strategically important city of Amiens, had brought his big guns up closer to the city, re-supplied his troops, and put six fresh divisions into his front.
Before dawn on a wet, foggy, and cold Thursday the fourth of April the Germans had launched a new strike on the British line on a fifteen miles front between Montdidier and the Somme, which had been proceeded by the customary huge artillery bombardment. Faced with overwhelming odds the French had initially been driven back two miles by the German infantry who had been advancing virtually shoulder-to-shoulder. Nevertheless, later that day they had managed to regroup and hold their line.
Standing plumb in the centre of the German fourteenth and eleventh corps line of advance in the British Sector had been the small town of Villers-Bretonneux. Located in the heart of Northern France’s Somme Department and little more than nine miles east of the outskirts of Amiens, ‘Villers Brett’ had barred the way to the city and its capture had therefore been considered of vital importance for the success of the operations against Amiens.
East of the village had been [and still is] an old Roman road where Lieutenant General Sir Herbert Watts’s battle worn19TH Corps had been holding the line. Decimated in previous fighting in the vicinity 18TH Corps had consisted of the British 14TH [Light] Division in the north, the Australian 9TH Brigade in the middle, and 18TH [Eastern] Division in the south [along with the 6TH Cavalry Brigade which had initially been held in reserve], the village had been smothered by gas and high explosives at around 5-15am on the 4TH of April which had inflicted large casualties on the 14TH Division from the outset. At 7am the artillery barrage had ended to be replaced by the infantry assault, which had come under intense British fire. 35TH Australian Infantry Battalion’s War Diary reports what had happened next;
‘Our S.O.S. was sent up and was almost immediately responded to by an accurate barrage which fell on the dense masses of advancing infantry, cutting gaps in his formations. In addition to artillery fire, the enemy was subjected to the maximum firepower of all units in the line…causing him very heavy casualties’…
Despite their appalling losses the men of 228TH Division which had cut into the British line between the Roman road and the village of Hamel like the proverbial hot knife through butter causing many of the British to flee from their positions until they had finally been rallied by Australian troops and encouraged to regroup. However, by midday the nearby village of Hamel had fallen into enemy hands.
The Australians and 18TH division had fared little better. Despite beating of three concerted enemy attacks the remnants of the two formations, with a gap on their left caused by the withdrawal of 14TH Division, had been forced to quit their defensive line to fall back to trenches close to ‘Villers –Brett’ by noon. Desperate fighting had continued throughout the remainder of the afternoon, by which time the precariously held line in front of Villers Bretonneux had been manned by a hodge- podge of units including British and Australian infantry, cavalrymen, cooks, bottle washers, and anyone else who could hold a rifle. The artillery had also played a major part in the day’s happenings. Lance Bombardier Robert Ford sums up the situation;
‘It was literally all hands on deck, so to speak, I mean I wasn’t a gunner, I was with the ammunition column, a driver. To be honest, I don’t know where we got the ammunition from, but we were taking it up to the guns and they were firing for the best part of the day…[1]
North of the village 14TH Division’s line had been retaken by 6TH Cavalry Brigade, but later that afternoon the German eleventh corps had launched a devastating attack on the flimsy line held by 18TH Division, which had driven the remnants of the formation through the mud and rain towards the outskirts of the town.
News of the collapse of the British line had reached Australian Headquarters at around 4-45 that day. Lieutenant Colonel Henry Goddard, the C.O. of 35TH Battalion, sensing the severity of the situation had hurriedly ordered Lieutenant Colonel John A. Milne D.S.O., the Commanding Officer of the 36TH Battalion, the unit nearest the breakthrough, ‘to counter attack at once’. Milne had subsequently led his battalion forward with the words ‘ good-bye boys its neck or nothing’ and along with another thousand Aussie and British stragglers had ferociously driven back the German assault. To the north of the Roman road a mixed bag of Australians and British 17TH Lancers had linked the 6TH Cavalry Brigade with Milne’s counter attackers, thus, by around four that afternoon a tenuous line in front of Villers Bretonneux had been restored…for the time being. [2]
Over the next few days the British and Australians had warily awaited the next enemy assault. In the meantime both sides had inevitably ventured out into ‘no man’s land’ to gather intelligence. It had been during one of these forays that a patrol of Australian infantry had come across the body of a dead British soldier. With spurs on his boots the man had obviously once been a cavalryman, and further investigation of his pockets had found various documents relating to twenty-three years old;
39778 Corporal William White. Born in Scarborough on the 15TH of August 1895 at the ‘Cattle Tavern’, Hope Street, ‘Billy had been the youngest son of Jessie and Joseph John White, the proprietor of the ‘Bedford Arms’, which had been located on the corner of Castle Road [No29] and Dean Road [the public house is now [2006] known as the ‘West Riding’]. A pupil of St Mary’s Parish School until the age of six, when White had transferred to the nearby Friarage Board School, where he had remained until the Summer Term of 1907.
Between 1907 and 1911 Billy had been a scholar at Scarborough’s Municipal School, [the Edwardian equivalent of today’s Comprehensive School], where he had especially excelled at sports. A keen swimmer and gymnast, White had often taken part in Scarborough’s annual Castle Foot swim, whereby a number of daring aquanaughts had taken to the water in the North Bay to swim around the foot of the castle into the South Bay, to win the coveted gold watch which had been donated by Scarborough Councillor and entraponeur, Mr Gambart Baines.
‘Billy’ had remained at the ‘Muni’ until the summer of 1911, when he had left to take up employment as an errand boy for Scarborough Council, based in the Town Hall in St Nicholas Street.
A pre war part time soldier in the Scarborough based [St Johns Road Barracks] Territorial Force North Riding Battery of the 2ND Northumbrian Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery; during 1913 White had transferred to the cavalry to serve in the ranks [Regimental Number 8470] of the 5TH [Princess Charlotte of Wales’s] Dragoon Guards. Sent initially to the unit’s Depot at Dunbar for six months of cavalry and machine gun training, Billy had subsequently been posted to the Maxim Machine gun section of ‘B’ Squadron of the 5TH Dragoon Guards, which had been stationed at Aldershot.
Attached [along with the 2ND Dragoon Guards [The Queen’s Bays] and 11TH [Prince Albert’s Own] Hussars] to the 1ST Brigade of Major General Edmond Allenby’s Cavalry Division, the Fifth Dragoon Guards had been amongst the first unit’s of the British Expeditionary Force to land in France during August 1914, and had taken part in the advance to, and eventual retreat, from Mons.
Wounded during the retreat at Nery, following his adventures in France and Belgium, and treatment at Cosham, Hampshire, White had been amongst the first of Scarborough’s casualties to return to the town to recuperate from a bullet wound in his right leg. The soldier’s return from the battlefront had inevitably aroused the interest of the war news starved local press and ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 2ND of October 1914 had included a lengthy account of his recent exploits;
‘Back from the front - Scarborough Dragoon’s experience - Trooper W. White, of the 5TH Dragoon Guards, son of Mr and Mrs J.J. White, Bedford Arms, Castle Road, returned to his home last night, after being in hospital elsewhere He was wounded at Compeigne, and still limps a little, although he cheerily says he is about all right again….
He landed at Havre [August 16TH], and he speaks highly of the reception given to them by the French people. Proceeding to Mons his regiment was engaged in defending a railway. Then, after the now famous Battle of Mons, the allied troops retreated as far as Compeigne. Crossing a river [The Oise] the Engineers blew up the bridges and fighting was stubbornly kept up, albeit the Allies retreated with great orderliness and skill.
Next morning [Tuesday 1ST September 1914] the Germans were hot upon them trying to surround them. They had crept up in the night, and commenced heavy firing. The horses of the 2ND Dragoon Guards [The Queen’s Bays]. The order was given to saddle up and retire. This had just nicely been completed when Trooper White’s horse had been shot. He proceeded to a limber used for bringing up ammunition for the machine guns, and whilst on this he had been shot.
From there the 5TH Dragoons and the 11TH Hussars—who had lost a great many—got their horses together, and went back into action, capturing 14 guns and two or three hundred prisoners [the numbers had actually been eight guns captured and seventy eight prisoners taken by the 11TH Hussars].
The wounded, including Trooper White, were put into ambulance wagons, and they were taken to a gentleman’s residence. The Germans subsequently took charge of this hospital, and all in it were held as prisoners of war for six days. Then the French appeared and took charge of the men, some being removed in motor lurries. The Germans, however, took sixty as prisoners from the hospital—those who could walk. The Germans also commandeered the bulk of the food, and for three days Trooper White had biscuits and tea—one biscuit for each meal. When the French took charge of them, however, they had plenty to eat. Subsequently those taken charge of by the French were put on a train and went to Rouen, and from there straight across to Southampton, and then to the hospital at Cosham’ [Alexander War Hospital]…[2]
After five weeks of convalescence leave in Scarborough Billy White had returned to the Cavalry Depot at Dunbar, where he had remained as a physical training instructor until November 1915, when he had returned to the Western FrontAmongst over 170,000 officers and men who would eventually serve in the so called ‘Suicide Club’, White had volunteered for service in the Cavalry arm of the Machine Gun Corps [M.G.C.] during February 1917 and had initially been posted to the M.G.C.’s training centre at Grantham where he had soon been immersed in a frenzied round of training in the newly introduced tactics of machine gun warfare and the maintenance and handling of the British Army’s standard automatic weapons of the time, the newly introduced [July 1915] American designed, Lewis Light machine gun, and the famous Vickers Medium Machine Gun. [3]
Promoted to Lance Corporal whilst at Grantham, White had remained at the Depot until May 1917, by which time he had exchanged his Dragoon Guards cap badge for that of the crossed Vickers guns surmounted by a crown of the M.G.C., and worn the machine gun ‘skill at arms’ chevron [the letters M.G. surrounded by laurel leaves] above his corporal’s stripe. Posted to France during June 1917 White had reported to the M.G.C. Depot at Camiers from where he had been sent to the 6TH Cavalry Brigade Machine Gun Squadron of the 3RD Cavalry Division.
[A Machine gun Squadron of the Machine Gun Corps [Cavalry] had been armed with twelve Vickers Guns and had consisted of eight officers, around two hundred men, and 299 horses].
A survivor of almost four years of war, Billy White’s longevity of life on a front where two men had been killed every second lies in the fact that at the end of the so called ‘war of movement’ during the early stages of the war, the cavalry had been kept in reserve to exploit the always expected breakout from the deadlock of trench warfare, which had never materialised. Spared from the slaughter of the Somme Offensive of 1916, the British cavalry had kicked its heels far behind the front line until the subsequent Arras Offensive, which had lasted from April to May 1917.
It had been during these operations the cavalry had finally been allowed to show their metal on the 11TH of April when during a snowstorm units of 3RD Cavalry Division had foolhardily been allowed to take part in an attack on the fortified village of Monchy-le Preux.
Faced with machine guns and artillery, the assault, made by 8TH Cavalry Brigade [Essex Yeomanry, 10TH [Prince of Wales’s Own Royal] Hussars, and 8TH Cavalry Brigade Machine Gun Squadron], had been a disaster reminiscent of the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava sixty-three years before;
‘During a lull in the snowstorm [an observer would later report] an excited shout was raised that our cavalry were coming up! Sure enough away behind us, moving quickly in extended order down the slope of Orange Hill, was line upon line of mounted men covering the whole of the hillside as far as we could see…
It may have been a fine sight, but it was a wicked waste of men and horses, for the enemy immediately opened on them a hurricane of every kind of missile. If the cavalry advanced through us at the canter or trot, they came back at a gallop, including dismounted men and riderless horses….
They left numbers of dead and wounded amongst us, but the horses seem to have suffered the most, and for a while after we put bullets into poor brutes that were aimlessly limping about on three legs, or careering madly in their agony like one I saw with the whole of its muzzle blown away’…
[Although Monchy had been captured that day it had been won at a fearful cost. The exact number of horses lost by 8TH Brigade is not known, however, soon after the attack over eight hundred horses had been requested as remounts. Although badly wounded in both legs, Lance Corporal Harold Sandford Mugford of 8TH Brigade Machine Gun Squadron had nonetheless kept his weapon in action during the assault on Monchy-le –Preux and had subsequently been awarded with the Victoria Cross].
The cavalry, always the pride of the British top brass, had been earmarked to spearhead the advance of Third Army at the start of the operations at Cambrai and had come within a whisker of leading the way towards an early ending of the trench deadlock, which had existed during late 1917. The victim of the shortsightedness ineptitude of its own commanding officer, Lieutenant General Sir Kavanagh, the Cavalry Corps had once again mostly languished behind the lines whilst valuable opportunities had been squandered.
The subject of much derision amongst the ranks of the other arms of the B.E.F. especially the ‘poor bloody infantry’, the ‘donkey wallopers’ had still been waiting for the call to action by the beginning of April 1918. By this time the 3RD Cavalry Division had been stationed around the village of Boves located some miles behind the line at Villers Bretonneux. However, during the early hours of the fourth the 6TH Brigade had been called forward, the 10TH Hussars and 3RD Dragoons deploying on either side of the 14TH Division’s 48TH Brigade on Hill 104, a gently rising promontory three quarters of a mile north west of Villers Bretonnneux. Later that day the remainder of 3RD Cavalry Division had relieved the shattered 14TH Division.
Shrouded in the confusion of battle and the clouds of time, almost ninety years on despite extensive enquiries, nothing is known of the part played by Billy White and the remainder of 6TH M.G. Squadron during the fighting at Villers- Bretonneux. There is also some confusion surrounding where he and the unit had actually been positioned at the time. They may indeed have been the Cavalry Machine gun unit which had been stationed on the road to Hamel with three Vickers and one Hotchkiss gun, mentioned by Pederson, which had helped to drive off numerous enemy attacks throughout the fourth and fifth of April with their ‘torrential’ hail of machine gun fire…nevertheless we may never know the reality of their situation. [4]
Joseph and Jessie White had also received little information regarding the fate of their youngest son. Following an initial telegram from the War Office during May reporting Billy missing in action, they had received no further news until the beginning of June 1918 when the couple had received an unexpected letter from France. The contents of this correspondence had subsequently been forwarded to the Aberdeen Walk offices of ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ and had been included in a casualty list, which had appeared in the edition of Friday the 7TH of June 1918;
‘Machine Gunner missing - Some time ago Mr. and Mrs. J. White, Bedford Arms, Castle Road, received official information from the War Office that their son, Corporal William White, M.G.C., had been missing since the 4TH of April. They have now received a letter from an officer of an Australian regiment, enclosing a business card of the father of Corpl. White with his photo upon it, and with a message inscribed on the back in Mrs. White’s handwriting, which had been sent from Scarborough. It was found upon the body of a soldier who was found dead in ‘No Man’s Land’. The letter states that a wallet was also found on the body is following, and if this proves to belong to Corpl. White there will be little doubt as to his fate. Corpl. White was nearly 23 years of age and an old Municipal School boy. He joined the 5TH Dragoon Guards and was wounded at Mons in the very early days of the war, and he was the first wounded soldier into Scarborough following the outbreak of hostilities. He had been in the Machine Gun Corps a little over 12 months, and when in the Dragoons he was a gymnastics instructor. Before joining the army he won swimming prizes at Scarborough, including a gold watch given by councillor Gambart Baines. Mr.White’s brother was the first wounded soldier to come to Scarborough during the South African War. Mr. White has two other sons fighting and one of them has been wounded. His youngest son joined up when he was in reality only 16 years of age and he has already seen much fighting in France’…
Despite one or two rumours of his safety, no further concrete information regarding the fate of Billy White had reached Scarborough until almost the end of the war, when during September 1918, the War Office had informed his parents that as no further news had been forthcoming it must be presumed that their son had been killed in action, probably on the fourth of April 1918. The tidings had been included in a casualty list that had appeared in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 13TH of September 1918;
‘The case of Corporal White - Much uncertainty has obtained regarding the fate of Corporal William White, of the Machine Gun Corps [Cavalry], son of Mr. J White, Bedford Arms, Scarborough. In the first instance a letter from a comrade led to the assumption that he had been killed in action. Then came a communication from the Red Cross station in Germany that he was a prisoner of war. Unfortunately, however, the young soldier has never himself written to his parents. Now comes an official intimation from the War Office that Corpl. White, being missing since the 4TH of April, he must be presumed to be dead’…
No further information regarding the demise of Billy White had ever come to light and by the time that his parents had received the above information the remains of Corporal White had long been interred in a hurriedly dug grave near to where his body had been found.
One of two William White’s commemorated on Scarborough’s War Memorial, Billy’s name can also be found in the town on the ‘Roll of Honour’ located on the north interior wall of St Mary’s Parish Church, and on a gravestone in Manor Road Cemetery [Section K, Row 7, Grave 18] which also bears the name of his Scarborough born father, Joseph John White, who had passed away at the age of fifty years at the Bedford Arms on Monday the 25TH of February 1919. [6]
This memorial also includes the name of the White’s eldest daughter who had died on the 26TH of December 1910 at the age of ten months, and Billy’s eldest brother Fred White. Born in Scarborough during 1894, Fred had also served during the Great War as a gunner in the Royal Field Artillery. At the end of hostilities Fred had returned to Scarborough to work in the family business until the late 1920’s when he had become the proprietor of the ‘Popular Club’ a watering hole located for a time in North Street, where, during the morning of Thursday the 7TH of September 1933 the steward of the club [John Peck] opening up as usual, had found Fred White’s long dead body on the floor of the bar. Little is known of the circumstances surrounding Fred’s death, nevertheless, a length of rubber tubing had reputedly been found nearby, connected to the club’s gas supply. A married man, and living at No.2 Bar Street, Fred had been aged thirty-nine years at the time of his death.
[Being a former pupil of Scarborough’s Municipal School, William White’s name had also been included on a ‘Roll of Honour’, which had once graced a wall of the main hall in the old college. The Memorial, commemorating the names of sixty-three former pupils who had lost their lives during the war of 1914-18, is in 2006 located in a foyer of Graham Technical School [located inWoodlandsDrive].
Scarborough born Jessie White had remained in the Bedford Arms [once situated on the corner of Bedford Street and Castle Road, the site of the former public house in 2006 forms part of Beevers carpet, vinyl, and rug ‘superstore’] until the beginning of the 1930’s, however, by 1936 she had been living with her surviving son Edwin Campion [a former soldier in the 5TH Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment], and daughter in law Dorothy White, along with daughter Jessie Armstrong White at No.73 Longwestgate, she had passed away at the age of eighty two years during Friday the 29TH of April 1955.
The remains of Jessie White had been interred with those of her husband, son, and eldest daughter at the gravesite in Manor Road Cemetery on the fourth of May 1955. The site in 2006, is marked with gravestone, which although leaning slightly forward, still remains in a pristine condition, and includes a fitting epitaph to a fallen son, who had more than admirably served King and country during four years of the bitterest war in history; ‘Duty nobly done’…
Following the death of Corporal White, during the morning of the 6TH of April the 9TH Cavalry Brigade had been relieved on Hill 104 by the 14TH Brigade, and the responsibility for the defence of Villers – Bretonnneux had been placed in the lap of Major General Talbot Hobbs’s 5TH Division [Third Corps, Fourth Army].
Vicious fighting for possession of the town and the vital road leading to Amiens had continued throughout the remainder of April, and had come to a head on Wednesday the 24TH of April when the enemy had finally taken Villers-Bretonneux. At 3-45am on the foggy day the Germans had literally plastered Villers-Bretonnneux and the surrounding area with a tremendous artillery bombardment. Heavily mixed with gas, the shelling had been the heaviest yet experienced;
‘We looked towards the line and through the trees a sudden flickering was seen, like summer lightning. Like a sudden thundershower, the wood was drenched with all kinds of shell, including gas. ‘Get the men out into the open’ shouted the company commander. Where the hell are the men? Where is that trench with No7 Platoon in? I find, in the confusion and bursting shells, falling trenches and trees that I haven't the foggiest notion of where my platoon is and run around in circles’…[Lieutenant F.S. Mason].
Shortly afterwards the Germans had substituted smoke for gas in their shelling of the British front line, soon this had been followed by an infantry attack on a four miles frontage which for the first time in the war, had been accompanied by thirteen tanks. Seeing the lumbering A7V’s emerging out of the gloom of the day had inevitably been too much for many of the young soldiers. Without any effective anti tank weapons a great number had fled their positions whenever one of the monsters had appeared, many to be obliterated by flamethrower-equipped infantry.
Amongst the hardest hit units during that day had been the 2ND Battalion of the Prince of Wales’s Own [West Yorkshire Regiment]. Attached to the 23RD Brigade of the 8TH Division the unit’s three companies, stretched around Monument Wood and its neighbouring farm, had already been badly mauled by the initial bombardment had been confronted by six tanks accompanied by small groups of infantry and had stood little chance, their machine gun and small arms fire having little effect on the armour plate of the tanks. The Battalion’s Historian describes what had happened next…’the hostile tanks came right up to the trenches and fired up and down the posts with machine gun, thus taking the British troops in enfilade’…[7]
Having lost Monument Farm the remnants of ‘D’Company had retreated to Battalion Headquarters, located near to the railway station at Villers-Bretonneux, where the surviving members of the battalion [around 140 men by this time] had been collected and formed into a hastily constructed defence line to the south f the station. However, soon afterwards this gallant band of men had been driven out of their positions by one of the German tanks and infantry, the remaining West Yorkshiremen making their way westwards along the railway line towards the north east corner of the Bois de Aquenne where they had linked with survivors from another unit to form yet another defence line which had ran from the railway to the main road running westwards from the town…’But again heavy hostile machine gun fire was brought to bear on this position and many casualties were suffered, the line being forced back to just north of the railway. It was now 10-30am and the 2ND West Yorkshires had practically been wiped out. The few men who remained of the battalion had no ammunition and seeing the impossibility of putting up a further defence Lieut. Kennington wisely brought them back to a reserve line of trenches just astride the north west exits of the Bois l’Abbe’…[7]
Whilst all this had been going on a section of Mark 4 tanks belonging to the British 1ST Tank Battalion had been stationed nearby and had joined the fray soon after 8-30 that morning. Attached to 23RD Brigade, the tanks, two ‘Females’ armed only with machine guns, and a solitary ‘Male’ armed with two six pounder guns, had been ordered forward to stem the German advance and about an hour later had come upon the thirty three ton peculiarly looking enemy ‘armed tortoises’.
The two females had been in the van of the British advance, their puny machine guns useless against the armour of the German tanks, and both had soon been forced out of the action. This had left Lieutenant Francis Mitchell’s solitary ‘Male’ tank, which had fired two shells at the enemy, both of which had missed due to the tank ‘going up and down like a ship at sea’. Undeterred, Mitchell had stopped his machine in order to get in an accurate shot, and had hit the A7V with his first round, the tank running up a steep bank where it had toppled onto its side. Mitchell had then turned his attention on two more enemy tanks, one of which had been driven off, the other shortly being abandoned by its crew.
The first tank versus tank battle in military history had ended when Mitchell and his crew, a number of whom had by this time been wounded, had been forced to abandon their tank after it had been badly damaged by German shellfire.
Though the Germans had captured the town and a pocket of ground four miles wide by one mile deep they had somehow been contained, giving the British enough time to bring up reinforcements to strengthen the line in front of them. The recapture of Villers- Bretonneux had obviously been considered of the utmost importance, and during the evening of the 24TH a mixed force of Australian and British troops had fought their way into the smouldering shell of the town where ferocious house-to-house fighting had continued throughout the remainder of that day and the following day. During this period both sides had given no quarter. Sergeant Walter Downing of the Australian 57TH Infantry Battalion describes…’’They [the Germans] had no chance in the wild onslaught of maddened men…they were killed and killed. Bayonets passed with ease through grey clad bodies, and were withdrawn with a sucking sound…One huge Australian advanced firing a Lewis Gun from the shoulder, spraying the ground with lead…One saw running forms in the dark, and the flashes of rifles, then the evil pyre in the town flared and showed to their killers white faces of Germans lurking in shell holes, or flinging away their arms and trying to escape, only to be stabbed or shot down as they ran’…
The dreadful carnage at Villers- Bretonneux had continued until the night of the 26/27 April when the town and its immediate vicinity had finally fell once more into British hands. During that night the the line had been taken over by French troops, thus relieving the British and Australian forces of a position which had cost the lives of around ten thousand men, killed, wounded, and missing.
At the end of the battle the tattered remnants of the 23RD Brigade [2ND Middlesex, 2ND Devonshire, and 2ND West Yorkshire Regiments] had been ‘reorganised’ where it had been found that the unit, usually consisting of over four thousand men, had been reduced to just sixteen officers and four hundred and thirty nine ‘other ranks’, of these a mere seven officers and eighty five other ranks from the 2ND West Yorkshires had remained. The Battalion ‘War Diary’ had reported that before the action the battalion had been at full strength, roughly thirty officers and eight hundred men, therefore it can safely be assumed that during the single day that the battalion had been in action it had lost somewhere in the vicinity of sixteen officers and around four hundred men. Amongst them had been nineteen years old;
60687 Private Ernest Harold Frith. Born in Scarborough at No.1 Bedford Street on the 12TH of March 1899, Ernest had been the only son of Eliza Ann and Harry Frith, Ernest had been a pupil of St Mary’s Parish School and the Central Board School until the age of thirteen, when like most children at this time, he had left school to begin work, as an errand boy for ‘tea dealer, family grocer, and provision dealer’ John Rowntree & Sons.
Located in Scarborough at No.19-21 Westborough, Rowntree’s shop had been a short walk from Bedford Street and just after 8am on the 16TH of December 1914 the fifteen years old Ernest had been making his way to work as usual when the first of the shells heralding the beginning of the German bombardment of Scarborough, had begun to scream into the defenceless town. Hurrying the short distance back towards home, through Aberdeen Walk and down into St Johns Street, rounding the corner into Bedford Street he had barely escaped injury as debris and roof tiles from the devastated No13a [‘Wilton House’, the home of William and Jane Randall], which had taken a direct hit from an eight inch shell, had crashed into the narrow street. Reaching home [on the corner of Bedford Street and Castle Road], Ernest had hurried indoors to find his terrified mother sheltering under the scullery table covered in shards of broken glass from the shattered window. The petrified couple had remained under the table until the shelling had stopped twenty five minutes later, little realising that Harry Frith, Ernest’s forty five years old father, a van driver for South Cliff grocer, wine and spirit dealers W.C. Land & Co., had become the second victim of Scarborough’s war [the first had probably been forty nine years old been Leonard Ellis, who had lost his life when Clare and Hunt’s chemist’s shop, located on the corner of South Street, had been devastated by the first shell] when he had been killed outright by the second of around fifty shells to hit the town, a huge eleven inch high explosive round which had ripped the front out of Land’s South Street shop, blowing Harry’s life away with it.
Following the death of his father Ernest had assumed the mantle of family breadwinner, nevertheless, despite him being his mother’s only support, during the autumn of 1917, the eighteen years old had received word that he would soon be called up for war service. Despite numerous protestations on his mother’s part, during January 1918 Ernest had reported to Scarborough’s Court House where he been inducted into the army before being sent to York’s Fulford Barracks, where he undergone a basic medical examination and received the various inoculations against smallpox and yellow fever. Whilst at Fulford, Ernest had been issued with a uniform, boots, webbing equipment, along with an enamel bowl and a spoon, [for eating purposes] before being posted to the sprawling Rugeley Camp in Staffordshire, where he had endured the customary course of eighteen weeks of the seemingly mindless basic infantry and physical training designed to convert ‘unruly’ civilians to trained soldiers.
Whilst at Rugeley, from reveille at 5-30am to lights out, Frith, and his fellow recruits had gone the way of thousands before them and had endured many hours of ‘physical jerks’ and had inevitably tramped many a foot-blistering mile across Cannock Chase, unfortunately the lot of the ‘Poor Bloody Infantry’ since the beginning of time. They had also been taught how to safely handle and eventually fire their newly acquired weapons, the .303 Short Magazine Lee Enfield rifle. Eventually Ernest had specialised as a Lewis Gunner, and as the time had approached for his embarkation to the front, he had been shown the basics of first aid, a foreboding of what lay in store ‘over the water’.
During late February 1918, following a period of battle training followed by embarkation leave, Frith had been considered fit for active service and had found himself amongst a large draft of equally fresh-faced eighteen and nineteen year old soldiers who had left Rugeley Camp for the boat that would take them to war. Arriving at Folkestone he had been issued with a life jacket before being crammed aboard one of the many transports which had regularly made the dash across the English Channel.
Eventually landing on French soil at Boulogne, the replacements, clad in full equipment, had undergone a gruelling day’s march to one of the many Infantry Base Camps dotted amongst the sand dunes at Etaples where they had undergone ‘intensive training’ in one of the camp’s notorious ‘Bull Rings’. Hounded from dawn to dusk like so much cattle by demon instructors known as ‘canaries’ [due to their yellow arm bands] the savage world inhabited by Frith can be glimpsed in the writings of Winter, who describes…
’The routine had been fixed. Breakfast was at 5-45am with the men going to the ‘bull ring’ at 7 and staying till5-30pm. Here would be platoon drill and unarmed fighting with boots, teeth, and knees-neither having been taught much in England; there would also be the army bullshit of bayonet training and uphill running on sand hills with supplementary kit. The most novel side of it all was the manner of authority. In England nothing had been savage in its severity. There had been little foul language. This now changed into a fierce, vindictive atmosphere’…[8]
During the opening days of April 1918,Whilst Private Frith had been sweating in the bull rings of Etaples, not so far away the remnants of the pre war Regular Army 2ND Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment had been ‘resting and reorganising’ at Ailly after taking a terrific pasting during the opening stages of the German Spring Offensive, notably during the Battle of Rosieres [26-27 March] which had resulted in the almost total destruction of the unit.
Consisting of a little over one hundred all ranks by this time, on the 6TH of April the battalion had been replenished with the arrival of two drafts of over five hundred men. One of which, consisting of ninety eight other ranks from the 10TH Yorkshire Regiment, being described in the Battalion’s War Diary as ‘a fine lot of men just out of action’. These had been the exception, over the ensuing few days the majority of the men who had joined the unit’s ranks had been collectively described as ‘quite inexperienced’.
Ernest had joined the battalion during the ninth of April amongst a draft of one hundred other ranks that had joined the unit at Ailly-sur-Somme. Described somewhat disdainfully in the battalion War Diary as ‘eighteen and a half years old, first time in France’, Frith and his fellow ‘first time in France’s’ had had little time to acclimatise to life with the battalion, as two days after their arrival the 2ND West Yorkshires, by then consisting of thirty five officers and over a thousand men, had moved to the village of Belloy St Leonard. Two days later the unit had arrived on the Somme and the town of Dreuil- les -Amiens, from where Frith and his comrades had marched southwards the few miles to the village of Salouel, where they had found billets within the commune.
During the night of the twenty second of April Frith had gone into the front line for the first, and last time, in his life when the 23RD Brigade had relieved the 24TH in the right sub sector of the British line near Villers-Bretonneux. The line [consisting of a collection of ‘platoon posts’] held by the 2ND West Yorkshire from then on had ran from the east of Monument Wood to just south of Villers Bretonnneux and had been manned by ‘A’, ‘B’, and ‘C’ Companies, ‘D’ being held in support.
The relief of 24TH Brigade had reportedly been completed without incident ten minutes into the morning of the twenty fourth of April, and although the unit had been warned of an imminent enemy attack, the day, apart from the distant sound of British artillery harassing their German counterparts, had been considered ‘exceptionally quiet’. The situation, as we know, had abruptly changed at 3-30 that morning when the enemy had begun the bombardment heralding their assault on Villers-Bretonneux, and the end of the life of Ernest Frith.
Confusion regarding casualties had inevitably reigned for many days after the battle at Villers Bretonneux and it been almost then of May by the time that Mrs. Frith had received the emotionless buff envelope from the War Office bearing the gravest of news, that her beloved son had been reported as ‘missing in action’. The tidings had subsequently been included in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 31ST of May 1918;
‘Bombardment victim’s son missing - Private E.H. Frith, West Yorkshires, Bedford Street is reported missing since April 24TH. He is the son of the late Mr. H. Frith, who was killed in the bombardment’…
Nothing more regarding Ernest’s fate had been heard until two months later, when during July Eliza Frith had received a letter from the mother of Second Lieutenant Frank Beecher Kenworthy, an officer who had belonged to the 2ND West Yorks, who by this time had been languishing in Germany as a prisoner of the Kaiser. Living like most parents and relatives of the missing, with the hope that Ernest had been taken prisoner, the contents of the letter had brought little comfort to the distraught mother. The ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 28TH of June had consequently reported;
‘Son of bombardment victim - Mrs. Frith, 1 Bedford Street, Scarborough, the mother of Private E.H. Frith, West Yorks, has received further news regarding her son who has been missing since the 24TH of April. She has received a letter from the mother of an officer of the regiment who was himself taken prisoner by the Germans on April 24TH, stating that an hour before his capture Frith was sharing a sandwich with the officer and was turning away when a bullet went through his head killing him instantly. The officer added. ‘He was one of my machine gunners and he did his duty splendidly, and I cannot tell you how very sorry I am to send you this news’. The officer could not send the letter directly as he is only allowed to send one letter and he therefore incorporated it in one to his own mother. Frith, who was only nineteen in March, is the only son of the late Mr. Harry Frith who was killed during the bombardment in 1914. He was employed by Messrs. John Rowntree and Son, grocers, before joining up’…
Another Scarborough casualty of the Great War with no known grave, despite the numerous searches of the battlefield around Villers-Bretonneux that had been made during the war, and at the end of hostilities, no identifiable remains of the nineteen years old Private Frith had ever been found. During the post war years a memorial to the officers and men who had fallen in the Somme area of France between the 21ST of March and the 8TH of August 1918 had been constructed at Pozieres, a village some six kilometres north east of the town of Albert. Located to the south west of the village, on the north side of the main road between Albert and Pozieres, the Pozieres Memorial contains the names of over 14,000 British and South African casualties who posses no known graves. The name of Ernest Frith is amongst the many missing of the West Yorkshire Regiment who are commemorated on Panels 26 and 27.
In Scarborough, in addition to the Oliver’s Mount Memorial, Harry and Ernest Frith are commemorated on the ‘Roll of Honour’ located on the north interior wall of St Mary’s Parish Church. Their names can also be found in the town’s Dean Road Cemetery on a grave marker in Section H, Row 28, Grave 0. Which marks the final resting place of London born [1869] Harry Frith who had been interred in the plot three days after he had been killed in the bombardment of Scarborough, during the afternoon of Monday the 21ST of December 1914[unlike the majority of the eleven men, women, and children killed during the bombardment who had been interred in Scarborough’s burial grounds amidst much publicity and a huge public attendance, the burial of Harry Frith appears to have gone unnoticed by the local press and people. None of the surviving newspapers carry an account of his funeral].
Following the death of her beloved husband and only child, Scarborough born Eliza Frith had continued to live alone in the family home on the corner of Bedford Street until her own demise at the age of eighty seven years during Tuesday the 4TH of December 1956. The funeral of the grand old lady, who had lost so much so many years before, had also gone unnoticed, during the afternoon of Friday the 7TH of December 1956.
[Alas, in 2006, the beautifully carved gravestone in Dean Road Cemetery marking the final resting place of Harry and Eliza Ann Frith has fallen down and lies dusty and neglected. In addition, the curbstones, which had once accompanied the grave, have been removed].
Two days after the death of Ernest Frith ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 26TH of April 1918 had reported;
‘Villers-Bretonneux - Success of British counter stroke - Commenting on yesterday’s fighting Reuters expert commentator says; the second day of the new battle of Amiens was notable for the complete defeat of the Germans.
On the one hand, in the French sector, they were unsuccessful in their attempt on Wednesday evening to debouch from the village of Hangard, and the French lines which skirt the village at a distance of one hundred and fifty yards away were so firmly held that the Germans made no further assaults yesterday.
Further north, in the British sector, the British recaptured in a counter attack carried out with magnificent dash, the positions which the enemy had taken from them the day before in the region of Villers-Bretonneux, and almost completely re-established their old front. This locality is once again occupied by the British. The German attack is thus completely paralysed.
It is confirmed, moreover, that the attack launched yesterday by the Germans was conducted with considerable effectiveness for the extent of the front of the attack for more than four divisions were engaged of only half a dozen kilometres.
The enemy, however, did not succeed in attaining his objectives, which were the villages of Fouilloy, south of Corbie, and Cachy, west of Viller-Bretonneux, and the temporary progress which the enemy was able to make near Villers-Bretonneux was paid for in heavy sacrifices of blood’…
The remnants of the decimated 2ND West Yorkshire Regiment had remained in the line until midnight of the 27TH of April when they had been relieved by an Australian infantry battalion, the survivors moving back to rest in billets at Blagny Tronville, before moving the following day to Querrieu, where they had awaited the arrival of further drafts of eighteen and a half year olds who had never been in France before.
Once called ‘one of the most sanguinary actions of the war’ the battle at Villers-Bretonneux had ended on the 27TH of April 1918, after this date no Germans, apart from prisoners of war had ever set another foot in the town. Reduced to little more than ‘a mere heap of builder’s materials’ during the month long fighting, and smelling vaguely of onions for months afterwards, a legacy of Mustard Gas, ‘Villers- Bret’ [the name used by the Australian troops] had remained in this ruined condition until the end of hostilities, when the inhabitants had returned to rebuild their homes and businesses.
Forever to be associated with the Australian Imperial Forces after the war close ties had sprang up between Villers-Bretonneux and the state of Victoria, where many of the over two thousand Aussies who had fought and lost their lives in the fighting for the town, had belonged. Melbourne had eventually adopted Villers-Bret, and the State of Victoria had contributed towards the town’s reconstruction. Donations from Victorian schoolchildren had funded the rebuilding of the town’s school, which had reopened during 1923, part of it being named ‘Salle Victoria’.
The fame which had been bestowed on the Australians in the wake of the fighting at Villers-Bretonneux had made the town the obvious choice for the erection of an Australian National Memorial, and during 1927 Melbourne architect William Lucas had won the design contract for the memorial that had been meant to be built with Australian materials at a cost of around £100,000 pounds. The depression had struck by this time and the post war Australian Labour government had abandoned the expensive project on the grounds that it had been unaffordable.
By 1935 the Australians had still been without a national memorial, and the embarrassing situation had eventually been resolved with a modified plan, drawn up by the British architect Sir Edward Lutyens, for a memorial costing £30,000 pounds, which would be constructed from local Somme materials. The last of the Dominions memorials to be unveiled, the Australian National Memorial had duly been dedicated by King George the Sixth on the 23RD of July 1938.
Rising from the western end of Hill 104 Lutyens’s creation, consisting of a one hundred foot tower which features an observation point that offers a panoramic view of the magnificent Picardy countryside around Viller-Bret, and an orientation table’ which indicates directions and distances to places as far away as Gallipoli and Canberra. The screen walls flanking the tower contains the names of the 10,982 Australians killed in France who posses no known graves.
In addition to the Australian National Memorial, Villers-Bretonneux is also the home of a huge Military Cemetery that had been had been created after the Armistice with the concentration of the remains of 1,089 British soldiers [including those of Scarborough’s Corporal William White, whose final resting place is located in Section 6, Row E, Grave 5], 779 Australians, 4 South Africans, and 2 New Zealanders, who had initially been buried in battlefield graves, and much smaller cemeteries which had been dotted around the nearby ‘foreign fields’.
The largest on the 1918 Somme battlefields, Villers-Bretonneux Military Cemetery is also the final resting place of two hundred and sixty seven Canadian soldiers, many of whom had died in Hospitals and Casualty Clearing Stations that had been located in the vicinity. Amongst these burials can be found the grave of forty-three years old;
916783 Private George Harold Lancaster. Born in Scarborough on the 8TH of August 1877, George had been the eldest of five sons and two daughters of Ellen and George Lancaster, a joiner/ carpenter by trade. A soldier in ‘C’ Company of the 2ND Canadian Mounted Rifles [British Columbia Regiment], George had migrated to Canada during 1906, and by the outbreak of war in August 1914 the unmarried Lancaster had been residing in Toronto, Ontario, where he had resided at No.15 Leonard Avenue.
A labourer employed by the Canadian Railways, Lancaster had enlisted into the Canadian Expeditionary Force at Toronto’s Recruiting Centre on the 5TH of May 1916 and had subsequently been sent for training at Valcartier Camp, located near the city of Quebec. Initially attached to ‘C’Company of the 198TH Overseas Battalion, George had eventually embarked for service overseas on the 25TH of March 1917 at Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he had boarded the troopship S.S. Metagama. Arriving in Liverpool on the 7TH of April he had subsequently been transferred to Witley Camp, located in Kent. [9]
Transferred to the 2ND Canadian Mounted Rifles [although bearing a cavalry title, the C.M.R. had served on the Western Front throughout the war as an infantry battalion] on the 29TH of March 1918, Lancaster had been amongst a draft of three signallers and twenty other ranks that had crossed the channel that day to eventually catch up with the unit on the 10TH of April at ‘Hill’s Camp’, which had been located some eight kilometres to the north of Arras near to the village of Neuville St Vaast.
Four months later, whilst attached to the 8TH Infantry Brigade of the 3RD Canadian Division, the 2ND C.M.R., commanded by London born [1874] Lieutenant Colonel George Chalmers Johnston D.S.O. M.C., had taken part in operations on the Somme which would later be known as the Battle of Amiens [8TH-11TH August] which had been designed to clear the vital Paris-Amiens line and push the Germans back as far as the town of Roye. In conjunction with Third Corps of Rawlinson’s Fourth Army, at 4-20am on Thursday the eighth of August [coincidentally George Lancaster’s 43RD Birthday] four Australian along with four Canadian Divisions stationed on the south bank of the River Somme, had launched their assault Shrouded in thick mist, and supported by over three hundred tanks, the Australian and Canadian operation which, although accompanied by heavy casualties, had been largely successful and had made a gain of five miles on an eight miles front, along with the capture of over 13,000 prisoners of war and more than three hundred guns.
The 2ND C.M.R.’s principal role in the dramatic events of that day had been to assist the Canadian 7TH and 9TH Infantry Brigades with the capture of Demuin, a hamlet located some five kilometres to the south of Villers-Bretonneux. Assisted by two tanks, at 4-20am on the eighth the battalion, consisting of 26 officers and 700 other ranks, had launched its assault, and although the unit had experienced some difficulty in keeping direction owing to fog, the battalion had fought its way forward until6-30am, by which time the unit had taken all its objectives. Bivouacking that night to the south of Demuin, the following day the 2ND C.M.R.’s had gone on to take the nearby village of Les Quesnel.
The 2ND C.M.R.’s ‘War Diary’ does not give a detailed account of the severity of fighting for the two villages which had taken place between the eighth and tenth of August 1918, and merely states… ‘No serious fighting was encountered during this advance’, and goes on to report…‘odd groups of Germans only, putting up resistance, which was easily dealt with’…. Nevertheless, despite the alleged ease in which the unit had attained its objectives the 2ND C.M.R. had somehow lost four officers and seventy eight men killed, along with a further five officers and one hundred and thirty five other ranks wounded.
Grievously injured by a gunshot wound in his abdomen and right ankle during the eighth of August, George Lancaster had been amongst a number of the unit’s wounded who had been evacuated to the 48TH Casualty Clearing Station, which had been housed in a former lunatic asylum located on the outskirts of the tiny hamlet of Dury, where the South African war veteran had unfortunately succumbed to his injuries, two days after his forty third birthday, during Saturday the 10TH of August 1918.
George Harold Lancaster’s name had not appeared in any of the casualty lists that had been included in the Scarborough newspapers belonging to this period of the war. However, following the death of his eldest son, George Lancaster senior, who by 1918 had been residing in Scarborough at No.48 Gordon Street, had placed an epitaph to his lost son in the ‘Births. Marriages, and Deaths section of the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 6TH of September 1918;
‘Lancaster. —In France, 10TH August 1918, died of wounds, Private George Harold Lancaster, aged 43years …after ten years residence in Toronto, he volunteered for service with the 198TH Battalion, Canadian Expeditionary Force. Later in France he was transferred to the 2ND Canadian Mounted Rifles. He also served in the South Africa War’…
Shortly after his demise the remains of Private Lancaster had been interred in the burial ground, which had been attached to the 48TH Casualty Station, which had become known as ‘Dury Hospital Military Cemetery’. However, soon after the Armistice the 185 British, 63 Australian, and 195 Canadian servicemen who had been interred is this small cemetery had been taken to the much larger new cemetery at Villers Bretonneux, where George Harold Lancaster’s remains had been interred in Grave No.1 of Section 5, Row BB.
In Scarborough, apart from the Oliver’s Mount Memorial George’s name is not included on any of the town’s surviving church memorials. Nevertheless, his name can be found on a now [2006] broken and fallen gravestone in Dean Road
[Section F, Row 16, Grave 15], which also bears the names of Frederick Stanley, the four years and nine months old fourth son of the Lancaster’s who had died on the 1ST of February 1890. Also that of George’s mother, Ellen Lancaster, who had passed away at the family home at 28 Raleigh Street on Tuesday the 21ST of August 1900 at the age of forty-nine years. The stone also commemorates George’s father, George Lancaster senior. A well-known local undertaker and jobbing joiner, George had worked out of his workshop at No.111 Lower Nelson Street for many years until his retirement due to ill health during 1917. He had survived his eldest son by only three years, having died at his home in Gordon Street on Saturday the 10TH of September 1921 at the age of 68 years. [10]
Amongst the finest troops to serve on the Western Front during the ‘Great War’ of 1914 –19, The Canadian Corps had been much admired by the British High Command, non more so Henry ‘Rawly’ Rawlinson, the General Officer Commanding Fourth Army. He had sent the following glowing communiqué to the Canadian Corps on the 16TH of August 1918 and provides a fitting epitaph not only for Private George Harold Lancaster but also to the 9,073 other Canadians, who had lost their lives between the 8TH—12TH of August 1918, during the so called Battle of Amiens.
‘I desire to place on record my sincere appreciation of the conspicuous and highly successful part played by the Canadian Corps in the battle of August 8TH. The task allotted them was not easy, especially on the right where the initial attack of the 3RD Canadian Division was delivered under special difficulties.
The need for secrecy which necessitated the assembly of the whole corps, including the heavy artillery, by night in an area previously unknown to them enhanced the difficulties especially when the front line had of necessity to be held by other troops.
The determination with which all, obstacles were overcome, the dash and gallantry with which the assault was delivered and the precision with which each advance was made, exactly on schedule time, reflect the highest credit both on the staff arrangements and the fine fighting spirit of all units which took part in the operation’….
[1] Lance Bombardier Robert A. Ford, 157 Battery, Royal Field Artillery; quoted in To the last man; Lyn McDonald; Penguin Books 1998.
[2] Awarded with the Distinguished Service Order during August 1917 for ‘conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty’, Scottish born [1872] Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander Milne had subsequently been killed by an exploding shell whilst dictating orders to his Adjutant at his headquarters near Hangard during the 12TH of April 1918. The husband of Elise Mary Milne of McKenzie Street, Bankstown, New South Wales, Milne’s final resting place is located in Section 8. Row J. Grave 19 of Heath Cemetery at Harbonnieres, a village to be found some thirteen kilometres from Villers-Bretonneux.
[3] The Lewis Gun had been an air-cooled light automatic gun, weighing twenty-six pounds and loaded with a circular magazine containing forty-seven rounds of ammunition. Firing at a rate of up to 700 rounds per minute, in short bursts, a magazine could be used up in just four seconds. Capable of being carried and fired by one man, another had usually formed a two-man team by carrying and loading drums of ammunition. A modification of the Maxim Machine Gun the Vickers had been the pride and joy of the British Army. Using a 250 round fabric belt fed magazine the gun had been capable of firing off 600 rounds of .303 ammunition in a minute and had a range of 4,500 yards. Being water-cooled it could also fire continuously for long periods and had been considered very reliable. Often referred to as the ‘Queen of the Battlefield’ the Vickers, manned by a crew of six, would remain in service with the British Army for over five decades.
[4] P 54 ‘Villers-Bretonnneux’; Battleground Europe series; Peter Pederson; Pen & Sword; 2004. Despite numerous enquiries at the Nation Archives at Kew, a War Diary for the 6TH Cavalry Brigade Machine Gun Squadron cannot be located.
[6] Although born in Pontefract 15212 Private William White had lived for many years in Scarborough at No 41 James Street and had worked for sixteen years prior to his enlistment [at Scarborough] for ‘marine store dealer’ Robert McLorriman [28 James Street]. The son of Rhoda and William White, and the husband of Charlotte White of No 36 Trafalgar Road, Scarborough [post war] thirty eight years old Private White had been a veteran of the Gallipoli campaign and service in Egypt before being sent to the Western Front where he had been wounded during October 1916 before losing his life in Flanders during the Third Battle of Ypres on the 20TH of September 1917 whilst serving with the 8TH [Service] Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment. During this day White’s unit, attached to the 69TH Brigade of 23RD Division had taken part in an assault on Inverness Copse, which had resulted in the battalion losing heavily to German machine gun and shellfire. A married man and father of two children, the remains of William White had never been recovered and his name is commemorated on Panels 52 to54 and 162A of the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing at Zonnebeke, Western Flanders.
[William’s name is also commemorated on St Mary’s Parish Church ‘Roll of Honour’].
[7] The West Yorkshire Regiment in the war 1914-1918; Everard Wyrall; Bodley Head.
[8] Death’s Men; Dennis Winter; Pan Books; 1979.
[9] A veteran of six years service with the Yorkshire Regiment, at the time of the 1901 Census George Harold Lancaster had been serving in South Africa with the regiment’s First Battalion, where he had taken part in the advance to Pretoria, and the Battles of Brandfort and Paadeburg. The remainder of the Lancaster family had been living in Scarborough at N0.28 Raleigh Street and had consisted of George Lancaster, widower, aged 47 years, employed as a self employed joiner/carpenter, sons Tom E., aged 23 years, and Frank H. aged 21years, also had also been joiner by trade, both had worked in the family’s undertaking and joinery business. Daughter Jessie Ellen Lancaster, aged 18years had been employed as a ‘housekeeper domestic’, whilst 8 years old Amy Elizabeth Lancaster had still been at school. All had been born in Scarborough.
[10] The gravestone in Dean Road states George had died at the age of 43 years, as does the epitaph in the Scarborough Mercury. However, upon his enlistment in May 1916, he had stated his age as 38 years and nine months.