Operation Georgette - Ludendorf's men (from the book "Neath a Foreign Sky" by Paul Allen)
In Remembrance of;
- Private John Tate
- Private John Thomas Watkinson
- Lance Corporal Harry Wood
During the early hours of Thursday the 25TH of April 1918 in Flanders, the Germans had launched what was to be the final major offensive of ‘Operation Georgette’. As one can imagine by this time, after ten days of fighting and constant movement, the steam had begun to run out of the German assault. Apart from Ludendorff’s men becoming increasingly exhausted and disillusioned, they had also been slowed down by the discovery of vast dumps of food and stores which had been left behind by the departing British, and stocks of food and other commodities which had been left in village shops after their owners had fled. A German soldier would later describe:
‘On the other side of the street was a large market and grocery store. Other soldiers had entered there already. The place was filled with ham, sausages, cans of delicacies and white bread Duty was forgotten. More soldiers piled in bringing with them bottles of wine and beer. Outside in the street whistles shrilled. The officers were trying to assemble their men again, but nobody paid any heed. Different regiments were arriving by now, but they too followed our example and pretty soon the whole town was filled with men, who probably for the first time in long years, lost the respect Prussian discipline…[1]
Well aware of these unprecedented acts of insubordination and the fact that apart from inflicting heavy casualties on the British [and his own forces] little else, apart from giving the Allies a terrific fright, had been achieved by Operation Georgette. Nevertheless, determined not to bow out of the operation lightly, Ludendorff had placed all his eggs in one basket to mount one final operation in Flanders. The objective of this ‘last ditch’ operation which would involve eleven divisions attacking the Allied line on a ten miles frontage between Bailleul and Ypres, with the twin objectives of capturing Poperinghe and cutting off the British in Ypres. Another objective had been the capture of the valuable Mount Kemmel. Located near the village of Kemmel some twenty kilometres to the south west of Ypres, Mount Kemmel [now known as ‘Kemmelberg’] had been an important vantage point, which on a fine day had overseen the whole of the Flanders plain south of Ypres and westwards as far as the French town of Lille.
During April 1918 the ‘Mount’ had been held by six regiments of the French 28TH Division, and during the night of the 24TH the Germans had massed three and a half divisions of infantry at the foot of the hill in preparation for the assault, which would be mounted during the early hours of the following day. Duly, at 6am on the 25TH the German artillery had begun to plaster the French artillery positions on Mount Kemmel with their customary cocktail of gas and High Explosive shells. One French soldier had described this bombardment as ‘worse than anything at Verdun’. An hour later the enemy infantry, including the elite Alpine Corps and supported by machine gun fire from low flying aircraft had begun their assault. Once again fortune had shrouded the attack in fog, the enemy attacking from three sides, and by 7-10am the Alpine Corps had reached the hill’s summit taking 800 prisoners along the way. A little later the German 56TH division had also captured the village of Kemmel, taking a further 1,600 prisoners in the process. Soon the remaining French garrison, virtually cut off, and with little chance of being reinforced, had taken to their heels to tumble in confusion down the far side of the hill.
About two miles to the north of Kemmel, in trenches in the ‘Cheapside Line’, in the Wyschaete Ridge [known to the British as ‘Whitesheets’] Sector, the men of the 9TH Battalion of the King’s Own [Yorkshire Light Infantry] had suffered a similar experience to that of their French counterparts;
‘The 25TH found the battalion again in the trenches; before daylight the enemy bombarded the line with gas shells but failed to follow up with any infantry attack. When the gas had blown away breakfasts were eaten, but at 6-30am the gas bombardment was renewed and the area became so impregnated with gas that it was found advisable to move to higher ground [Hill 44] where trenches had been dug in readiness. When the attack developed all were suffering more or less from gas. The French troops on the right were pressed back; the enemy came on in great numbers, but the fire from the trenches of the K.O.Y.L.I. did great execution and brought the attack in that sector…from this time till dark the Germans were held off successfully and considerable loss was inflicted on them’…[2]
The fighting around Hill 44 had continued that night. Early the next day the 9th Battalion had been ordered to mount a futile counter attack which, unsupported by artillery, had achieved little more than inflict many casualties on the unit for a net gain of about 400 yards of previously held enemy territory and around seventy prisoners [the battalion’s War Diary reveals only twenty three of these prisoners had made it back to the 9TH Battalion’s H.Q., ‘summary action’ having had to be taken with the remainder]. However, at about noon that day the Germans had retaliated with severe artillery bombardment of the K.O.Y.L.I.’s newly won positions, which had continued throughout the afternoon of that day.
The surviving members of Ninth K.O.Y.L.I had remained in the line until the early hours of the 28TH of April, when under cover of darkness and fog one hundred tired and hungry infantrymen had trudged back to the relative comfort and safety of ‘Red Horseshoe Camp’ at Reninghelst, where the customary post battle call of the Battalion’s rolls had revealed that during the month of April the unit had suffered over four hundred and fifty casualties, killed, wounded, and missing. Amongst the Battalion’s missing had been twenty years old; 35623 Private/Signaller John Tate.
Born in Scarborough during 1898 at No.29 Commercial Street, John had been the youngest son of Margaret Ann and John Thomas Tate, a tailor by trade. A former pupil of Scarborough’s Central Board School, John had left the school at the customary age of thirteen to become an apprentice tailor to ‘Tailor and gentleman’s outfitter’ Mr. John Darling, whose business had been located in the town’s Falsgrave area at No.119 Falsgrave Road. [3]
Aged sixteen by the outbreak of war, Tate had eventually joined the army [at Scarborough] during October 1916, and had initially served as a Private [Regimental Number 32673] with the 10TH Training Reserve Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment, which had been stationed near Brocton, in Staffordshire whilst attached to the 3RD Reserve Brigade. Whilst attached to this unit Tate had specialised as a signaller and as such had joined a privileged band of men who had served as a separate unit within a battalion. Winter, rather disparagingly, describes the life of the signaller…’with eighteen in a battalion under their own sergeant, they had their own billet out of the line and were exempt from fatigues. They went up the line an hour before the rest and just carried their own equipment. Most of trench time was spent in their own dugout, testing lines and sharing private jokes on technicalities with other ‘iddy umpties’. Each quarter hour they would buzz all lines and, if there was no reply, the course of action expected gave them the prestige they enjoyed amongst the bayonet men. Under the heaviest of shellfire, and in pairs, they went out to run a finger down the line, clothed and muffled to the ears in goatskins and comforters, chatting and whistling in their casual way. It was their duty too, to dispense tea from frowsy dugouts and keep anxious faced NCO’s waiting in the vicinity, for they were the ‘news wallahs’, first into action and last out, propelling their outrageous handcarts packed with musical instruments, braziers, kettles and blankets, at which the greatest martinet would turn the blindest of eyes’… [4]
Tate had been posted to 9TH K.O.Y.L.I. during March 1917, joining the Battalion at a small town in Northern France called Lucheux, to the north east of Doullens. A veteran unit, formed at Pontefract in the West Riding of Yorkshire as one of the many ‘Service’ Battalions which had been formed during September 1914, the Ninth Battalion had arrived in France as part of 64TH brigade of the 21ST Division on the 11TH of September 1915 and had first been committed into battle just two weeks later in a disastrous attack near the Bois Hugo during the fiasco at Loos, during which the unit, never tried in battle before, had suffered over two hundred casualties [as a whole the 21ST Division had suffered over 3,000 casualties]. Once again sorely mauled during the Somme Offensive of 1916, by the beginning of 1917 the Battalion had been in the trenches in the Arras Sector, near Bethune, where, on the 5TH of March the unit had been relieved from the front line to march back to Bethune, where the mud caked officers and men had been allowed a welcoming bath and an exchange of their filthy lice infested uniforms. [5]
A veteran of the battalion’s subsequent involvements in the Battle of Arras [April- May 1917], 3RD Battle of Ypres [July-November 1917], and the Cambrai Operations of November-December 1917, the news of John Tate’s death had been reported in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 17TH of May 1918;
‘Signaller killed - A letter has been received from a comrade by Mr J.T. Tate, 30 Commercial Street, stating that his son Signaller John Tate [20] K.O.Y.L.I. was killed by a shell on or about the 27TH of April. The letter states that the shell wounded another soldier and killed Tate instantly. He had seen nearly 18 months service. Before joining up he was employed by Mr Darling, tailor, Falsgrave Road, and he was a member of St John’s Street, Primitive Methodist Institute. His brother, Charles, who was with the 5TH Yorks in 1915, has now been invalided from the army as the result of wounds, and another brother is making aeroplanes’…[6]
Probably blown to pieces by the exploding shell, no remains of John Tate had ever been recovered, and his name had eventually been included on the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing. Located near Zonnebeke [a village some six kilometres north east of Ypres], in Western Flanders, this memorial is contained within Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in the world, which contains the graves of almost twelve thousand [11,953] casualties of the ‘Great War. The Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing [one of four dedicated to the missing of Flanders] contains the names of almost thirty five thousand officers and men of the British and Commonwealth armed forces that have no known graves. John Tate’s name is
Commemorated amongst Panels 108 to 111 of the Memorial, all of which are dedicated to the missing of the King’s Own [Yorkshire Light Infantry].
In Scarborough, apart from the Oliver’s Mount Memorial, Tate’s name may have at one time, been commemorated in the Primitive Methodist Chapel located in the town’s St John’s Road. However, if a memorial had ever been erected in the church, the details are now lost, and no information regarding a memorial can be located. Nevertheless, the soldier’s name is also to be found in the town’s Manor Road Cemetery on a small gravestone [Section R, Row14, Grave 14,] which also bears the names of parents: John Thomas Tate had died at his home at 30 Commercial Street on Thursday the 28TH of January 1932 at the age of seventy one years [buried on the 29TH of January], whilst Ann Tate, had died at the age of seventy eight at No.13 Edgehill Road on Tuesday the 30TH of January 1940 [buried on the 2ND of February].
John’s elder brother [born in Scarborough during 1893], Charles H. Tate, had been a pre-war ‘Saturday night soldier’ in the Scarborough based Territorial Force 1ST/5TH Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment, and had been serving with the battalion during April 1915 when the unit had suffered its ‘baptism of fire’ at St Julien, in Western Flanders. Wounded in an arm and stomach during the battle, ‘Charlie’ Tate had eventually been evacuated to ‘blighty’, were he had been hospitalised for a considerable time before being classified as unfit for further military service, and duly demobilised. He had, nevertheless, survived the war.
[1] Meisel F.; Department of Documents, Imperial War Museum, London. Extracted from ‘1918 the unexpected victory’; Johnson J.H.; Cassell military paperbacks; Cassell & Co.; 1997.
[2] Colonel H.C. Wylly; The King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in the war 1914-1918;
[3] At the time of the 1901 Census the Tate’s had still been living in Scarborough at No.29 Commercial Street. The family had consisted of John T. 40 years tailor [worker], Margaret Ann, 39 years, born Ayton, Walter, 18, plumber’s apprentice, Harold, 12, Charles H., 8, Margaret H. 6, and John, aged 3. All except Margaret Ann Tate had been born in Scarborough.
[4] Death’s men; Denis Winter; Penguin Books; 1979.
[5] A detailed account of the 9TH K.O.Y.L.I.’s trials during the Somme Offensive can be found in Part 10 belonging to the 1916 section of my book.
[6] Part 54 of ‘Soldiers died in the Great War’ records the names of fifty four men of the 9TH K.O.Y.L.I. who had lost their lives between the 25TH and 28TH of April 1918. Three men, Private’s Ernest Leather, Albert Burcher, and Corporal George Morgan [Military Medal] are recorded as having ‘died of wounds’ on the 27TH of April. Twelve men [including John Tate] are recorded as killed or died of wounds on the 25TH, whilst a further thirty-seven men had died on the 26TH, two others had died during the 28TH of April.
[Amongst those who had died during the 26TH, had been 43024 Private Henry Atkinson Eccles. Although recorded by ‘Soldiers died’ as having been born in Scarborough [during 1891], the author has been unable, despite extensive research, to find any reference to Private Eccles in the local press of the time, or Parish records, and despite his mother, Edith Eccles, living in the town during the post war years at No.3 Henrietta Court [St Thomas Street], his name is not included on the Oliver’s Mount Memorial. The husband of Maud Eccles of No.3 Wray Crescent, Wyke, Bradford, Henry had enlisted in Leeds and had originally served with the Northumberland Fusiliers [Regimental Number 29525]. He had died from the effects of wounds on the 26TH of April. Like those of Private Tate, no remains of Private Eccles had ever been afforded a known grave and is also commemorated amongst Panels 108-111 of the Tyne Cot Memorial].
Not so far from the men of 9TH K.O.Y.L.I. fighting for their lives atop Hill 44, their comrades belonging to the 1st battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment [also belonging to 64TH Brigade] had been undergoing a far more terrifying experience, from which few would survive…
‘The Battalion had returned to the front line on the night 23rd-24th April, relieving the 9th K.O.Y.L.I. in the 64th Brigade right sub sector [Wytshaete]. On this occasion, three companies [‘A’, ‘C’, and ‘B’ from right to left] went into the front line, which ran in a north easterly to southwesterly direction across the Wytshaete Ridge, Kemmel Hill being about two miles to the right rear. The fourth Company [‘D’] was in support in Onraet Wood, and Battalion H.Q. were in the Grand Bois’…About 2-30am the enemy bombardment opened: shells of all calibres rained not only upon the forward trenches, but on all the communication trenches behind the front line and in the valleys beyond the Hill. Gas shells were used freely, and for the first time the enemy made use of a new kind of gas—‘Blue Cross’. [1]
…’In less than half an hour, all telegraph wires were cut, ad even a heavy-leaded signal cable, buried eight feet in the ground, was wreaked. Telegraphic communication gone, attempts were made to get through to the forward companies by means of runners, but these also failed the runners becoming casualties.
Gas, smoke ad bursting shells added to a thick early morning fog, created the utmost uncertainty as to what was happening in the front line. The bombardment continued until about 5am, and ten the enemy put down a very heavy barrage on all the valleys and possible assembly positions in rear of the front line defences. Under cover of a smoke barrage, his infantry advanced to the attack, but still no news from the front line reached Battalion H.Q.’. [2]
This sorry state of affairs had continued throughout the remainder of that morning, and without news of his forward Companies, the unit’s C.O., Lieutenant Colonel James Hugh Coles, had organised a defensive perimeter in front of Battalion H.Q. and the Wytschaete road consisting mostly of the ‘odds and sods’ collected from around headquarters and the supply lines. Wyrall continues the story…
‘Soon groups of enemy troops had begun to trickle forward over the brow of the hill, some 200 to 300 yards away their silhouetted figures making fine targets of which full advantage was taken. Two or three machine gun teams, driven back from the Black Cot Ridge, joined Battalion H.Q., and together any serious advance by the enemy was prevented until about 8-30am’…[2]
By this time the situation was becoming desperate. Virtually cut off, and very close to being surrounded, and still with no news of his forward companies, Coles had given the order for his small band of men to withdraw in small groups. Taking as many as possible of the unit’s wounded with them; the remaining East Yorkshiremen had begun to make their precarious way to safety…
‘In rushes from shell hole, to shell hole, turning occasionally to fire a few rounds at the enemy and then moving on again, these few survivors of a very gallant Battalion withdrew. But in one of these rushes, Lieut-Colonel Coles was shot through the head and died instantly. A very brave officer, beloved by all ranks, and a great loss to the Regiment’…[2]
With little time to take notice of the loss of their commanding officer the survivors had continued their flight across the ridge, closely followed by the enemy. Eventually they had reached safety when they had arrived at a small trench on the western bank of the Wytshaete Beek known as ‘Chinese Trench’, which had been crowded with men from the 39TH Division. Whilst here the survivors, by this time numbering just three officers and thirty other ranks, had been joined by two survivors from the front companies, who had at last given an account of the terrible happenings in the front line earlier that day.
Taken prisoner in Onraet Wood the two traumatised men had somehow managed to escape from their captors and had eventually rejoined their few remaining comrades to tell of the Battalion’s positions being overrun by the enemy under the cover of their smoke barrage. Obviously, with so few survivors accounts of the action in and around Onraet Wood, Wyrall has very little to say of the sorry episode…’How long the gallant fellows held out it is impossible to say, but they were virtually surrounded by 7am,though they were unaware of their position until the enemy closed in on them’…[2]
Wyrall goes on to report the losses incurred by the 1ST Battalion during the 25TH. Three officers and 11 other ranks killed, wounded 27 other ranks, a further thirteen officers are reported as missing, fifty four casualties all told. Before the dawning of Wednesday the 25TH of April 1918 the 1ST Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment had reportedly consisted of a ‘trench strength’ of around five hundred officers and men, by the end of the day it had consisted of twenty nine ‘all ranks’, so what had happened to the remaining 447 men?, no one knows.
At first all four hundred and forty seven had been recorded as ‘missing in action’, amongst them had been twenty years old; 220460 Private John Thomas Watkinson.
Attached to ‘C’ Company, John had been born in Scarborough during 1898, at No.59 Quay Street and had been the eldest son of Clara Ann, and bricklayer’s labourer, Christopher Watkinson. [3]
A pupil of Scarborough’s St Thomas’s Parish School, and eventually the Friarage Board School, John had left school at the statutory age of thirteen [at the end of the summer term of 1911], to become an apprentice bricklayer in his father’s ‘jobbing’ building firm, which by this time had been living in the town at No123 North Marine Road.
A seasoned builders apprentice by the outbreak of war, John had been in the town to experience the German bombardment of December 1914, and had watched as many of his contemporaries troop off to war on the wings of patriotism in the wake of the shelling. However, although aged barely sixteen years of age by 1915, Watkinson, like many youngsters at this time, eager to take part in a war that many had predicted would be over by Christmas, had of course insisted to the recruiting sergeant that he was indeed eighteen years of age, and had enlisted into the Territorial Force at the Scarborough Headquarters [later to become the Y.M.C.A. building located in North Street] of the 1ST/5TH Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment during February 1915.
Not amongst the ranks of the original Battalion, which had been cut to pieces at St Julien during April 1915, Watkinson had remained behind to serve as a Private [Regimental Number 2512] in the recently formed [at Scarborough during September 1914] 2ND/5TH Battalion. Watkinson had served with this unit until June 1915, when he had been included in a large draft of reinforcements who had crossed ‘over the water’ to serve in Flanders with the 1ST/5TH Battalion [belonging to the 150TH Brigade of 50TH [1st Northumbrian] Division] which had lost many of its men as a result of the fighting at St Julien. Watkinson had served for six months in the trenches in Flanders, however, during December 1915, the military authorities had found they had had an underage soldier in its ranks and John had subsequently been taken out of the trenches to be sent back to England to the Yorkshire Regiment’s Depot at Richmond, North Yorkshire, where he had served until his eighteenth birthday.
Watkinson had eventually returned to active service during August 1916 when he had ‘crossed over the water’ to rejoin his unit, which by this time had been a battle seasoned unit which had just arrived at Millencourt, in the Somme Sector, where the unit had been making preparations to take part in a major operation near Martinpuich.
[For a more detailed account of the 1ST/5TH Battalion’s role in the operations at Matinpuich see relevant chapter].
On the 15TH of August John Watkinson had received his ‘baptism of fire’ during operations between High Wood and Martinpuich, which, although successful, had cost the battalion over two hundred and fifty casualties, due mainly to shellfire. Amongst one hundred and sixty two non commissioned officers and men of the 1ST/5TH who had been wounded during ‘the push’, Watkinson after basic treatment in a Casualty Clearing Station located near to the battlefield, John had eventually been transported to ‘Blighty’ for more extensive treatment. Hospitalised until November 1916, Watkinson had eventually returned to his home in Scarborough for a short period of ‘recuperation leave’, before being sent once again to the Yorkshire Regiment’s Depot at Richmond before being sent once more to France
The appalling casualties which the B.E.F. had suffered during the Somme Offensive had more often than not seen recuperated wounded men being returned to France and Flanders to serve in regiments not of their choice and in addition, to one of the many training camps located near to Etaples for a course of ‘intensive infantry training’ before being sent back to the front. John Watkinson had duly returned to France during January 1917, and had endured the rigours of one of the notorious ‘Bull Ring’s’ which had been dotted amongst the sand dunes at ‘Eat Apples’ before being posted not back to his beloved 1ST/5TH Yorkshire Regiment as he had hoped, but to the pre war regular army 1ST Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment.
At the outbreak of war 1ST East Yorkshire’s had been stationed at York’s Strensall Barracks and had originally been attached to the 18TH Brigade of 6TH Division. The Battalion had landed at Zeebrugge during September 1914 and had served on the Western Front ever since that date. By January 1917, however, the unit it had been attached to the 64TH Brigade of 21ST Division and had been stationed in Northern France near the village of Fouquieres, where Watkinson had caught up with his new regiment. Soon after John’s arrival [13th February] the 1st Battalion had moved to Bethune and two days later the unit had gone into the front line in the Cambrian Sector.
For the next three weeks Watkinson had been exposed to some of the most abominable weather conditions yet experienced on the Western Front.
The severe winter had eventually given way to Spring, when, on the sixth of March the 1ST Battalion had received orders to move southwards to the Arras Sector, where the unit had begun to train for the forthcoming Allied offensive. By the beginning of April 1917 Watkinson and his comrades had been billeted in the village of Berles au Bois, however, on the third of the month the unit had moved into the front line between Hamelincourt and Boisleux, where, on the 4TH of April, the men had listened to the beginning of thunderous preliminary bombardment of the enemy’s positions heralding the start of the First Battle of the Scarpe [9TH of April-15TH of May 1917].
The British First and Third Armies had launched their attacks on Easter Monday the 9TH of April 1917. The 1ST East Yorkshires had not gone into action until the afternoon of that day, when at around 3-50pm that day the men of the unit had left their assault positions to ‘advance in fine form’ towards their objective, the formidable Hindenburg Line near to the German held village of Heninel.
Wounded once more during this attack, Watkinson had been amongst the battalion’s 149 wounded [overall the 1ST East Yorkshire had suffered almost three hundred casualties in the abortive attack] who had been rescued from the snow covered battlefield to be treated in the various Casualty Clearing Stations behind the British line before being shipped off to a hospital in England.
Out of action until the dawning of 1918, John had rejoined his battalion on the Somme where he had taken part in heavier fighting during the great British retreat of March 1918. Moved to the Ypres Sector at the beginning of April, the 1ST East Yorkshire’s had taken over a part of the front line to the north of Wytschaete during the night of the twelfth Four days later the battalion’s positions had been engulfed in a shroud of exploding gas and high explosive shells. Half an hour after the artillery bombardment the enemy had launched a determined infantry attack, which, but for the stoic defence of its beleaguered position by remnants of ‘D’ Company would have driven the battalion from the ridge.
Ferocious fighting for these positions had continued until the 19TH of April with the enemy trying repeatedly to take the East Yorkshire’s positions, all to no avail. On the nineteenth of April the decimated battalion had left the front to seek shelter in a camp about a mile east of La Clytte, where it had been found that the unit had lost over two hundred officers and men.
Fortunate to have survived the so called First Battle of Kemmel [17TH –19TH of April 1918], Watkinson had returned to the front line during the night of the 23RD-24TH of April, and had not survived the second battle for the hill, and had subsequently been reported as missing in action in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 31ST of May 1918. Incredibly, Chris Watkinson’s had heard no further news regarding his missing son until after the war’s end, when during July 1919 the War Office had at last informed him that, ‘that as no further news had been received regarding your son Private John T. Watkinson, it must be presumed that he had been killed in action, probably on the 25TH of April 1918’. The ‘Scarborough Mercury of Friday the 18TH of July had reported:
‘Enlisted at sixteen - Young Scarborough soldier now presumed dead - Official news has been received that Private John Thomas Watkinson, East Yorks, son of Mr. and Mrs. Christopher Watkinson, 111 Trafalgar Road, who has been missing since April 1918, is presumed to have been killed.
Private Watkinson was about 21 years of age and enlisted when he was 16 years of age. He was removed from the trenches after a spell of service in France on account of his youth, but afterwards sent in again. He was wounded and on his return to the front after being in hospital was reported missing. The news, which has now arrived, leaves little doubt that he was killed. Before joining up he was an apprentice with Mr. Watkinson, builder’…
There had been no further news regarding the lost Private Watkinson, nor had any remains, recognisable, as belonging to the young soldier been recovered from the detritus of war littering Wytschaete Ridge to be afforded a proper burial. Inevitably, his name had also been included on the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing, and can be found amongst the many names of the officers and men of the East Yorkshire Regiment which fill the memorial’s Panels 47 to 48 and 162A [Amongst these names can be found that of John Watkinson’s Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel John Hugh Coles D.S.O., whose also remains ‘Missing Presumed killed in action’ [on the 24TH of April 1918]].
A former member of Scarborough’s Parish of St Mary’s, John Watkinson’s name is included on the large Roll of Honour located on the north interior wall of St Mary’s Parish Church which lists the names of another one hundred and forty six former members of the Parish who had also lost their lives during the war of 1914-19.
Apart from the Oliver’s Mount Memorial, John’s name is also commemorated on a small grave marker [in the shape of an open book] to be found in the town’s Manor Road Cemetery [Section K, Row 9, Grave 54] which also includes the name of younger brother Stanley Watkinson, who had died, shortly after his elder brother, from the effects of ‘Spanish Flu’ during September 1918, at the age of 11 years.
A nearby memorial also remembers John’s mother; Clara Watkinson, who had died at the family home at No.123 North Marine Road on Monday the 17TH of June 1912, at the age of thirty four, and that of his father, Christopher ‘Kit’ Watkinson, who had died in Scarborough Hospital at the age of ninety during Saturday the 12TH of November 1966. Also the father of Hilda, Doris, and May [the latter both products of Chris’s second marriage [1913] to Elizabeth Burt], the remains of ‘Kit’ Watkinson had been interred in Manor Road Cemetery during Wednesday the 16TH of November 1966.
The capture of Mount Kemmel had been a great feat, but on the whole the Germans had not achieved their ultimate objective. They had not pinched the British out of their beloved Ypres Salient; neither had they reached the all-important channel ports. Operations on a limited scale had continued throughout the 27TH and 28TH of April these had culminated on the 29TH with a massive two hour gas and high explosives bombardment of the French and British positions between Meteren and Zillebeke lake, and on the Belgian positions to the north of Ypres near Langemarck. This had been followed by a concerted assault by eleven tired divisions. The weight of the assault on the Franco-British positions had caused the French to give some ground but this had been recaptured with a counter attack. The attack on the Belgian positions had been a total failure and during the following day Ludendorff had called a halt to ‘Operation Georgette’.
The cost of the offensive to the Germans had been enormous. They had lost somewhere in the region of 109, 000 men, whilst the British had lost around 76,000 killed, wounded, and missing, whilst the French had lost 35,000 officers and men.
Also amongst the British casualties had been; 50216 Lance Corporal Harry Wood.
Born in Scarborough during 1894 at No.15 Castlegate, Harry had been the fourth of six children of Annie and ‘milk dealer’ William Wood. A former pupil of St Mary’s Parish, and Friarage Board School’s, Harry had begun work at the age of thirteen as an apprentice bricklayer, for local builder William Thomas Petch.
A time served bricklayer by the outbreak of war, Harry had by this time been living with wife Eliza Ann Wood, at No.30 The Bolts, in Scarborough’s Sandside, and had enlisted into the army [at Scarborough] during 1916, to initially serve as a ‘Sapper’ [the R.E.’s equivalent of a private] in the Royal Engineers [Regimental Number 217185]. However, during 1917 Harry had been transferred to the 9TH [Service] Battalion of the Prince of Wales Own [North Staffordshire Regiment], the Pioneer Battalion to the British 37TH Division.
Wood had been working on the repair of roads in the Somme Sector during Operation Georgette when the deadly fumes of Mustard gas had overcome him. Subsequently evacuated to the British No.2 Stationary Hospital at Abbeville, the twenty-four years old had lingered until Wednesday the 15TH of May 1918, when he had died from the effects of pneumonia.
The news of Harry’s demise had appeared in ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 24TH of May 1918;
‘Death follows gas poisoning - The death has taken place in a Canadian Hospital in France of Lance Corporal Wood, son of the late William Wood, 15 Castlegate. Death resulted gas poisoning, pneumonia supervening. He was 25 years of age and served his apprenticeship with Mr. Petch, builder, Belle Vue Parade. There are three other brothers serving’…[4]
The remains of Private Wood had eventually been interred in the Communal Cemetery Extension at Abbeville, a town, once classified as the ‘headquarters of the British lines of communication’, which is located some 80 kilometres to the south of Boulogne on the main road [N1] between Boulogne and Paris. This Cemetery contains the graves of over two thousand casualties of the Great War who had died in the three British hospitals which had been based near the town at various times throughout the war. Harry Wood’s final resting place is located in Section 4, Row A, Grave 22 of the Cemetery.
Another member of the congregation of Scarborough’s St Thomas’s Parish Church who had lost his life on active service between the years 1914-1918, Harry Wood’s name is included on the church ‘Roll of Honour’ which is now housed on the north interior wall of St Mary’s Parish Church alongside that churches much larger ‘Roll of Honour’. Harry’s name is also commemorated in the town’s Manor Road Cemetery [Section P, Row 16, Grave 1B] on gravestone which also commemorates the Corporal’s Scarborough born father, William Wood, who had died ‘suddenly’ at No.15 Castlegate at the age of forty eight on Monday the 19TH of May 1908, and brother Walter, who had died at the age of two and a half years on the 23RD of March 1903. Harry’s mother Newton Dale born Annie Wood had continued to live in the family home in Castlegate throughout the post war years and had eventually passed away at the age of eighty five on Wednesday the 18TH of December 1946.
Of Harry’s three brothers who had served during the war, only two have been traced. The eldest, William [born 1890] had also served with the Royal Engineers, whilst his younger sibling, John Thomas, [born 1899] had served with the Royal Field Artillery. Both had survived.
After the closing down of Georgette there had understandably been a lull in the fighting on the Western Front. Like two boxers standing against the ropes gasping for breath after a great tussle the two sides had waited for the bell sounding the next round of the battle. The Allies, believing the Germans to be exhausted by their recent efforts were in for yet another large jolt in their backsides.
[1] An early form of chemical warfare, ‘Blue Cross’ had been a chemical, Diphenylchloroarsine, which had been contained in glass bottles which had been loaded into high explosive shells [marked with a blue cross], which upon detonation had created a fine dust which could penetrate the standard Allied gas mask of the day to cause irritation to its victim’s sinuses forcing the man to take off his mask, thus exposing him to the ‘delights’ of the far deadlier Phosgene or Mustard types of gases.
[2] Everard Wyrall; The East Yorkshire Regiment in the Great War 1914-1918; London; 1928.
[3] John had been baptised at Scarborough’s St Mary’s Parish Church on the 5TH of May 1898. By the time of the 1901 Census the Watkinson’s had still been residing in the town at No.59 Quay Street the family consisting of Christopher, aged 24 years, Bricklayers labourer, born Filey, North Yorkshire, Clara, 23 years, born Scarborough, John T., 3 years, and one year old Hilda, both of whom had been born in Scarborough.
[4] Despite extensive research the author has been unable to find the name of a Canadian hospital that had been located at Abbeville, and has therefore assumed that Harry Wood had died at one of the British Hospitals, which had been based there at the time.