Attested 03 September 1914 Wenlock Barracks Anlaby Road Hull – Medal Index Card entered Egypt 22 December 1915 with 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment – Entered Marseilles France 8 March 1916 – Mentioned page 79 10th Battalion History – East Yorkshire Regiment awarded Belgian Croix – de – Guerre London Gazette 12 April 1918 – Write up permission to wear Croix – de – Guerre Hull Daily News 16 April 1918 – Died of Wounds Casualty List Hull Daily News 6 June 1918 – AVL Hull 1918 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment – Photo – Effects to widow Eleanor – Woodhouse Street Roll of Honour – Commemorated East Yorkshire Regiment War Memorial Beverley Minster East Yorkshire – 10th Battalion History 4th June 1916

“It is difficult after twenty years to remember all the names, but I know that I was in a bay with six men. Within a few minutes of the opening of the bombardment, a shell fell immediately behind the trench and two men were hit. One, Tich West, who was next to me, was struck high up in the back. Lifting him, I placed him across my knee and was endeavour-ing to rip his tunic to fix his field dressing when another shell blew in the parados, burying us all. Fortunately, the trench had been banked up with a lot of new sandbags, so that for a few minutes at any rate, some air came through the crevices, which would not have been the case had the parades been of earth alone. I was buried in a kneeling position, grasping a man I then knew to be dead. One forgets time in such circumstances, and how long I was so fixed I do not know. However, Sam Conyers came from the next bay to pull away the bags and was killed in the act.
The platoon sergeant then made an attempt, but was badly wounded, and finally I believe my rescue was completed by Joe Allen, who got my head free, which was all that could then be done. I believe the rest of the men in the bay were killed. By this time the front of the trench had gone altogether, and I was in the open, pinioned from the shoulders downwards and unable to move until the shelling ceased, when someone freed my arms and gave me an entrenching tool to dig the rest of myself out. I suppose I must have been somewhat light-headed, for I remember singing and telling my leg, I could not possibly go without it, until a young newly-joined officer, who was doing heroic work digging others out, bid me shut up for fear the Germans heard me and came across.”