Heroism amid the slaughter for soldiers of the Green Howards

THE Battle of the Somme was one of the bloodiest battles in human history and in the thick of it were thousands of men from Yorkshire and the North-East fighting with the Green Howards.

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The first day of the battle involved 3,000 men of the Green Howards, and they are currently the subject of an exhibition at the museum dedicated to the Yorkshire Regiment in Richmond.

In total, ten battalions of the Yorkshire Regiment (the Green Howards) fought on the Somme between July and November 1916, accounting for between 7,000 and 10,000 soldiers.

Three battalions took part in the initial assault on July 1, the 2nd, 7th and 10th, fighting before the heavily fortified villages of Fricourt and Montauban. The 2nd Battalion fought at Montauban and managed to achieve most of its objectives, taking German trenches.

The 7th battalion were fighting at Fricourt, and had an extremely “hot” time of it, as they said back then.

Steve Erskine, assistant curator at the Green Howards Museum, said: “Fricourt was one of the best-defended locations on the front, dotted with German block houses, redoubts and concrete bunkers, bristling with machine gun emplacements behind a web of coiled barbed-wire. Understandably, it was one of the main objectives for the allies to capture on July 1.”

Fricourt was the second largest village on the Somme, although by the first day of the battle, only ruins remained of the village’s 176 houses, but unknown to the Allied forces, the Germans had turned it into one of their most heavily defended sections.

When the 7th Battalion went over the top, they were met by a storm of bullets. Officers and men of the three attacking companies were mown down and their advance was brought to a standstill halfway across their route to the enemy trenches.

Within three minutes, about 350 men, including 15 officers, had either been killed or wounded.

Among the bloodshed and brutal conditions were tales of exceptional heroism. Many acts of courage were performed as men went forward to bring back the wounded. The medical officer and Roman Catholic priest repeatedly crawled forward with stretcher-bearers and medical orderlies to try to help the wounded.

At 6.15pm, the severely depleted 7th Battalion was relieved by 6th Dorsetshire Regiment after retrieving the wounded, but leaving the dead on the battlefield.

Next morning, the Green Howards heard that the enemy had evacuated their trenches and Fricourt during the night. That same day, British troops from 17th Division walked into the village without a shot being fired.

Four Green Howards were awarded the Victoria Cross in the four months the Battle of the Somme raged, the highest order awarded for gallantry.

The first VC went to Temporary Major Stewart Loudoun-Shand on July 1. As the whistles were blown to signal the order for the Green Howards to advance out of their trenches, the first of his five officers and 117 men stepped up to the parapet towards their wire. They were instantly mown down by enemy machine guns, with many falling back into the trenches dead or severely wounded.

The sight temporarily halted the soldiers until Temporary Major Loudoun-Shand, from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), stepped up into the line of fire to urge the rest of the soldiers to go over the top, pulling them out of the trenches until he was fatally wounded. As he lay dying, he insisted on lying propped up in the trenches so he could continue to encourage the men.

Another was awarded to Second Lieutenant Donald Simpson Bell, pictured above, a professional footballer from Harrogate, who ran across open ground in front of heavy fire to destroy a machine gun on July 5, five days later, he attempted a similarly brave act, and lost his life.

Private William Short, from Middlesbrough, was awarded a VC for frequently volunteering for dangerous operations on August 6. He refused to go back when he was severely wounded in the foot and continued to throw bombs at the enemy line until his leg was shattered by a shell. He then lay in the trench straightening the pins of bombs for his comrades, but died before he could be carried out.

The fourth VC went to Captain Archie White, pictured above, from Boroughbridge, for holding his position while being attacked by the enemy in greatly superior numbers and continually risking his life over ten days at the end of September.