Current Information:

Age-32

Born Holloway

Warlincourt Halte British Cemetery, Saulty, France

The Battle of Arras was a series of offensives by the British Army between 9th April 1917 and 16th May 1917. It had been planned in conjunction with the French who would attack in Artois and between them the Allies would force the Germans out of the large salient they had held since the line of trenches was first established. But the Germans had spoiled this plan by falling back to the new and very strong Hindenburg Line in January 1917 and the salient no longer existed.  For the want of an alternative plan the attack went ahead anyway. It all started well for the British who made substantial gains on the first two days but then the offensive ground to a halt and by the end their losses amounted to over 150,000.

On 9th April, 1917, the opening day of the battle, 14th Division attacked from in front of Beaurains, just to the south of Arras, with fourteen tanks in support. Their objective was Telegraph Hill and the southern part of the Harp, a formidable redoubt 1000 yards long from north to south with a single trench, the String, running down its length. The 6th Cornwall Light Infantry battalion was in reserve when at 7.34am, 43 Brigade on the right and 42 Brigade on the left launched their attack. As the day progressed they moved forward to positions vacated by the leading battalions, coming under heavy machine-gun fire from the high ground to the right of Wancourt as they did so and ended the day in front of a large dump in a sunken road there. On the following day, 10th April this dump and the enemy positions in the sunken road were bombed and cleared after which they joined in the brigade’s advance on the Brown Line. This however met with heavy and sustained machine-gun fire and little progress was made. That evening the battalion was withdrawn to the Dunedin Caves in Ronville having suffered 100 casualties over the 2 days, a number that included Gordon Cushing who died from wounds on 10th April/