Current Information:

Enlisted Finchley

Born Finchley

Lijssenthoek Military Cemetery, Belgium

At 8pm on 7th April 1917, 18th London,of141 Brigade, 47th Division with one officer and ten sappers from 517 Field Company , Royal Engineers  attached, carried out a raid on a salient in the enemy lines in the Canal sector of the Ypres salient. The Battalion diary states that the purpose of this raid was threefold:- 1. To kill or capture as many Germans as possible 2. To capture or destroy war material 3. To destroy machine gun and trench mortar emplacements and dugouts.

The attack was launched five minutes after a mine was exploded in the adjacent Hill 60 sector and all four companies of 18th London moved across no-man’s land and reached their objectives in the German front, intermediate and support lines. However their progress was somewhat hampered by the ‘extraordinarily bad state’ of no-man’s land and the area between the German intermediate and support lines. Strong resistance was also met especially from enemy artillery which again slowed things down. Nevertheless some emplacements and dug outs were destroyed after which the raiders returned to their own lines bringing back 18 prisoners with them. There is not much detail as to how successful this raid was but it is doubtful if it compensated for the human cost to 18th London who had nearly fifty men killed in this operation and many others wounded. Henry Gair died of wounds 9th April, 1917 and he was likely to have been one of the many wounded during this action.