Current Information:

Age-21

57, Theydon Street, Walthamstow

Attached to 1st Loyal North Lancs

Battle of Aubers Ridge- 9th May, 1915

On 9 May 1915 the British attacked north at Arras as part of the British contribution to the Second Battle of Artois, a Franco-British offensive. Their objective was the capture of Aubers Ridge but it turned into an unmitigated disaster. The German defences had been much improved since the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in March and the British artillery, which was in a parlous condition, failed to destroy the German defences during the short and insufficient 40 minute bombardment that preceded the attack. Extra artillery had been requested but further to the north, the Second Battle of Ypres was being fought on a ferocious scale and none was forthcoming. The few initial gains could not be held and by the evening of 9 May, all the British forces were back where they started, except of course the dead who littered the battlefield. There were 11,000 casualties for the British Army.

1st Division attacked in front of Richbourg-l’Avoué with the 1st Northamptonshire and 2nd Sussex battalions leading the attack on 2 Brigade’s front. Both battalions were hit by heavy fire from twenty two enemy machine guns and only a handful of them reached the German front line. The 1st Loyal North Lancashire battalion were in support behind the Rue du Bois and when the attack was launched at 5.40am they moved forward to the vacated front line where it was soon apparent that the initial attack had failed. Nevertheless 1st Loyal North Lancashire renewed the attack and like those who had gone before them they soon came to grief in no-man’s-land in the face of concentrated enemy machine-gun fire. They went to ground and those that could crawled their way back to the British front line where they continued to suffer casualties from the heavy shell fire of the enemy. Relieved in the early hours of 10th May the battalion moved back to Le Touret having sustained over 220 casualties. One of these was Henry Horner, attached to the battalion from the Royal Army Ordnance Corps.