Local soldiers involved in bitter fighting on ‘Hill 60’

There was a lot of Courier attention given this week to severe fighting involving local lads of the 2nd Battalion West Riding Regiment around what was known as Hill 60 close to Ypres. This strategically important hill, which was little more than a small spoil heap, had been captured by the British on April 17. The following day, the battalion had moved up to relieve the troops who had taken the hill. During their stay they were ordered to drive out some other German units who had counterattacked. The fighting was bitter and they were subjected to intense artillery fire. The battalion suffered 15 officers and 406 other ranks killed, missing or wounded. This represented most of the officers and roughly half of the battalion’s compliment. Sergeant Joe Bottomley, who had written to the Courier in December 1914 thanking eight-yearold Margaret Brayshaw for a knitted scarf sent to him, was one of them. The official battalion history described this as one of its hardest fought days of the war, something which is reflected in the soldier letter reported in the Courier here.

Landings at Cape Helles on the Gallipoli Peninsular Gallipoli that valuable lessons would be learnt that contributed to the success of the landings in Normandy in 1944. the discussion makes no mention of women. Finally, the discussion turned to the possibility of compulsory military service (conscription). There was general agreement that this was neither necessary nor desirable. No doubt the further demands that conscription might put on available men for workshops was at the back of their minds. Frederick Whitley Thompson felt that current rates of recruitment into the army were sufficient despite the frequent message coming from the military that local enlistment was still too slow. It was the classic struggle between industry and the military who both believed their manpower requirements were important for the war effort. Total war had many conundrums and this was one of them. I had quite expected to see the practice in operation from as early as 1914 but the Courier does not appear to have embraced the idea until mid-1915. Some reports of soldiers killed and wounded, occasionally with their photographs, had been printed in the Courier since the beginning of the war. We also have to recognise that casualty numbers were relatively smaller at this stage of the war than later. However, the Courier’s request here for as many details of the fallen as possible, suggests that there was a sea change in the way the newspaper chose to report the dead. It seems this might have been an early move towards memorialisation. As we shall see later, ‘casualty galleries’ will start to appear in the Halifax Courier as a regular feature.