The Green Howards in the Great War

8th and 9th Battalions A.P.W.O Yorkshire Regiment

John Sheen

• Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
• Year: 2024
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781399080965
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

In answer to Lord Kitchener's appeal, in late August and September 1914 many men joined Alexandra's Princess of Wales's Own Yorkshire Regiment, better known as The Green Howards. Recruits came from around the Middlesbrough area and the ironstone mines on the North Yorkshire moors, while others came from the East Durham coalfield and the Durham City area. The 8th and 9th Battalions left the Regimental Depot in Richmond in late September and moved to Frensham on the Hampshire/Surrey border, where they trained hard until bad weather forced a move to barracks in Aldershot. They arrived on the Somme front at the end of June 1916, but were not involved in the fighting until 5 July, when the 9th Battalion captured Horseshoe trench and Lieutenant Donald Simpson Bell won the VC when he destroyed a German machine gun position. On 10 July both battalions took part in the capture of Contalmaison, a village that had been a first day objective. A second VC was awarded posthumously to Private William Short of the 8th Battalion during the fighting in Munster Alley in August 1916. The next year found the 23rd Division in the Ypres Salient, where they were in and out of the line until June 1917 when they took part in the Battle of Messines and the 8th Battalion had the honor of taking Hill 60. In November 1917 the division was sent to Italy to bolster the hard-pressed Italian Army, but the 9th Battalion returned to France in 1918 where they fought until the Armistice. The 8th Battalion stayed on in Italy and fought at the crossing of the Piave and Vittorio Veneto, which brought the war to an end in Italy.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1 Your Country Needs You
• Chapter 2 Training in the South of England
• Chapter 3 The Western Front, August–December 1915
• Chapter 4 France, January–June 1916
• Chapter 5 July 1916, The Somme, Horseshoe Trench and Contalmaison
• Chapter 6 The Somme Continued – Munster Alley and Le Sars
• Chapter 7 The Salient January–June 1917, The Battle of Messines
• Chapter 8 Menin Road Ridge, Polygon Wood, Passchendaele
• Chapter 9 The Italian Front, November 1917–July 1918
• Chapter 10 Italy to the Armistice, 4 November 1918
• Chapter 11 9th Yorkshire Regiment Back in France
• Chapter 12 What Became of the Survivors?
• Gallantry Awards to Officers, NCOs and Men of the 8th and 9th (Service) Battalions of Alexandra, Princess of Wales’s Own Yorkshire Regiment, The Green Howards
• Nominal Roll of Officers Known to Have Served with the 8th (Service) Battalion, Alexandra’s Princess of Wales’s Own, Yorkshire Regiment, The Green Howards
• Nominal Roll of Officers Known to Have Served with the 9th (Service) Battalion, Alexandra’s Princess of Wales’s Own, Yorkshire Regiment, The Green Howards
• Nominal Roll of Other Ranks that Served with the 8th (Service) Battalion, Alexandra’s Princess of Wales’s Own Yorkshire Regiment, The Green Howards, and Landed in France with the Battalion on 25 or 26 August 1915 or Died or Left the Battalion Prior to Embarkation
• Nominal Roll of Other Ranks that Served with the 9th (Service) Battalion, Alexandra’s Princess of Wales’s Own Yorkshire Regiment, The Green Howards, and Landed in France with the Battalion on 25 or 26 August 1915 or Died or Left the Battalion Prior to Embarkation
• Notes
• Bibliography