A sad loss

A sad loss

26th April 1917 - 28th April 1917

LANCE CORPORAL PERCIVAL FREDERICK MANCHESTER Percy Manchester, was born in Chelsea, London and enlisted into the Twenty Second Battalion, Royal Fusiliers Regiment at Chiswick, the London suburb in which he, his wife Mabel and small son lived at 25 Powell Road. His army serial number was 6014. The engagement in which Percy was killed, like that in which his brother Leonard had been killed almost exactly two years earlier was a badly planned and poorly executed operation that resulted in the senseless death of many men. The War Diary for the Twenty Second Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers shows that on 24th April, 1917, the battalion left Bray and marched to Ecurie. On the night of the 25th/26th, the battalion took over the front line from the First Kings Liverpool Regiment in an area opposite Oppy Wood. During the daylight hours of the 26th and 27th the front line was evacuated to allow the British artillery to shell the area in front of the German lines in order to cut their barbed wire defences. On the following night the battalion was relieved in the front line by the Seventh Middlesex Battalion. Due to previous heavy losses in the Twenty Second Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, the four companies were amalgamated into just two companies, who were to be equipped with battle stores before moving back into the front line. On the afternoon of the 28th, three officers and one hundred and fifty other ranks of the First Kings Royal Rifle Corps were attached to the battalion. According to the account of the attack on the German line south of Oppy Wood by Lt. Col. R. Barnett Barker, Commanding Officer of the Twenty Second Battalion, his orders were that the battalion had to pass the starting point for the attack (Maison de la Cote) at about 9.00 pm on 28th April. They were then to take over the sector occupied by the Essex Regiment. Zero time for the attack was set for 3.00 am on the 29th. At 10.15 pm on the 28th, a message was received at the rear Battalion Headquarters that the zero hour on the 29th had been changed from 3.00 am to 4.00 am (presumably to allow a longer period of shelling of the enemy trenches). Due to the difficult conditions, this information reached the Company Commanders in the front line just as they were forming up for the attack. At the hour of 3.00 am Lt. Col. Barnett Barker also received at his battle headquarters the devastating information that, contrary to previous advice, the attack trenches were completely devoid of the bombs, small arms, ammunition and tools that his troops needed so urgently. Even worse, there was virtually no possibility of obtaining supplies of these items before the proposed attack. However, perhaps the worst news of the lot was that despite the heavy shelling of the German barbed wire defences by the British artillery, much of the wire remained intact. Despite the obvious problems confronting them, the already depleted battalion formed up “in perfect order” and as soon as the artillery “creeping barrage” lifted from “no man’s land” at 4.00 am, the men, led by the subaltern officers, left the attack trenches and moved forward in waves. They were almost immediately held up by the uncut barbed wire. While they were trying to find or make gaps in the wire, the “creeping barrage” lifted from the enemy trenches, exposing them to heavy rifle and machine-gun fire and enemy grenades. The right hand company managed to get through the first row of German wire, but found the second row impenetrable. Although a few officers and men were able to get into the German trenches, many others were killed or wounded in the desperate hand to hand fighting in which many of the enemy suffered a similar fate. At 9.20 am, Lt. Col. Barnett Barker received a message from Second Lieutenant Jeffcott (who had already been wounded and died from his wounds later that day) that if reinforcements armed with plenty of Mills bombs could be sent in, he was sure that he could attack again and capture the line. A group of about one hundred men from the Twenty Third Royal Fusiliers, well supplied with Mills bombs, were later able to reach the German line with almost no casualties. By 3.15 pm it was reported that the original objective of Oppy Wood was being evacuated by the enemy. By the time that the remnants of the Twenty Second Battalion, Royal Fusiliers were relieved by the Eleventh East Yorkshire Regiment on the night of 29/30th April, all twelve of the front line officers had been killed or wounded. Ninety percent of the four hundred and fifty or so men that had made up the two amalgamated companies had also become casualties. The only members of the battalion who marched out of the action were the four headquarters officers and forty other ranks. Lance Corporal Percival Frederick Manchester was not one of the forty men, being posted as “missing, presumed dead”. His body was never found and his death is commemorated in bay three of the Arras Memorial in the Pas de Calais, France.

Created by: , Ron19093