DELVILLE WOOD

LONGUEVAL - SOMME - FRANCE

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Contacts

DANTZIG ALLEY BRITISH CEMETERY

Mametz, Somme, France

Harold Brearley

COATES

Grave VI.G.2.

Son of Henry and Julia Coates, of 15, Sutherland Avenue, Johannesburg (Source : C.W.G.C).

7th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment (50th Brigade, 17th Northen Division)

Killed in action on the 1st July 1916. Attack of Fricourt.

The Battalion lined up in the trenches in front of the village of Fricourt and had been told not to move until ordered to do so. But the A Coy attacked in error at 7.45 am and was practically destroyed in twenty yards by a single machine-gun (108 of its 140 men became casualties). The remaining companies attacked at 2.30 pm through the German barbed wire in which existed only four small gaps. Within three minutes, the Yorkshiremen sustained 351 casualties. A few reached the village but were soon killed or captured.

The 7^th Green Howards Memorial stands in the Fricourt British Cemetery (Bray Road) which is in the old No Man’s Land where A Coy launched its tragic attack.