George Arthur Lumby (The attack on Lonely Trench)

The 9th Infantry Brigade (3rd Division) of which the 12th (S) Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment was a part had been spared the debacle of the 1st July 1916 attack on the Somme (the darkest day in British military history). Since then though they had been engaged on and off throughout mid July and August in the attacks around Longueval, Bazentin Le Grand and Delville (Devils) wood.

By mid August the 3rd Division was holding a sector to the south of Guillemont and at 6:30 a.m. on 16th August the 12th West Yorks who had been in reserve moved into trenches. A and C Companies along with Battalion HQ were in Maltz Horn Trench, B in Swainson Trench and D in Jackson Trench in support of the Royal Fusiliers who were holding the front line in 'T' Trench to the Barrier. Some casualties were suffered due to heavy enemy shell fire resulting in One Officer sustaining shell shock, One O.R. (Other Ranks) killed, 14 wounded and One missing.

Lonely Trench was somewhere in this field.

Late on 17th August the Battalion received orders to prepare for another attack to capture Lonely Trench as a previous attack on the 16th had failed due to heavy shell fire, zero hour was set at 10:00 p.m. In conjunction with other Officers, Major Thomson and Lt Col Long (Commanding 10th Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 76th Infantry Brigade) reconnoitred the positions to be attacked.

Copy of the original War Diary entry for the attack on 17th August 1916.


During the previous failed attack it became clear that Lonely Trench was a much more formidable target than had been anticipated, heavily held by infantry supported with machine guns and protected by barbed wire. It was irregularly sited, difficult to observe and could not be bombarded in it's most important parts due to it's close proximity to the British trenches which would have to be evacuated (Artillery fire at this time was not very accurate and many shells often fell short of their intended target).

A surprise night attack with Bayonet and bomb (Grenades) was decided upon. A and C Companies would lead the assault along with two companies of the 10th R.W.F. on their right. They would be supported by the other companies held back in reserve. Brigade Artillery would bombard the supporting German positions and just prior to the assault, Stokes mortars would shell Lonely Trench in order to keep the Germans heads down as our Infantry rushed forward.

Hand drawn map showing location of Lonely Trench from original War Diaries.


The attacking companies moved into the Assembly Trench at 7:45 pm and the supporting companies were in position in Edwards Trench by 8:45 p.m. Major Smythe (commanding 12th West Yorks) was informed by the Brigade Major that Lt Col Long (10th R.W.F.) was due to leave 76th Infantry Brigade HQ at 7:30 p.m. and meet him in trenches at the intersection of the two Battalions. Major Smythe arrived at Assembly Trench at about 8:30 p.m. and walked some distance along the trench due to be occupied by R.W.F. meeting their advance party at about 9:00 p.m.

The tape position for the West Yorks had been reconnoitred by 9:15 p.m. but Major Smythe was unwilling to place the tape until he received a report that the R.W.F. had arrived in their jump off positions. (Prior to an attack a white tape was laid out in advance of our trenches, as close to the enemy lines as was possible and the Infantry crawled forward and spread out along it. On zero hour they would then quickly rush forward and assault the enemy positions with a minimum of casualties).

At about 9:50 p.m. Major Smythe spoke to the Brigade Major and arranged for zero hour to be put back by thirty minutes allowing for the late arrival of the R.W.F. as he had still not received a report of them being in position. This change was passed to the awaiting companies. (there were no radio communications at this time so messages were delivered by runner which could take quite some time).

At about 10:01 p.m. Major Smythe eventually met up with Lt Col Long for the first time who informed him that it was zero hour and his men were already advancing (He was obviously not aware of the time change). As a result of this encounter Major Smythe had no choice so he ordered his men to advance as well.  A and C companies left Assembly Trench and advanced in the best formation that they could in the circumstances, this could only be done by passing the order from right to left along the line.

Without a preliminary bombardment the Yorkshire men advanced into a hail of bullets from heavy rifle and machine gun fire and the attack consequently failed. The Regimental History states that there was a british bombardment, however the Battalion War Diary (written at the time) clearly states that there was no British supporting bombardment. What should have been a quick dash from the taped jump off point into the German trench supported by artillery, turned out to be an irregular advance over a much longer distance without covering shell fire.

After it was clear that the attack had failed, Major Smythe ordered the attacking companies to hold a semi-dug fire trench in front of Assembly Trench with a view to reorganising. By now the British artillery were shelling the German positions, however many of the shells fell short onto the West Yorks positions, even falling short of Assembly Trench. This state of affairs continued for some considerable time after zero hour.

As a result of this failed attack the West Yorks suffered the following casualty figures from both enemy fire and the inaccurate British artillery bombardment:

3 Officers wounded
1 Officer shell shocked
1 Officer missing (he was later discovered dead)

15 Other ranks killed
135 Other ranks wounded
11 Other ranks missing

This was not the end of the attack on Lonely Trench though as once both the West Yorks and R.W.F. had reformed they launched another attack in the early hours of 18th August. This assault also failed with both Battalions suffering further casualties. The West Yorks were relieved at 11:00 a.m. by the 1st Northumberland Fusiliers and moved back into reserve at Talus Boise. Lonely Trench was eventually captured late on 19th August.

Thiepval Memorial to the missing on the Somme.


My Great Uncle George Arthur Lumby was 25 years old when he was killed during this failed attack on Lonely Trench leaving a wife and young daughter to mourn his death. His body was never recovered which indicates that he was either killed in the initial assault or was one of the missing. He is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial to the missing on the Somme. The above account is his brief story, one of many who went off to war and never returned.

Placing a cross for George at the Thiepval Memorial.

George Arthur Lumby (An Infantry Battalion)

I have already told you all that I know about my Great Uncle, George Arthur Lumby and soon I will tell you the story of how he died during the Battle of the Somme. But before I do so I feel that I should tell you a little bit about the Army and it's organisation to give you some idea of how I was able to glean the information from Battalion and Brigade War Diaries in order to tell his story.

George was posted to the 12th (S) Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment. A Battalion was (and still is) the standard fighting formation of the British Infantry. During World War 1 a British Infantry Battalion contained approximately 1,000 men, on paper (In reality with losses this number was usually less) split into four Companies of about 220 soldiers, each commanded by a Major and designated as A to D, these were sub divided into platoons and then sections.

The Battalion was commanded by a Lieutenant-Colonel supported by the Battalion Headquarters staff and also contained ancillary troops such as a Medical Officer and stretcher bearers, Communication staff including runners (the most dangerous job in the Battalion), Trench Mortar section, Machine gun section, Cooks, Quartermaster and Transport sections.

Several Battalions served together in Brigades which consisted of approximately 5,000 men and above them several Brigades were formed into a Division which consisted of about 20,000 soldiers. The 12th West Yorks were brigaded together with the following units to form 9th Brigade which was part of 3rd Division consisting of both Regular and New Army Battalions:-

12th (S) Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment
1st Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers
13th Battalion Kings Liverpool Regiment
4th Battalion the Royal Fusiliers
9th Brigade Machine Gun Company
9th Trench Mortar battery

The army runs on paper work even during war time, this is very useful for anybody researching military or family history. During active service every unit of Battalion size and above was required to fill in a War Diary or Intelligence Summary each day to record what the unit was doing at a particular time. There are also typed plans of attack, maps, Divisional, Brigade and Battalion Orders and countless other army forms from which information can be obtained.

War Diaries were recorded on an official Army form, however when a unit was in protracted fighting sometimes they could not get the forms so the days events would be written on any available paper. The most moving example of this that I have discovered was when I was researching the death of my wife's Great Uncle George Read of 1st Royal West Kents.

In April 1915 the Battalion was constantly engaged in bitter and bloody fighting at Hill 60 in the Ypres Salient. The war diaries for this period were written on pages from an old exercise book (Held in the National Archive at Kew) by a Sub-lieutenant in front line trenches during a break in the attacks. When I viewed these entries several years ago, I may have been the first person to hold them for over eighty years and it was difficult not to feel a pang of sadness as the pages were smeared in mud and blood. It was a fine example of living history.

George Arthur Lumby (A very concise history)

Last August I wrote a post about my Great Uncle, George Arthur Lumby who was killed along with many other men fighting on the Western Front during WW1. I finished the post by saying that I would blog about the circumstances surrounding his death at a later date. After months of prevaricating I have finally gotten around to writing about his tragic death on 17th August 1916 in a futile attempt to capture 'Lonely Trench'.

However before writing the story of this fatal attack I would like to tell you the little that I know about my Great Uncle in order to bring him to life as a real person, not just a face in a faded photograph.

George Arthur Lumby was born in the year 1891 in Yeadon in the county of York to Mary Lumby (Formerly Buckle) and Samuel, a Labourer in a Woollen Mill; who later became a Woollen Fettler.

My connection to George is through his elder sister Helena (b:1885) who was my Maternal Grandmother however she died long before I was born (She is standing between George and their brother Charles in the photograph above). The family lived at Haw Lane in Yeadon but by the time George was ten years old the family had grown in size and moved to 18 Springfield Terrace, Bagley. I believe that Bagley is now part of Farsley a small village suburb between Leeds and Bradford. I know this area slightly because I spent many a holiday at my Aunt's house in Farsley during my childhood in the 1960's.

George grew up to become a Nursery Gardener and at the age of twenty one he married Elizabeth Ann Kyle a Domestic Servant on 30th November 1912 at St Marks Church in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. Their home address was given as 2 Grey Street, Harrogate a small terraced house not far from the Church. I have recently been informed by a distant cousin (who I was unaware of) that they had one child, a girl called Violet who was born in 1913.

On 4th august 1914 Britain declared war on Germany after the Kaisers Armies invaded neutral Belgium. From the outset the Government realised that this was going to be a protracted conflict and that we needed to increase the size of our Armed Forces, particularly the Army. Therefore there was a call to arms in which thousands of young men rushed to join the colours, looking for adventure and wishing to do their bit for King and Country.

Soldiers of The West Yorkshire Regiment in Training.

Many of these young men joined what was known as Kitcheners New Army; an army of Comrades who worked and played together and who were encouraged to join up in local Pals battalions, to serve and fight together. This policy was later seen to be fatally flawed when many hundreds of them died together on 1st July 1916 during the first day of the Battle of the Somme (There were fifty seven thousand casualties that day, including nineteen thousand dead, this has gone down as the darkest day in British Military history).

George like so many married men with children did not join the initial rush to war, they were men with responsibilities who could not afford to join the army. In 1914 there was no Social Security so if they were killed or seriously injured who was going to look after their families.  George would have joined the army some time in 1915 and was first posted to the front as far as I can ascertain only about a month before he died (His service record was destroyed during the blitz when the PRO was bombed so I have had to piece his history together from other sources).

British Infantry in German Dug-Outs

The unit that George joined was the 12th (S) Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment (S for Service denotes a New Army Battalion) which was formed in York in September 1914. After training at Halton Park Camp in Buckinghamshire on land given to the army by Lord Rothschild, the Battalion was sent to France in September 1915. They arrived just in time to take part in the Battle of Loos on 26th September after a forced march.

A Postcard from home

After serving near Ypres and Armentieres the Battalion arrived on the Somme in early July 1916 and took part in the Battle of Bazentin Ridge 14 - 17 July and later the attempt to capture Delville (Devils) wood and the Pozieres Ridge 20 - 24 July. I believe that George joined the Battalion as part of a replacement draft just after this action. By 16th August the 3rd Division of which the 12th West Yorks were a part were in trenches near the village of Guillemont facing towards the German occupied Lonely Trench. An attack by the 8th and 13th Kings Own on this day failed to capture Lonely Trench because of a Trench Mortar bombardment. Another attack was planned for 17th August 1916! 


Note: I would like to thank Ian Kevan, my distant cousin and a direct descendant of Charles Lumby (who is researching the Lumby Family history) for information on George and Elizabeth's daughter Violet as well as other information that he has sent to me about my own Grandfather.

Not Forgotten - George Arthur Lumby

On this day ninety seven years ago my Great Uncle George died, not peacefully in his sleep as an old man with his family around him. No, he died a sudden and violent death at the age of twenty five in the mud and blood of France. There is not even a grave for his wife and family to visit and pay their respects. He is one of the many thousands of men whose remains simply disappeared into the earth, blown apart by two further years of shelling and mechanised warfare on an industrial scale. Until ten years ago I was totally unaware that I even had a Great Uncle George as nobody in my mothers family had ever spoken about him; he died several years before she was born.

The Lumby family. George is standing in the middle. My Grandmother Helena is on his left.


I have been interested in military history since I was a boy but never bothered about WW1. Like most people I thought that it was just four years of stalemate with two opposing armies shelling the life out of each other. This all changed in 2002 when I visited the Western Front with some work colleagues, for a laugh and a weekend of drinking beer. We went to several cemeteries, where we saw row upon row of identical graves, just like soldiers lined up on parade. I don't know how it happened, but reading their epitaphs, many just saying 'A soldier of the Great War, Known unto God' simply blew me away. After coming home I set about finding out as much as I could about these men who died such tragic deaths far from home and their loved ones.

War Graves at Serre Road Cemetery on the Somme


The scale of the casualties was so great that I thought virtually every family in Britain and the Commonwealth probably have an ancestor who died during this terrible conflict. This inspired me to look into my own family's history. I decided to look down my mothers line because her mother had the unusual maiden name of Lumby, easier to find a match than Smith or Jones etc. I wrote to my elderly Aunt Gladys for information about her mothers family which she very kindly sent to me along with a family photograph taken just before the war.

My Aunt Gladys sitting on her Mothers knee. My Grandfather was also in the West Yorks Regt.


While waiting for this information to arrive from my aunt I did some research on the surname via the Commonwealth War Graves Commission web site. Here I discovered  a George Arthur Lumby of the West Yorkshire Regiment who died on 17/08/1916 and is remembered on the Thiepval Memorial to the missing on the Somme. I am a very sceptical person, that's what 25 years of being a Police Officer does for you, but some how I knew that I was related to this man. Was this his spirit calling down through the years, or was it something from my subconscious mind that I had heard when I was very young, who knows! A few days later I received a letter from my aunt with the necessary information, confirming what I already instinctively knew to be true.

Thiepval Memorial to the missing on the Somme


Armed with this information I visited the National Archive at Kew to find out all about George and how he lived and died. Unfortunately sixty percent of  individual soldiers service records, including that of George, were destroyed during WW2 when the Public Record Office was bombed in the blitz. This led to several months of investigation using Regimental and Brigade war diaries and other sources until I eventually discovered the tragic circumstances surrounding his death (I will post about this at a later date).

George's name inscribed on the Thiepval Memorial to the missing


I have been to the Somme several times since then and on each occasion I made a point of visiting the Thiepval Memorial where I left a small cross and poppy in remembrance of George and his comrades who died attacking 'Lonely Trench' on the night of the 17th August 1916. He was married to Elizabeth Ann Kyle but I don't know if they had any children and As far as I am aware I am the first and only person to make this pilgrimage. 'So he is not forgotten'.

A Cross for George from his Great Nephew