A VERY SCARCE (FIRST DAY of THE SOMME)
“LEEDS PALS” CASUALTY

1914-15 Star Trio.
To:
15-687 Pte Thomas T. Noble 15th West Yorkshire Regt.
“SERIOUSLY WOUNDED. 1st JULY 1916. ATTACK AT SERRE”

Theatre 3 (EGYPT) - 22.12.1915

15th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment (1st Leeds Pals) was raised in Leeds in September 1914 by the Lord Mayor and City. After training locally they moved to Silkstone in December 1914. In May 1915 The Battalion joined the 93rd Brigade, 31st Division and moved to South Camp, Ripon and later to Hurdcott Camp near Salisbury.

In December 1915 they set sail for Alexandria in Egypt to defend the Suez Canal. In March 1916 The 31st Division left Port Said aboard HMT Briton bound for Marseilles in France, a journey which took 5 days. They travelled by train to Pont Remy, a few miles south east of Abbeville and marched to Bertrancourt arriving on 29 March 1916 joining the British build up for the Battle of the Somme.

[1st JULY 1916...First Day of the Battle of The Somme]
The Leeds Pals first taste of action was at Serre on the Somme with 31st Division where they suffered heavy casualties as the battle was launched. They advanced from a line of copses named after the Gospels.

The battalion was shelled in its trenches before Zero Hour (7.30 am) and when it advanced, it was met by heavy enemy machine gun fire. A few men got as far as the German barbed wire but no further. Later in the morning the German defenders came out to clear the bodies off their wire, brutally killing any that were still alive. The battalion casualties, sustained in just the few minutes after Zero Hour, were 24 officers and 504 other ranks of which 15 officers and 233 other ranks were killed.

"The name of Serre and the date of 1st July is engraved deep in our hearts, along with the faces of our 'Pals', a grand crowd of chaps. We were two years in the making and ten minutes in the destroying." (Private A.V. Pearson, Leeds Pals)

In December 1917 the 15th “Leeds Pals” were amalgamated with the 2nd Leeds battalion (17th Battalion, The West Yorkshire Regiment, Bantam Battalion to form the 15th/17th Battalion, The West Yorkshire Regiment.

In 1917 they were in action in the Battle of Arras. In early 1918 they were on the Somme then moved north into Flanders for the Battle of the Lys and the Final Advance in Flanders.

The 'Leeds Pals' book by Laurie Milner has entries from the Yorkshire Evening Post on page 156. All the articles on that page are to do with the dead and wounded from the battalion's losses on 1st July 1916. The article naming Thomas Noble is not very distinct but his name is visible if you have the book in your hand.







A VERY EMOTIVE GROUP TO. BRAVE SOLDIER IN THE GREATLY DESIRABLE “LEEDS PALS”

Medals are EF on original ribbons. Group also includes a rare LEEDS - W. YORKS COLLAR BADGE.

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