Brown, George Herbert

L/CPL GEORGE HERBERT BROWN 11/622. Born Hull, in April 1894, George was the third of five children to George and Alice Brown of 164, Somerset Street, Hull (War pension address). A Confectionary Sugar Boiler by trade, he enlisted at Hull City Hall during the second week of September 1914 joining the 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Tradesmen’, 2nd Hull Pals. George was a veteran of Egypt, the Somme, and that fateful day in front of Oppy Wood but was killed in action as the Pals were thrown into the path of the German Spring Offensive on 24th March 1918. The Allied lines were broken and the German army was advancing on a huge front attempting to roll up the line, encircle it and force a surrender. It was a time of great peril and the situation was fluid and mobile. As one part of the line was held it was only stable so long as the battalions on its flanks could also hold. If not then they too had to fall back and attempt to form a stable line further to the rear. It was chaos. Many fell and were trampled or shelled into oblivion, and because they were losing the ground on which their comrades fell there was no way of recovering the dead. George, like many lost that day, was never recovered and his name is commemorated on the Arras Memorial; a boiled sweet maker from Hull. He was 23 years old.