Sergeant Herbert William Thom, 4905, (1888 – 1916), 1st /4th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment
Herbert William Thom was born in Hull in 1888, the son of William Edmund Thom (1855-1934) and Fanny Thom Dorsey (1860-1949), who lived in New Road, Hornsea. William Edmund was a self-employed carver and gilder and Fanny was a school mistress. Herbert had two brothers, Arthur Ernest born in 1885 and Charles Frederick in 1895. Herbert was a coal merchant’s clerk before he enlisted and had served for 13 years in the Volunteers and Territorials.
He married Annie Chatterton in 1914 and she was living at 5 Alexandra Road, Hornsea at the time of Herberts death. He joined the 1st/4th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment
and served in the 150th Brigade, 50th (Northumbrian) Division. The battalion first saw action in the Second Battles of Ypres in particular the Battle of St. Julien and the Battle of Bellewaarde Ridge in which they fought gallantly and were said to have carried out their orders with distinction during the severest of tests. There followed a long period during which the Battalion was not engaged in any attack on or by the enemy. Instead they were involved in months of trench warfare in the Ypres region and at Kemmel. Shelling, trench mortaring and sniping was the order of the day and night. Conditions were horrendous most of the time and the troops suffered from the rain, snow, mud, lice and rats, lots of rats. Illness was commonplace. Sometimes there were heavy casualties and other times losses were few, but the action went on until early August 1916 when the Battalion left the trenches and began the journey to the Somme. Herbert didn’t live to see that day because he was killed by a shell in the trenches on the 22nd July 1916.
His grave is identified as III.D.10 in La Laiterie Military Cemetery, Heuvelland, West Vlaanderen, Belgium.
