BORN HULL 1897. HULL PAL. ENLISTED SEPT. 1914. SON OF CHARLES & ALICE BRAY ABOVE 1901, WHO THEN MOVED TO LEEDS. RECORDED ON THE KINGS HALL CHURCH ROH & SYMON’S STREET ROH. HIS DEATH WAS REPORTED IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL WITH HIS PHOTOGRAPH ON 14TH JUNE 1916. *
Hull Pals Memorials Post: Born October 1897 in Hull, George was the second of three children to Charles and Alice Bray of 81 Garnet Terrace, Oakley Grove, Dewsbury Road, Leeds. A Photographer by trade he travelled back to his hometown to enlist joining the 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Commercials’, 1st Hull Pals.A member of ‘C’ Company he served in Egypt over the winter of 1915-16 and shipped for France in late February bound for the trenches of the Western Front. George was killed in action during the 70 minute bombardment of 4th June 1916 and buried in Sucrerie Military Cemetery; he was 21 years old. Private Tait described the hell they endured that night:
“No-one who has not been through such a hell can possibly conceive any idea of it’s devastation….You hear an approaching shell screeching overhead and one calls up one’s utmost nerve to withstand the shock. There is a flash…a deafening report, followed by part of the parapet tumbling on top of one. I think several times that it is the last time I shall see daylight.”
