Britton, Donald

BORN HULL 1895. SON OF JAMES & ALICE MOOSTON BRITTON. MARRIED 1915. WIFE LOUISA E (NAYFORD) LIVED ABOVE. EX NER MESSENGER AT HULL. HDM 9/5/18.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE DONALD BRITTON 225326. Born in July 1895, James was the youngest of two sons to James and Alice Britton of 263 Hessle Road, Hull. He married Louisa Jenner in July 1915, but their time together was short. The war took him away to the trenches of the Western Front where he fought with the 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Tradesmen’, 2nd Hull Pals. A few short months before he put on khaki and stood in a ditch being shelled by other boys a few hundred yards away who just happened to come from a different country whose leaders had fallen out with those that ran Donald’s country, he had been a Messenger Boy. Then, on 27th March 1918, that Messenger Boy was ordered to go and stand in the way of a massive German attack which had punched a hole in the Allied lines and was threatening to take Paris. That Messenger Boy did as he was told and, trying as hard as he could, pushed forward into the maelstrom, into a cloud of artillery smoke, and was never seen again. Donald Britton is commemorated on the Arras Memorial; he was 22 years old.