Cook, James Andrew

Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE JAMES ANDREW COOK 12/350. Born in May 1896 in Battersea, James was the third of four children to Alfred and Marianne Cook of 46, Clovelly Road, Acton Lane, Chiswick (war pension address). The 1911 Census found him employed as a Helper in Domestic Service, but by the outbreak of war James was a Sailor working out of the bustling docks in Hull where he resided at 18 East Street. One of the original Pals, he enlisted on 17th September 1914 and became a member of the 3rd Hull Battalion, later to become the 12th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment. A veteran of Egypt, the Somme, Oppy Wood and the epic struggle which eventually stemmed the tide of the German Spring Offensive, James had become a member of the 10th when the battalions merged at the start of 1918, and it was with them that he died, a victim of his own army’s shellfire on 28th June 1918. That’s three Originals died in this a senseless miscalculation.- James, Albert Naylor and Fred Motherby.