BORN KNOTTINGLEY, YORKSHIRE 1884. BORN CHARLES DIXON. SON OF THE LATE HENRY DIXON & MARY MARIA MAHON, OF 125, LIME STREET, HULL (1901 CENSUS) & 7, ZION TERRACE, BEAN STREET, HULL (1911 CENSUS). SON OF A FLOUR MILLER, WORKING AT SWAN MILLS, CLEVELAND STREET, HULL. HE HAD THREE ELDER SISTERS.
ENLISTED HULL. SERVED WITH THE 10TH WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT. POSTED TO FRANCE ON 13/04/1915. DIED ON 01/07/1916, AT FRICOURT, AGED 32.
HIS ARMY EFFECTS WERE LEFT JOINTLY TO HIS FATHER HENRY AND SISTER MARGARENT ELLEN CORY, OF 15, AINSLEY TERRACE, SPYVEEE STREET, HULL.
HIS NAME WAS RECORDED ON HULL’S SPYVEE STREET MEMORIAL.
The official battalion war diary for this day records losses as 750 soldiers and 27 officers, killed, missing and wounded. At dawn on 1st July the 10th Battalion had begun their attack with around 900 men. By nightfall they numbered barely more than 125.
Men of the 10th Battalion were attacking the German-held village of Fricourt on this day. They left their trenches at 7.30am following the cessation of an artillery bombardment, attacking the German position across no man’s land in four waves. The first two waves of the attack successfully reached German lines without substantial losses. Whilst they were doing so, however, German soldiers who were largely unaffected by the artillery bombardment preceding the attack emerged from their dugouts and mounted their machine guns. As the final two waves of attack were launched from the 10th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment’s trenches, the men were walking into a wall of machine gun fire. These two waves of men were virtually annihilated. Those who had reached German trenches earlier in the offensive had to make their way back across no man’s land without support, resulting in more casualties.
