Dixon, Henry

BORN KNOTTINGLEY, YORKSHIRE 1884.SON OF THE LATE HENRY & MARY DIXON, HULL. ENLISTED HULL. DIED ON 01/07/1916, AT FRICOURT, AGED 32. HIS NAME WAS RECORDED ON THE 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.