BORN HULL 1893. SON OF WILLIAM A. & ELLEN JOHNSON, AT 46 MORRILL STREET. A HULL PAL. KILLED IN ACTION, ON 04/06/1916, AGED 23.
Hull Pals Memorial Post: Born in 1893, George was the fifth of seven children to William and Ellen Johnson of 46, Morrill Street, Hull. A Library Assistant before the war, he enlisted at City Hall on 7th September 1914, joining the 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Commercials’, 1st Hull Pals. After their stint in Egypt defending Suez from the Turks, the battalion arrived in France in the first week of March 1916 and had their first taste of life in the trenches. Having acquired the nickname ‘The Lucky Tenth’ after coming through a number of heavy bombardments relatively unscathed, the boys really copped it in the small hours of 4th June 1916. The Battalion History records: “The front line trenches were blown in almost beyond recognition, scarcely a fire-bay remained intact. As expected casualties came readily, but the men stood up heroically to a rain of shells to which they could not reply”. When the shelling subsided there came the horrific job of removing the corpses of friends. Among them that of George Henry Johnson, a librarian with a rifle. He is buried in Sucrerie Military Cemetery; he was 23 years old.
