Loft, Thomas | Kingston upon Hull War Memorial 1914

BORN HULL 1896. SON OF THOMAS & ANNIE ELIZABETH LOFT – 22 GEORGE’S YARD, HIGH STREET (1901 CENSUS) & 12 , JAMES STREET, HOLDERNESS ROAD, HULL. (ADDRESS FROM HDM 04/03/1918). HE ENLISTED IN THE HULL PALS. MISSING IN ACTION, ON 03/05/1917, AGED 21. HIS DEATH WAS NOT CONFIRMED UNTIL MARCH 1918, WHEN HIS FAMILY WAS AWARDED A WAR GRAUITY OF £10 AND TEN SHILLINGS (ABOUT £627 IN 2007). HIS PHOTOGRAPH WAS PRINTED IN THE HDM ON 27TH MAY 1919.* HIS STEP BROTHER, FREDERICK LARARD SMELT WAS KILLED IN ACTION, ON 10/09/1916.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE THOMAS LOFT 11/1183. I believe Thomas was born in 1896, the second of eight children to Thomas and Annie Loft of 99 Hodgson Street, Hull. His military records have not survived to confirm it, and he disappears from the 1911 Census of the family so I only have 1901 to go on. His elder sister Emily appears to have gone to work as a Domestic Servant in Skidby, so it could be that Thomas too was in service somewhere at the time of the Census….he could even have been in the army already. I know he enlisted at Hull City Hall in late 1914 and joined the 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Tradesmen’, 2nd Hull Pals. I know too that he served on Egypt and the Somme. Unfortunately I also know that he was killed in action on 3rd May 1917 at Oppy Wood, the last of our men from the 11th Battalion to do so, and just like dozens of his comrades, his body was never recovered and his name is commemorated on the Arras Memorial; Thomas was 21 years old. Thomas’s little brother Horace was killed on 19th March 1941 as the Nazis bombed Hull. Two brothers, two wars.

The attack on Oppy Wood, part of the Battle of Arras, was a significant battle for the East Yorkshire Regiment and particularly for the city of Hull. All four Hull Pals battalions were involved on 3 May and all suffered heavy casualties, with 40% of those present killed or injured. 2nd Lieutenant Jack Harrison, a local teacher and rugby player with Hull FC, won a posthumous Victoria Cross for his bravery in rushing a machine gun position to protect his platoon. His body was never found.

The village of Oppy in France had been in German hands since October 1914 and was part of a formidable defensive system including trenches, dug-outs and thick barbed wire defences. During the Battle of Arras, which began in April 1917, the British tried to take Oppy. The first attack was a failure. A second attack was partially successful. The third attack on 3 May, known officially as the Third Battle of the Scarpe, was again unsuccessful with significant loss of life. The troops were ordered to attack at 3.45am, rather than at dawn, and the defending Germans could easily see the line of British soldiers clearly lit by the full moon. The British continued to attack Oppy and were finally successful the following year. The City of Hull Memorial at Oppy was unveiled in 1927 and commemorates the men of the Hull Pals who were killed on 3 and 4 May 1917.

First name:

THOMAS

Regiment:

11th East Yorkshire Regiment (Hull Tradesmen)

Military Number:

11/1183

Rank:

Private

Date Died

03/05/1917

Place died:

Arras Memorial, Pas de Calais, France