Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE DONALD ALFRED ROBERTS 10/751. Born Hull, 1894, the eldest of three children, to Charles and Bertha Roberts of 14 Cavendish Square, Margaret Street, Hull. Donald was one of the original Pals having enlisted in the first week of September for the then fledgling 10th Battalion. He had trained throughout 1915 and shipped to Egypt to help defend the Suez Canal from the Turks. He arrived in France in March 1916 and survived both the Somme and Oppy Wood before being killed in action on 24th March 1918 defending the trenches west of Envillers from the thrust of the German Spring Offensive. He was buried in a hastily prepared grave just behind the front line and after the Armistice his body was recovered for burial at Gomiecourt South Cemetery. He was 23 years old. There were by this stage so few of the originals left that soldiers returning to the Battalion after a spell recovering from wounds would often find no-one in their Company they recognised. It was now a Pals battalion only in name.
