Hull Pals Memorial Post. SECOND LIEUTENANT, DUDLEY STRINGER. Born in Hull in March 1884, Dudley was the eighth of twelve children to John (1843-1896) and Eleanor Stringer (1848-1921). Five of his siblings died in infancy, and his father too passed away in 1896, leaving his mother to raise the family. They moved to Goxhill in Lincolnshire where Dudley worked as a Railway Clerk. Dudley returned to the city of his birth and married Bertha Johnson at St. Luke’s there on 29th December 1908. His son John was born that same year and the family resided at 8 Auckland Avenue. When war came, he enlisted in the ‘The Commercials’, Hull Pals. He was quickly promoted to Sergeant and then to Regimental Sergeant Major. He served in Egypt and on the Somme, before he was commissioned into the same 10th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment. He was killed in action on the day that came to define the war for the battalion, 3rd May 1917 at Oppy Wood. Sixty-nine of his comrades lost their lives that day and it sent a shock wave through the city. Dudley’s body was never recovered and his name is commemorated on the Arras Memorial; he was a husband and a father, and a man of 33 years. “A very capable officer and greatly missed” (Hull Daily Mail 22/05/1917)
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.
