Thurloe, Richard Frederick

BORN COTTINGHAM 1889. SON OF ARTHUR & ALICE GERTRUDE THURLOE. SISTER MARY, GLADYS & ANN & BROTHER WILLIAM. TIMBER MEASURER. ARMY RECORDS DESCRIBE HIM AS 5 FOOT 11 INCHES TALL, 126 LBS, 34 INCH CHEST. POSTED TO FRANCE 27/05/1916. KILLED AT OPPY WOOD, AGED 27.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. L/CPL RICHARD FREDERICK THURLOE 22500. Born in 1889, Richard was the eldest of five children to Arthur and Alice Thurloe of 131 Hedon Road, Hull. A Timber Tallyman before the war, he enlisted on 29th November 1915 joining the 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Tradesmen’, 2nd Hull Pals. Joining a year later than the ‘Originals’ he missed the posting to Egypt but joined his comrades soon after their arrival in the trenches of France and he endured the Somme in all its glory just like the rest. Richard was killed in action on 3rd May 1917 as the battalion attacked German positions in front of Oppy Wood and endured the raking of machine gun fire from well-hidden ‘nests’ high in the trees, and high explosive shells raining down as they queued up to squeeze through one of the few gaps in the mass of barbed wire protecting their objective. As the casualty figures ably demonstrate, it was carnage out there, as body fell on top of body and still men clambered over their fallen friends to push through and follow their orders. The other fact tell its own story, due in part to that shellfire and in part also to the fact that they were forced back under considerable fire, many of the dead did not receive a proper burial, Richard among them. His name is commemorated on the Arras Memorial; he was 27 years old.