Author Topic: manchester regiment 12th battalion  (Read 22450 times)

jane

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manchester regiment 12th battalion
« on: June 12, 2016, 09:42:44 PM »
Hi  I'm looking for info and my great grandfather. Here are the details I have. Haven't been able to locate any service records for him on FMP. I do have a small picture of him from a news paper. but would love to have more info on him



Gaskell, ARTHUR
Initials: A
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Private
Regiment/Service: Manchester Regiment
Unit Text: 12th Bn.
Date of Death: 07/07/1916
 

Service No: 4086
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: Pier and Face 13 A and 14 C.
Memorial: THIEPVAL MEMORIAL In Memory of
Private ARTHUR GASKELL

4086, 12th Bn., Manchester Regiment
who died
on 07 July 1916

hope anyone can help

thanx in advance

Offline mack

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Re: manchester regiment 12th battalion
« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2016, 03:20:12 AM »
all I have on Arthur is that he was killed during the assault on the quadrilateral support trench along with a great many others,he married miss maria Finnegan in stockport in 1905,resided at 15 hart st,stockport and worked at harrisons  brickworks station rd,reddish

mack

Atherton

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Re: manchester regiment 12th battalion
« Reply #2 on: June 13, 2016, 06:23:22 PM »
Looks like he was wounded early 1916 or late 1915-Manchester Evening News - Friday 14 January 1916

timberman

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Re: manchester regiment 12th battalion
« Reply #3 on: June 13, 2016, 08:13:24 PM »
Hi Jane
Welcome to the forum.
I have a little bit of info to help with your research.

Firstly if you can get a book called
The 12th Battalion The Manchester Regiment
1914-1919
Edited by Robert Bonner

Pages 8, 9 and 10

This covers in some detail the battle that your great grandfather
died in.

Here is his entry in the Soldiers that Died.

Name:   Arthur Gaskell
Birth Place:   Stockport, Cheshire
Death Date:   7 Jul 1916
Death Place:   France and Flanders
Enlistment Place:   Ashton-under-lyne, Lancs
Rank:   Private
Regiment:   Manchester Regiment
Battalion:   12th Battalion
Regimental Number:   4086
Type of Casualty:   Killed in action
Theatre of War:   Western European Theatre

He entered the war on the 16/7/15 and was entitled to the
14/15 star British and victory medals.

Timberman

timberman

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Re: manchester regiment 12th battalion
« Reply #4 on: June 13, 2016, 08:16:31 PM »
The following is his name on the THIEPVAL MEMORIAL
and a picture of the Memorial.

Click on the pictures to make them bigger.


Timberman

timberman

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Re: manchester regiment 12th battalion
« Reply #5 on: June 13, 2016, 08:36:49 PM »
The following pictures were taken in 2009
on one of our visits.
If I remember rightly the 12th Battalion were attacking
directly behind the memorial from the trees in the back ground.
There is quite a slop that they were having to get up to the
German position.

By the end of their charge 16 Officers and 539 men were
killed, missing or wounded. This is on the second picture.

Timberman

Click on the pictures to make them bigger.

timberman

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Re: manchester regiment 12th battalion
« Reply #6 on: June 13, 2016, 08:39:01 PM »
The following two photos are of the Memorial.

Timberman

timberman

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Re: manchester regiment 12th battalion
« Reply #7 on: June 13, 2016, 08:44:45 PM »
Just a couple more to finish.

Timberman

jane

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Re: manchester regiment 12th battalion
« Reply #8 on: June 13, 2016, 09:31:35 PM »
thank you so so much. heres a pic of him

Offline PhilipG

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Re: manchester regiment 12th battalion
« Reply #9 on: June 14, 2016, 07:58:41 AM »
Jane,

With reference to timberman's pointing out that Robert Bonner has written a book on the 12th battalion, the ISBN is 1 873907 02 8.   I see that there is one available on the internet at a cost of £25 plus postage.  PhilipG.

Offline charlie

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Re: manchester regiment 12th battalion
« Reply #10 on: June 15, 2016, 08:42:20 PM »
Jane,
The Battalion War Diary entry for the 7th July.

Charlie



Offline charlie

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Re: manchester regiment 12th battalion
« Reply #11 on: June 15, 2016, 08:44:01 PM »
and part 2


Offline PhilipG

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Re: manchester regiment 12th battalion
« Reply #12 on: June 16, 2016, 11:49:57 AM »
Jane,
 Some further research.

Your great grandfather was killed, as Mack & Charlie have indicated, in an attack on Quadrangle Support Trench.  He was taking a part in assisting with the attempt by the 38th (Welsh)Division to capture Mametz Wood; a terrible battle stretching over the period 5th to 12th July 1916.   This battle has attracted public and media attention, because both Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon later visited the wood after its capture.  In the case of Sassoon, he appears to have begun his famous walk to the outskirts of the wood at the junction of Quadrangle Trench and Quadrangle Alley, to which was linked Quadrangle Support.

Briefly, my source indicates that two attempts were to be made.  The first was very early on the morning of the 7th July by the 10th Lancs. Fusiliers and the 9th Northumberland Fusiliers, but they were forced to withdraw, not least, because the German troops were themselves about to attack at the same time.   The remaining two battalions of the Brigade - 12th Manchesters and 9th Duke of Wellington's (West Riding Regt.) -  were ordered forward at 8 am  that day.   If the night attack by the two Fusilier battalions was not to succeed, it follows that this daylight attack over open ground  would fail too, and it did so, with very heavy casualties to both battalions.

I realise that without a sketch map, it is difficult to picture the line of attack made by the 12th Manchesters.  However, in one of the excellent photographs provided by Timberman (Reply 7), there is one of a path in the cemetery leading to the Memorial.  Behind that is Mametz Wood, and I reckon from memory, that the direction of the Manchesters' attack would have been -taking the Memorial as being at 12 o'clock on a clock face - at the position of 10 o'clock.

To conclude.  The authorities could not understand why the capture of Mametz Wood took so long to succeed.  They were to realise the difficulties a few days later when High Wood was attacked, a battle which took from 14th July to the 15th September 1916 for it to be captured.   Perhaps the Welsh and English battalions in the Mametz Wood battle were not so bad after all?  PhilipG.

Offline charlie

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Re: manchester regiment 12th battalion
« Reply #13 on: June 17, 2016, 08:48:34 PM »
A Trench map of the area dated 02 July 1916 can be downloaded for free here:

http://digitalarchive.mcmaster.ca/islandora/object/macrepo%3A4038/-/collection

Quadrangle Support can be found in square X23. Most of the other positions mentioned here in the thread, in the War Diary and in the Battalion history are also to be found on the map.

Charlie

Offline PhilipG

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Re: manchester regiment 12th battalion
« Reply #14 on: June 18, 2016, 11:37:10 AM »
Charlie,

Excellent work.  Wood trench is clearly marked.  It was along this trench that Sassoon "chased 40 Bosches out of a trench by Mametz Wood all by myself."   On one of my visits to this area I was walking down the road from Quadrangle Wood (coloured green on the map) to Bottom Wood.  A farmer was working in the adjacent field near Queen's Nullah  and came over to me and gave me a tunic button he had just found whilst tilling the ground.  It joined the the shell nose cap I had picked up at Manchester Hill some time in the past.  PhilipG.
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