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SKELTON - IN - CLEVELAND
IN HISTORY
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"WE WILL REMEMBER THEM"
31318 Private GEORGE ROBS PULFORD.
8th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment.
Formerly 24511, Yorkshire Regiment.
Enlisted at Skelton.
Killed in action, age 21, on the 3rd of May 1917.
Son of Robert James and Jane A Pulford, of 23, Park St, Skelton-in-Cleveland, N Yorks.
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The Arras Memorial.
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FAMILY:-
1901. George, aged 4, was living at 12 Yeoman St, Skelton and had been born at Wenhaston, Suffolk.
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His Father, Robert James, aged 30, was a Horsekeeper in the Ironstone Mines and also born at Wenhaston.
His mother, Jane Ann, aged 25, was born at Rawcliffe, Yorks. By 1911, she had had 7 children and all were living.
George had a sister Maggie, age 5 and a brother Robert James, age 2.
1911. The family had moved 17 Park Street, Skelton. George, now 14, had already started work below ground in the Ironstone Mines as a Labourer.
4 additions to the family have arrived. Thomas, 8, William Edward, 6, Annie, 4 and Lilian, 10 months.
WAR SITUATION:-
The 8th Battalion, East Yorkshire Regiment was attached to the 62nd Brigade, which formed part of the 3rd Division.
The Division were fighting in the Arras offensive at the time of George's death.
His Medal Card shows that he did not join his Battalion in France until 1916 or later and any action he may have been involved in prior to his death in May 1917 is not known.
The British attacked East of Arras from April 9th to May 16th against the formidable Hindenberg Line, to which the Germans had made a strategic withdrawal earlier in the year.
This operation was part of a larger plan by the French General Nivelle who attacked further South on the Aisne at the same time, with tragic results for the French Infantry, who afterwards staged a partial mutiny.
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A great many men were killed and wounded in the British advance, more on average per day than on the Somme.
General Haig wrote later that Arras was purely a diversion, as his main objective was to advance at Ypres in the offensive that he would launch in July.
MEMORIAL:-
The Arras Memorial commemorates almost 35,000 servicemen from the United Kingdom, South Africa and New Zealand
who died in the Arras sector between the spring of 1916 and 7 August 1918 and have no known grave.
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