Arthur SMITH (4)

30 July 1915

FORMER SKIPTON LICENSED VICTUALLER'S SON KILLED

A letter from Mr. W. Smith of the ‘King and Miller,’ Deepcar, near Sheffield, and formerly licensee of the Old George Hotel, High Street, Skipton, conveys the sad intelligence that his son, Pte. Arthur Smith, of the 1st West Yorkshire Regiment, 18th Brigade, has been killed in the firing line in France. Pte. Smith had been in the firing line since September 28th., and had seen some hard fighting.

Pte. Smith, who was 23 years of age, gives in his last letter home a vivid description of the fighting in which he had been engaged. He says: “You will read about the battle we have been in, but no pen can describe it. It was a victory for us, but at what a cost! We have just landed in from the scene. We had been in the trenches for 14 days and under shell fire all the time. It was just like a piece of music playing m.f. before crescending into double ‘forte’. The bombardment at Neuve Chapelle lasted 18 hours. It started at 8 o'clock in the morning. The whizzing and bursting of shells over our heads sounds like a huge wave, and the feeling is like being in an express train going through a long tunnel. Then the Germans started. The bravery of our lads is something wonderful. The third line of trenches fell to us in under an hour, and we took 10 prisoners. Our men were too expert. Instead of taking the trenches one by one, and thus allow the artillery to batter the other trenches, they flew into the first, straight into the second, then the third. A Scotch regiment look the fourth and were taking the fifth when they had to retire to the second under machine gun fire. Some of our chaps darted in with the boot and fist, and you should have seen some of the German prisoners who hadn't received a wound at all except with the boot, fist or rifle butt.”

In communicating the news of Pte. Smith's death, Lieut. Chamier, his company commander, says he was struck by a bullet when standing in the trench in the early morning. “We did not think him badly wounded, and he was very cheerful when they carried him away. Before they took him away he asked his section commander to distribute his cigarettes amongst the other men in his section. I cannot tell you how sorry I am to have lost such a good man. My platoon wish me to tell you how much they feel his death, as he was very well liked amongst them.”