LANCE CORPORAL 201220 ALFRED MOSS. 2/5TH BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT.

LANCE CORPORAL 201220 ALFRED MOSS. 2/5TH BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 17TH FEBRUARY 1917 AGED 21

The weather on the Western Front during the first months of 1917 had been especially cruel, with intense frosts and heavy snowfall. For experienced soldiers the winter would have been hardly bearable, but for men who were little more than recruits it would have been almost unendurable.

The 2/5th West Yorkshire were a 'rookie' battalion who had only arrived arrived in France, from training in England, on the 6th January. Still reeling from the slaughter of the Somme battles the previous year, the British Army was forced to move even inexperienced battalions into front line duties as soon as possible.

On the 13th of January the West Yorkshires moved into the trenches near to Beaumont Hamel in the Somme sector which had seen much heavy fighting in 1916. The front line was in fact hardly worth the name and largely comprised outposts in a morass of waterlogged shell holes and mud. On 17th February battalions front line came under heavy German artillery fire which caused many casualties, six of whom were killed including 21 year old Lance Corporal Alfred Moss.

Alfred was born in Baildon the youngest son of Fred and Kezia Moss. The family moved to Ilkley soon after Alfred was born and lived in a small terraced house at 12 Dean Street. Kezia who worked as a dressmaker, seems to have brought up her young sons alone and there is no record of the whereabouts of her husband. As a boy, Alfred, obtained a position as an errand boy working at Walmsley's grocers who had premises at 14 Leeds Road. Later he moved to Harrogate and obtained employment with Messrs Brown and Sons who had a grocers shop on Beulah Street in the town centre.

Alfred Moss has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing and is remembered on the war memorials in Burley in Wharfedale and Ilkley