PRIVATE 63804 ALBERT HODGSON 8th BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (LEEDS RIFLES). KILLED IN ACTION 29th JULY 1918 AGED 18 YEARS.


PRIVATE 63804 ALBERT HODGSON 8th BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (LEEDS RIFLES). KILLED IN ACTION 29th JULY 1918 AGED 18 YEARS.


Albert Hodgson had been at the front for barely ten days when he was killed in action on 29th July 1918 aged just 18 years old. After the heavy fighting during the German Spring Offensive the British Army needed more men to replace the huge losses that it had suffered. To feed this almost insatiable demand, young men barely out of training were thrust into fighting units. The previous day his unit the Leeds Rifles had fought a successful action and captured a German strongpoint in and around the Montagne de Bligny to the west of Rheims. Desperate to regain the position the Germans mounted violent counterattacks which were beaten off but at a cost that included the life of young Albert.


Born in 1899, Albert was the son of a horse driver, John Hodgson and his wife Sarah who lived on Castle Hill in the Centre of the town. Castle Hill was in fact the old Manor House which had been divided up into small cramped houses and it was here that John and Sarah brought up their five children. Later they would move to a better quality house at 39 East Parade where Albert would begin work for Mr R Binns a local milkman.

Albert was conscripted into the army in December 1917 just after his eighteenth birthday and would have been assigned to a training battalion in preparation for active service. He landed in France on the 18th July the following year having just been able to write a short letter to his parents to tell them that he was destined for the Western Front.

If Private Albert Hodgson ever had a grave then it was subsequently lost and today he is commemorated on the Memorial to the Missing at Soissons and remembered with pride on our war memorial in Ilkley.



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