2nd LIEUTENANT GERALD HARMER, 9th BATTALION NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 11th AUGUST 1916 AGED 21.

2^nd LIEUTENANT GERALD HARMER, 9^th BATTALION NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 11^th AUGUST 1916 AGED 21.

The 9^th North Staffs. spent much of the Spring and Summer of 1916 in the Somme area of the Western Front preparing for the planned offensive which the Allied High Command hoped would win the war. As a designated pioneer battalion the Staffordshires served a dual role, on the one hand as trained infantry, whilst on the other they had the necessary skills to accomplish important construction and engineering jobs which were a feature of static trench warfare. The battalion avoided the dreadful events of July 1^st, the beginning of the great Somme battle and busied itself just behind the front line constructing roads, trenches as well helping to bury the huge toll of dead from the heavy fighting.

On the night of 10^th-11^th August 1916 the 9^th Staffs were in the front line near to Bezantin le Petit and sent out three companies to help widen and deepen trenches and saps. This involved leaving the relative safety of their trenches and setting out across open ground. This work had to be done in near silence for, although, the cloak of darkness afforded some protection the ever vigilant Germans were only too keen to reply with retributory artillery and machine gun fire. As the pioneers set about their work they attracted the attention of the enemy who opened up with a machine gun hitting four men including  2^nd Lieutenant Gerald Harmer who was killed. It was deemed far too dangerous to drag the corpse of the young officer back to friendly trenches and so he was left in situ to await recovery. The following night four men from the battalion crept out into the night and located Gerald’s body and brought his remains back and on the 13^th of August he was buried in a marked grave in Fricourt Wood.

Gerald  was the eldest son of Francis and Julia Harman and was born in Richmond Road in the Headingley area of Leeds in the Summer of 1895. His father was a teacher by profession who would become headmaster of the Leeds Church Middle Class School in the Woodhouse area and later Cockburn High School in south Leeds. In about 1904 the family moved to Ilkley where they took a house on Tivoli Place and it is recorded that Gerald attended the nearby Grammar School for about a year. By 1908 the family had returned to Leeds were they lived on Kirkstall Lane, however, tragedy would strike when the youngest son, Arthur, was burned to death in an accident involving a box of matches. Gerald continued his education at Bradford Grammar School and was sufficiently academically successful to gain a place at Downing College, Cambridge where he studied medicine.

In 1914 after the commencement of hostilities Gerald sought a commission in the army. It is recorded that he had been a member of the Officer Training Corps and it is probably because of this experience that he obtained a commission as 2^nd Lieutenant on the 18^th December 1914. Some 16 months later he was posted to France and joined his battalion, the 9^th North Staffs, who were on the Western Front.

At some stage during the war Gerald’s grave was lost and today he is one of over 72000 British soldiers named on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing. He is also remembered with pride on the war memorials at Bradford Grammar School and at the grammar school here in Ilkley.

The photograph of Gerald is courtesy of Nick Hooper, Bradford Grammar School and their Old Boys Association and is taken from their Roll of Honour

Another photograph of Gerald taken from the Leeds Mercury