Harry Colley
Saturday Night Soldier
Harry was a volunteer member of the 'Hallamshires', the 1st/4th (Territorial) Battalion of the York and Lancaster Regiment.
Like all volunteers, he worked as normal during the week and spent his weekends training to be a soldier. This earned them the nickname of ‘Saturday Night Soldiers’.
They would train locally, probably around Redmires or in the local parks, and would have an annual camp at Whitby.
After only a week at annual camp, the Battalion was ordered home, to prepare for war.
The battalion arrived in France in April 1915. It would be a further two months before they saw any action.
On 22 April 1915, German troops advancing westward from Langemark attacked Boesinghe with gas bombs. This was the first large gas attack in military warfare.
The events at Boesinghe in the following weeks and months is almost totally ignored in the history of the Great War, and even historians writing more specifically about the war events in the Salient hardly mention it.
With the exception of the Battle of Pilckem Ridge (between Boesinghe and Langemark) on 31 July 1917, the beginning of the Third Battle of Ypres.For a month, the French troops held the Germans, until end of May, when they were relieved by British units.
For one and a half months (May till beginning of July 1915) it remained comparatively quiet, though of course there were still casualties as a result of artillery bombardments.
Above: Trenches and Mud around the Battlefields of Boesinghe
In the early hours of 6th July 1915, the 1st Rifle Brigade launched the attack on the German positions of the International Trench, Farm 14 (Moortelweg) and Fortin 17 (some 150 metres north of the crossroads Moortelweg – Kleine Poezelstraat).
The fighting lasted for four days and is recorded in British regimental history as "a small but successful operation".
During the period 6th – 9th July and the following days the encounter was so violent and the casualties so numerous, that other units were called in for support.
the 1st Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment (10th Brigade)
the 2nd Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers (12th Brigade)
the 1st/5th Battalion King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry
the 1st/5th Battalion York & Lancaster Regiment
In the week following the 9th July, 56 men and officers of these 2 battalions would fall. More than half (30, from the 1st/5th Btn.) fell on 10th July. All of them reported missing in action!
Between the 6th and 11th July 1915, 366 British soldiers lost their lives at Boesinghe.
Harry's Battalion, the 1st/4th Y&L, relieved the 1st/5th Y&L who had suffered many casualties.
Private 139 Harry Colley fell , age 37, one of four Battalion members to die on this day.
Eleven more Battalion members were killed by enemy gas shells.
The Battalion remained in and out of the trenches of Ypres, for six long months, losing 94 men with another 401 men injured.
Harry Colley was buried in Talana Farm Cemetery in Boesinghe, Belgium. As his body was recovered and buried, I assume he died in or near the trenches.
Whether he was gassed or shot is uncertain but, unlike many of his fallen comrades, he has a grave.
