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Pte. Arthur James Cyril Blackmore
British Army 6th Btn., 7th Pltn., B Coy. Gloucestershire Regiment
(d.29th May 1915)
Arthur James Cyril Blackmore was born at 3, Northcote Road, St. George, Bristol on Saturday 10th. November 1894, the fourth son and the sixth of eleven children born to Frederick Charles and Augusta Susan Wesley Blackmore (nee Smith) and fourth youngest brother of Frank Wesley Blackmore. The 1911 Census shows the family had moved to 125, Beaufort Road St. George with Arthur being employed as a machine hand in a local chocolate factory (probably Packers like his brother Frank). He was well known in the east Bristol area being a member of the Redfield Wednesday Bowling Club and the St. Matthews (Moorfields) Bible Class and a keen player in its football team.
Arthur volunteered for service on Sunday 1st November 1914 (3 months after the outbreak of the War) at the Bristol Colston Hall having met the same physical criteria as those in the Regular Army.
Family myth has it that Arthurs platoon was digging trenches at Le Gheer, nr. Ploegsteert, Belgium on 29th May, and he allegedly struck a large stone with his entrenching tool thus alerting the attention of a German sniper who then shot him dead. Conversely a newspaper cutting stated that Arthur had sent a letter to his father Frederick Blackmore on the 30th May 1915 (a day after his reported death) saying that he was 'all right and was going into the trenches that night'. The same evening the paper reported he met his death under shell fire. This contradicts both the Commonwealth War Graves Commission's records that he was killed on Saturday 29th. May and not 30th. May, and also the Blackmore myth about him being killed by a sniper's bullet. However, the majority of battalion war diaries used figures compiled a day or two after the action, frequently by a junior officer who was more concerned with ascertaining how many men were fit for duty and were not subsequently corrected for the (often large number of) men who had been killed.
However, the more accurate version of Arthurs death was as a result of the Germans blowing a mine in front of the Gloucesters lines at 8.15 p.m. on the night of the 29th May 1915 followed by an artillery bombardment by the enemy. The resulting crater extended from the edge of their wire into No Man's Land. Mines in those days were a novelty and this occurrence drew crowds of red-hatted spectators to view the crater. Following the mining attack, strenuous efforts were made by both sides to gain possession of the crater, which could be put to effective use as a new forward listening post. The enemy was found to be adept in gaining an advantage from their mining activities and it was thought that they might do so again so at dusk two parties from the Glosters, each under a subaltern, were ordered to seize and consolidate the crater.
The two parties of Glosters, stood behind the trench's breastworks waiting for cloud cover to obscure the moon before tentatively working their way through the barbed wire and into the darkness beyond, armed with Mills Bombs that they had just been supplied with for the first time and rifles with bayonets fixed. Arthur's party was half way across No-Man's Land when a German machine gun opened up causing a few casualties as they set out to reinforce their side of the crater but were driven off by the combined Gloster consolidating parties who carried out their task successfully, throwing bombs (grenades) at the enemy as they retreated. Arthur's skirmishing party was led by 7 Platoon Commander, 2nd Lieutenant Wilfrid Henry Young, age 26, who was seriously wounded during the action and died the next day; he was the first officer of the Battalion to be killed in the war.
During the attack on the advancing German's, Arthur was shot and died seconds later, suffering very little. Also killed in the fighting were 2433 Private Percy Baker, age 26 - also of B Company and 2601 Private Henry Pope, age 19. All four were temporarily buried in a recently consecrated field next to the medical dressing station that had previously been the East Lancashire Regiment's HQ. This was sited just off the Ploegsteeert Road that troops used to move between their billets in the hamlet of Le Gheer and the front line and well established beyond the furthest range of the German artillery. Two days later the 4th and 6th Glosters greatly improved the bomb crater and named it 'Bristol Trench' after their home city. This sort of construction work was mostly done at night and in the open with the parties hoping that they would not be detected and exposed to machine gun fire from the German's 'Birdcage'.
Arthurs body would have been recovered by a burial detail and his corpse searched, and ID tag and papers taken for means of identification to enable them to report his name and location to a senior officer before his burial. Personal affects found on his body comprised a small quantity of money amounting to £3.9s.10d which was subsequently forwarded to his parents on 2nd October 1915. His temporary grave was given a rough wooden battlefield cross, with his name, army number and unit painted on it although this erroneously had an initial 'E' instead of an 'A' painted on it. After the Armistice, the 'Directorate of Graves Registration & Enquiries', a military organisation, had the responsibility to complete the work of securing the sites of battlefield cemeteries or isolated graves and recording their locations.
At the War's end Arthur's body was exhumed from its temporary grave and transferred to the newly constructed Lancashire Cottage Cemetery which is located 8 miles south of Ieper (Ypres). The name of this area and of the nearby wood, is actually Ploegsteert, but to those Tommies who served there during the Great War it jokingly became better known as Plugstreet. Despite the Ploegsteert sector being somewhat quieter than some others, with no famous set-piece battles, a summary of the battalions losses for May was written up in their War Diary on 1st June, viz, "During May the weather, with the exception of one wet week, has been good. Strength of Battalion is 3 Officers and 118 other ranks below establishment. Casualties - Officers 1 Killed and 1 Wounded. Other ranks 14 Killed and 45 Wounded."
