264960 2nd Lt. Thomas Frost Dalzell British Army 18th Coy. Machine Gun Corps from:Yorkshire Thomas Dalzell joined the army in 1914, aged 16, with his older brother Robert, aged 19. They both begin their service in the Yorkshire Dragoons as Privates. Robert moved on to the Nottinghamshire Yeomanry (Sherwood Rangers) and became a Lieutenant before the wars' end.
At some point between 1915-1917 Thomas became a second lieutenant in the Machine Gun Corps (MGC) Infantry, 18th Company.
This company (18th) was formed in February, 1916 and on 1918-03-01 they joined with other companies to form the 6th Machine Gun Battalion at the Western Front.
In its short history, the Machine Gun Corps gained an enviable record for heroism as a front line fighting force. It had a less enviable record for its casualty rate. Some 170,500 officers and men served in the MGC with 62,049 becoming casualties, including 12,498 killed, earning it the sombre nickname the Suicide Clu’.
On 31st Of March 1918 the Spring Offensive began with the German forces launching Operation Michael at the front line (the location of which is many of the old Somme battlegrounds). War diaries written at the time by army officials organising the trenches give a detailed account of how that day unfolded for Thomas and his comrades.
For the 6th Division which Thomas's 18th Company fell into, the companies were renamed for operational ease – A, B, C and D Coys, 6th Battalion MGC. Thomas and his fellow soldiers fell into company B.
On the front line near Favreuil, the set up of 6th Division is as follows. First of all, there were 14 guns positioned away from the trenches providing bands of fire across the front of the second line. Positioned 500-800 yards behind these, at intervals, were seven gun batteries, each with four guns. Their job was to put down a barrage in front of no man’s land and to engage the enemy by direct fire if they came across the front line. Roughly 500-700 yards behind these gun batteries, were five pairs of guns in strong points. Again, 800 yards behind these, were 8 more guns, giving a total of 64 guns on the their part of line, distributed over a depth of 2000 yards.
Thomas would have been positioned at one of the five strong point guns as these were managed by B company.
At 2am on 21st March a message was received that the German forces were going to attack at dawn.
At 4.50 a.m. heavy bombardment from German forces began. This lasted until 8 a.m. Gas masks had to be worn at all times. Within the first half hour of this attack, all telephone wires were cut. The enemy attacked at 10 a.m. Unluckily, the battlefield was blanketed in thick mist which covered the advance of German soldiers through no man’s land and caused chaos on the front line.
The diary records as much information as possible about each gun position. There is a fair amount of information about the strong point gun positions of B company, Thomas and his team at one of them.
A strong point called Company Headquarters was engaged heavily with German forces for a couple of hours. The left gun team was wiped out. A further gun maintained by B company reported 6 casualties. The team at Brigade Headquarters strong point also suffered casualties.
For some gun points sadly no information is available as no soldier returned from that position and nothing is known about what happened to that gun. Such is the case for one of the strong points held by B company called Battalion Headquarters.
The teams of another strong point, Dunelm Headquarters, lasted until the following day before being wiped out, so we know Thomas was not part of this (unless there were unrecorded casualties). This puts Thomas at either Company, Brigade or Battalion Headquarters' gun points.
On that one day of 21st March, 38,500 British soldiers lost their lives, the second worst day in British Military history. Thomas Dalzell, at age 22, was one of them.
The officer's diary records for the period 21st/22nd of March 1918, 6th Battalion Gun Corps, the death of 3 officers and 11 soldiers and records 5 officers and 194 soldiers as missing. 60 out of 64 guns were destroyed or lost.
Without a known grave, Thomas Frost Dalzell is commemorated at Pozieres Memorial, close to the village of Pozieres which fell to German forces on 24/25th March.
Thomas was married to Evelyn (who later remarried), and also left behind his parents Alfred and Emily and siblings Harry, Hilda, Alfred, Jean, Gaskarth and Robert (who survived the Great War).
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