GREEN Horace Henry

Awarded Military Medal.

Horace Henry Green was the son and, I suspect, the only child of Henry and Harriet Green.  Born in Atch Lench in 1893, he is recorded on the 1911 census as living in Sheriffs Lench and working on a farm.

After joining the Army he was posted to “B” Company 2nd Battalion Worcestershire Regiment, part of the 100th Brigade 33rd Division.  He was awarded the Military Medal (M.M.) on 21st October 1916 for running messages under fire.

By November 1916 the battle of the Somme was drawing to an end and like the battle there is some confusion over Horace Greens’ death.  Official records show that he was killed on 3rd November, although the regimental record shows that on that date the battalion was at rest.  However it states that on November 1st it had been heavily engaged attacking an enemy position.  It says “that all day long the battalion was so heavily shelled that it was necessary to withdraw most of the platoons to shell-holes to the rear.”  Then at 1530hrs British artillery lifted its fire allowing the infantry to advance, the regimental diary again, “never had the Battalion struggled through a worse morass with laden soldiers sinking up to their knees in mud, in many cases losing their boots and putties”.  The attack failed.  The record shows that 14 men were posted as missing.

I do wonder if this was in fact the day that Horace Green was killed and that 3rd November when the battalion was at rest was when the officers were writing their reports.

Horace Green is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial which contains the names of 92,000 officers and men lost in the area before March 1918 who have no known grave, 90 per cent of whom were lost between July and November 1916.

A photograph of Private H. Green of Sheriff’s Lench can be found in Berrow’s Worcester Journal Supplement, Saturday 3rd February 1917, available at Worcestershire Archives.

Horace Green has no known grave, the photograph available shows his name on Thiepval Memorial.