Our

Great-Grandad, born and raised in the village of Hockcliffe in Bedfordshire

joined the Army, the Bedfordshire Regiment in late 1914 within days of his 18th

birthday.

As with so

many service personnel he was very reluctant to talk of his experiences to

anyone, including his wife, and apart from the last 18 months of the war there

is no positive knowledge of his direct involvement.

However, at

some time in early 1917 he joined the 16th Battalion of the

Lancashire Fusiliers and then subsequently the tank corp which was formed

around this time. The Lancashire Fusiliers were involved it is understood in

the development of the tank as a weapon of war and it can only be assumed he

was involved in this activity.

Out of

interest the British and French between them, over the course of the war

deployed some 6500 tanks, the Germans only about 20. The Germans did not

consider tanks a viable fighting machine until too late in the war, although

they soon found ways of disabling and destroying them in alarming numbers.

However, tanks in the end did make French warfare redundant

Our

Great-Grandfather’s last active involvement was in the Battle of the Sambre

Canal, which took place from 4-6 November 1918, starting at 3am on the first

day. This was the last main engagement of the war, just one week prior to the

end of the war.

This was the

engagement in which the poet Wilfred Owen lost his life. In this battle our

Great-Grandfather was awarded the Military Cross, the citation reading is on

the next page.

Our

Great-Grandfather’s heroics were of course not exceptional and were repeated in

one form or another by many others. He always said that there were many more

unsung heroes who could equally have merited official recognition.

After the

war, he was awarded the OBE in the early 1960’s for his contribution in the

civil service to the setting up of the factory inspectorate.

2nd Lieut. Percy guy Horsler

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