#68124 Gunner William Arthur Lawry
110TH SIEGE BATTERY, ROYAL GARRISON ARTILLERY
THIRTY-ONE-YEAR-OLD ‘ARTHUR’ LAWRY WAS A surveyor and land valuer from St Dominick in Cornwall. The son of a farmer and J.P., he was educated at the Wesleyan College at Truro and applied for leave to join the army as soon as the war began. However, he could not be spared from his employment and was not released until September 1915. By then he had valued the whole of the Penzance, Land’s End and East Cornwall districts. Now free to join the army, he promptly enlisted in the Royal Garrison Artillery and arrived in France in May 1916. Arthur impressed straight away and his work had made him meticulous and painstaking in his attention to detail, so much so that he was to be offered a commission.
In the appalling weather that now afflicted the battlefield, it could take ten to twelve exhausting hours to move an 18-pounder into a new position, let alone the heavy artillery pieces that Arthur was charged with firing. Mud reduced the impact of high explosive shells as they hit soft ground. It also reduced accuracy of guns because of a lack of stability of the gun in question, and it affected the ability to observe their fire and thus correct it properly. But the artillery could not just cease firing. They had to keep going, however awful the conditions and however compromised they were in terms of being able to perform their role effectively.
Arthur’s battery was based near the southern part of Delville Wood at the end of October. From here its targets ranged between Leuze Wood to the south-east and Le Transloy to the east. Its work was fairly routine until, on 3rd November, it received a heavy shelling from the enemy that caused half a dozen casualties. As the infantry went forward on the 5th, Arthur and his fellow gunners concentrated their fire on trenches forming a line in front of Le Transloy. When the rain came down in the following days, enemy gunfire died down, but there was to be no respite for Arthur. He helped to shell roads and fire hundreds of rounds at enemy batteries in the atrocious weather. On the 11th the battery was silent, but the Germans targeted Arthur’s guns relentlessly. As the day wore on, the enemy gunners successfully ranged the battery and shells began dropping in among the guns. Arthur had retreated into a wireless dugout, where he was sat with two operators and another man when an enemy shell struck their shelter. Three men were killed instantly, including Arthur. The last was severely wounded. Arthur left behind a widow, Lena, whom he had married shortly after enlisting at the end of 1915. He was originally buried to the north-west of Leuze Wood, but when the area was cleared in 1920 his body was exhumed and William Arthur Lawry was finally laid to rest at Delville Wood Cemetery, plot XXVI.A.2.
As the battle wore on and the ground grew worse, it took great efforts to move guns across the battlefield. (Authors’ collection)