#11989 Lance Corporal Alfred Chiswell Huntley
6TH SOMERSET LIGHT INFANTRY
ALFRED HUNTLEY WAS A WELL-KNOWN face in Weston-super-Mare, where his father was the owner of the Beach Restaurant and Hotel overlooking the seafront. A renowned swimmer and member of Bath Harriers running club, he was educated locally and at Trowbridge High School before leaving to become an apprentice at a confectionery firm in Bath. The 21 year old volunteered at the height of the recruiting boom in the first week of September 1914 and arrived in France the following May, where he had since become a member of a Lewis gun section with his battalion.
It was the fate of the 6th Somerset Light Infantry to become the latest troops to be acquainted with Delville Wood and its environs, where the Germans had now been forced back into the north-east corner. In mid-August, Alfred and his cohorts had spent several nights sending up large working parties to the remains of the wood, sometimes wearing goggles owing to lachrymatory shells falling in the area. In just maintaining what tenuous hold Rawlinson’s force had over the remnants of Delville Wood, Alfred was to be severely wounded on the 16th while digging new trenches in the hours of darkness with his fellow men. He was evacuated back to a casualty clearing station.
Within two days the rest of the battalion would be thrown into action in another limited attack aimed at trying to push the Germans out of Delville Wood. Harassed by their own guns firing short, repeatedly bombarding the British trenches and causing casualties, ‘our men in the end were more afraid of our guns than the German’. When the barrage lifted, the Somerset men occupied most of their first objective, then the second and third. They seized some 200 German prisoners, who ‘were in a very demoralised condition and surrendered without even putting up a fight’. Then the battalion began consolidating their gains.
When the 6th Somerset Light Infantry was relieved on 21st August, the survivors paraded in front of the brigadier, who congratulated the men on their fine performance in Delville Wood. It would matter little to Alfred Huntley, for the 21 year old was to die painfully of his wounds the following day. He was laid to rest at Heilly Station Cemetery, plot III.F.2.