26TH OCTOBER

#21447 Lance Corporal Albert Ernest Deakin

1ST WORCESTERSHIRE REGIMENT

BACK DOWN AT GUEUDECOURT, TO the north-east of the ruined village, operations to press towards Le Transloy were also being postponed on account of the constant bad weather. From Worcester, Albert Deakin was the son of a boot finisher and at the onset of the war was working in the goods depot of the Great Western Railway. His wife was heavily pregnant and their daughter, Nellie Frances Mons Deakin, was born at the end of September 1914 and named partly in patriotic honour of the battle waged just a few weeks earlier. Four months later, Albert enlisted and joined his local regiment before heading off to the Western Front.

His battalion was not part of the attack on 23rd October; Albert and his comrades were manning a support line should they be needed by the battalion ahead who were attacking directly north-east of Gueudecourt. Over the course of the assault, niggling casualties were suffered while the Worcesters stayed put in thick mist, their injuries caused mainly by enemy shellfire. Eight men were wounded on the 23rd, another four on the 24th. The following day, Albert’s battalion went forward to take over the newly captured line from men of the East Lancashires who had seized it. One man was killed and another two wounded before they had even arrived. The trenches afforded little cover, if any. ‘The greatest difficulty was found in the matter of supply as all rations and water had to be brought up by pack animal and man handling 5 or 6 miles over a roadless waste of shell holes, which in conjunction with the wet weather, became a sticky mess of wet mud.’

On the 26th the German artillery fire became more intense as the men suffered horribly while trying to consolidate the new position. Yet more of them were accounted for by the enemy, including Albert Deakin, as he became yet another victim of the wasteful, ceaseless attrition on the battlefield. He was simply bringing up rations to the men manning the front line. He left behind his wife, Frances, and Nellie, who had just turned 2. Albert Deakin’s body, if recovered, was never identified and he is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Pier & Face 5a/6c.