THIS week we remember Arthur Nathan Bennett, who like many soldiers featured in these pages over the past few months, died at the Battle of the Somme.
Arthur was born in Kings Norton in about 1887, the son of Sarah Bennett, born in 1849 in Alcester, and Frank Bennett.
The family moved to Redditch where they lived at 44 Alcester Street.
Arthur was a volunteer in the ‘New Army’ and served as a private in the 10th Battalion of the Worcestershire Regiment.
His unit had been heavily involved in the Somme offensive, suffering heavy losses in July during the assault on Bazentin, their casualties being replaced by men from other regiments, which, says the diary of the Worcestershires, had a bad effect on battalion morale.
The unit was withdrawn and moved to Flanders where it again saw action, before being pulled back for a return to the Somme.
Here the men of the 10th were moved into the front line, marching through ‘a welter of mud and shell holes’ over the crest of the Ancre Heights to a newly-captured German trench on the reverse side of the slope exposed to enemy fire.
The regimental diary says: “Then followed three weeks of misery, in bitter weather and under constant bombardment…..the troops suffered terribly, but they held their ground”.
Arthur Bennett died on November 10, the day before his unit was withdrawn from the front line in preparation for the last act of the Somme campaign, the assault on The Transloy Ridges.
