Redditch remembers: How Ronald made the ultimate sacrifice - The Redditch Standard

Redditch remembers: How Ronald made the ultimate sacrifice

Redditch Editorial 17th Sep, 2017   0

ONE hundred years ago this week, during the Third Battle of Ypres, soldiers from Redditch were still fighting and dying in the trenches.

At the time British tactics were changing as attacks by the 5th Army, going for big gains on a broad front, had switched to short attacks on a narrow front by the 2nd Army, with massive artillery support.

This emphasis on artllery, to provide a rolling barrage just in front of the advancing infantry, inevitably resulted in counter barrages from their German opposite numbers.

Redditch man Ronald Yoxall, like Ernest Alfred Vale featured last week, joined the local artillery unit, the 241st Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery, the territorial force from Worcestershire.




Born in 1889 in Crabbs Cross, he was one Mary and Bernard Yoxall’s nine children.

The family lived on Birchfield Road and Bernard worked as a needle finisher, however by the census of 1901 he had died.


In 1910 Ronald married Hilda and the couple lived behind the Cricketers Arms on Beoley Road.

Mary worked as a fly dresser and Ronald a fish hook scourer in a fishing tackle factory.

He joined the local artillery unit, the 241st, and was a driver on the huge teams of horses used to manoeuvre the guns.

Ronald’s unit, A Battery, the Worcester one, consisted of six 18 pounder guns and would have been in almost constant action during Passchendaele.

He was killed on September 11, 1917 and is buried at Vlamertinghe New Military Cemetery, Ypres, however his name is not included on any of the main war memorials of the town he grew up in.

With thanks to Remembering Redditch’s Fallen Heroes and Remembering Battle of Passchendaele by Jill Coombes.

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