Pte 52040 George Henry Bly

• Age: 21
• From: Liverpool
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• K.I.A Monday 9th April 1917
• Commemorated at: St Martin Calvaire Brit Cem
  Panel Ref: I.A.11

George Henry Bly was born in 1896 in Liverpool and was the son of John Bly and Isabella Sadler (nee Richards) who married in 1893 at St George's Church, Everton.

At the time of the 1901 Census the family were living at 45 Bala Street, Anfield. His father, John, is a 37 year old bricklayer, and Isabella is 35. The couple have two children – Mary aged 6 and George aged 5.

The 1911 Census records the family are still living at the same address. His father, John is aged 46, and still a bricklayer, mother Isabella is 46. They advise that they have been married for 17 years and have had 6 children, 2 of whom have died. They have four children in the household; Mary aged 16, is working in the Blake McKenzie printworks, George aged 15 is employed as an apprentice plumber with Benson’s of Christian Street, Arthur aged 8 is at school and Edward aged 2 is at home.

Prior to the War, George was an apprentice plumber at Benson's, Christian Street.  

George enlisted on 17th January 1915 in Liverpool originally serving as Private 3331 in the 9th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment but after transfer he was serving in the 19th Battalion, K.L.R. as Private No 52040.

He was killed in action on the 9th April 1917, aged 21, during the Battle of Arras.

17^th,  19^th & 20th  Battalion at the  Battle of Arras 09^th April 1917

Everard Wyrall records the events of the day  in Volume 2 of his History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool).

The 89^th Brigade formed up for the attack with the 19^th King's on the right and the 20^th King’s on the left. The 17^th King’s supplied the “mopping up" parties and he 2nd Bedfords were in close support.

It was just after 3pm when the advance began “According to scheduled time the waves advanced in good style and with determination; everyone was cheerful and in the best of spirits”

That advance is described by others as magnificent. From the OP’s the observing officers saw a wonderful sight – long lines of men advancing steadily up a long and gradual slope towards the enemy’ front line. Then suddenly they disappeared. The observers quite pardonably, imagined that the German front line had fallen into the hands of the assaulting troops and that the latter were on the way to the enemy’s support line. Alas something very different had happened. When the advancing troops had reached the summit of the long slope up which they advanced the ground suddenly dipped before the German front line , and when the observing officers thought they  were already in the Bosche lines they had not, as a matter of fact, even reached the wire. What the observers took to be the front line was really the support line; the front line could not be seen  - it lay just behind the crest of that slight rise in the ground.

The attacking waves of the 19^th King’s got within 100 yards of the German wire but were then held up. They were faced by three belts of entanglements, practically untouched by our artillery, and nothing could be done but to dig in or else take shelter in the many shell- shell-with which “No Man’s Land" was pitted. By this time the battalion’s losses were very heavy, and when darkness fell “A" and “B" Companies (about 140 in all) lay in shell-holes, two or three hundred yards north east of St. Martin, but just south of the Cojeul River, and “C" and “D" Companies (140 all ranks) were along the river bank, but on the northern side about 150 yards north east of St. Martin.

The first waves of the 20^th King’ advanced at 3.7pm. At 4pm Lieut Beaumont, commanding “A" Company, reported that he had had some forty casualties in passing through the enemy’s barrage. The next message, timed 4.40pm, stated that the position of the battalion at that period was on a crest in front of the enemy’s wire and about 100 yards from it. On the right the 21^st Division was observed to have penetrated the enemy’s front line, but in the left the right Battalion of the 21^st Brigade (the Wilts) was on the St. Martin- Neuville Vitasse road; the left flank of the 20^th King's was, therefore, “ in the air”.

Urgent messages were sent up from Battalion Headquarters to “push on, keeping in touch with right” But little else could be accomplished until those formidable belts of wire had been cut sufficiently to allow the rapid passage of the attacking troops, headed by their bombers.

At 9:30 that night 89^th Brigade Headquarters ordered both the 19^th and 20^th Battalions to withdraw, the former to the two sunken roads running south east from St. Martin, the latter to north west of St. Martin; the guns had been ordered to cut the enemy’s wire during the night in preparation for another attack during the 10^th April.

Of the 17^th King’s  - the “moppers up" – there is little to relate. There was nothing to “mop up" so that they did not function. Yet they had shared all the perils of the advance, and when  after they had fallen back and at midnight held the following positions, “B", “C", and “D" Companies in and around the sunken road north of Boiry-Becquerelle and “A" Company in trenches west of Henin, they lost 2 officers and 16 other ranks killed, and 3 officers and 48 other ranks wounded. 

George Henry now rests at St Martin-Calvaire British Cemetery, France where his headstone bears the epitaph:

“CHRIST SHALL CLASP THE BROKEN CHAIN CLOSER WHEN WE MEET AGAIN”

The village of St. Martin-sur-Cojeul was taken by the 30th Division on 9 April 1917. It was lost in March 1918 but retaken in the following August. St. Martin Calvaire British Cemetery was named from a calvary which was destroyed during the war. It was begun by units of the 30th Division in April 1917 and used until March 1918. Plot II was made in August and September 1918. The cemetery contains 228 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, five of them unidentified. There are also three German graves within the cemetery. The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

George is also commemorated on the following Memorials:

Hall of Remembrance, Liverpool Town Hall, Panel 13 Left 

Holy Trinity Church, Anfield, Liverpool.

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