Pte 52142 Roland Armstrong

• Age: 19
• From: Salford,
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• K.I.A Thursday 20th September 1917
• Commemorated at: Tyne Cot Memorial
  Panel Ref: Panel 31-34

Roland was born in Salford in 1897 and baptised 15th December 1897 and was the son of Mary Jane Armstrong (nee Thomas) of 59 Roberts St Patricroft and the late John Henry Armstrong. Prior to enlisting was employed by Mather and Platt Ltd.

The 1901 Census shows the family living at 47, Tootal Road, Pendleton, Salford.

The father John Henry aged 39, born 1862 is a leather warehouseman and was born in Manchester. His wife Mary is aged 40, born 1861 also in Manchester. At the time of the Census they have four children living with them, Henry aged 20, born 1881 a commercial clerk, Gertrude aged 15, born 1886 and May aged 14, born 1887 are both mantle makers and Roland aged 3. 

On the 1911 census he is aged 13 at the Warehouseman's and Clerk's Orphan School, Cheadle Hulme.

He joined the Manchester Regiment as Private 2804 before transferring to the 19th  Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment 

He was killed in action on 20th September 1917 aged 19 during the Passchendaele offensive. He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial.

Those United Kingdom and New Zealand servicemen who died after August 16th 1917 are named on the Tyne Cot Memorial, a site which marks the furthest point reached by Commonwealth forces in Belgium until nearly the end of the war.

The Tyne Cot Memorial now bears the names of almost 35,000 officers and men whose graves are not known. The memorial, designed by Sir Herbert Baker with sculpture by Joseph Armitage and F.V. Blundstone, was unveiled by Sir Gilbert Dyett on 20 June 1927.

The memorial forms the north-eastern boundary of Tyne Cot Cemetery, which was established around a captured German blockhouse or pill-box used as an advanced dressing station.

Details of the action in which Roland was killed were included in the Battalion war diary:

9^th September 1917 – In support in Denys Wood.  Battalion relieved 17^th KLR in front line. Relief complete about 11 p.m.   

20^th September 1917 – A raid was carried out by a party of the battalion of 25 OR under Capt. C. Laird, just before 6 a.m. on The Twins. Enemy machine gun fire, however, proved too much for them, although several attempts were made to reach the objective.  Capt. C. Laird was killed in the operation, also 6 OR, and 14 OR were wounded.

Graham Maddocks in “Liverpool Pals”, p.178, explains:  “The remainder of September was fairly uneventful for the rest of the Pals Battalions, except for two trench raids made by the 19^th Battalion on 20 September 1917, which, elsewhere on the Salient, was the opening day of the phase of the offensive later referred to as the Battle of the Menin Road. These raids were made for two purposes. The first was an attempt to confuse the enemy as to the intensity and direction of the main attack, and the second was to try to capture two blockhouses known as ‘The Twins’, which commanded the 19^th Battalion’s trench front, and thus was able to dominate all its movement. The raiding party, consisting of Captain C. Laird, and twenty-five other ranks left the British front line at 6.00 a.m. and moved into No Man’s Land. However, it was soon spotted, and machine guns opened fire from the blockhouses. Despite a most determined effort to carry the objectives, the situation was hopeless from the start, and Laird and six other ranks were killed and fourteen more soldiers were wounded.”

Reported killed in the Weekly Casualty List 23rd Oct 1917.

He is remembered on the memorials at Christ Church, Patricroft and Manchester Warehouseman and Clerks Orphans’ School Memorial in Cheadle.

Soldiers Effects to mother Mary Jane, brother Harry, sisters May and Lucy E. Mills, and pension to mother Mary Jane.