Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Three: Lance-Corporal J. H. H. Rathbone, 15th (1st Leeds Pals) Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment

1914-15 Star (15-1168 Pt. J. H. H. Rathbone. W. York: R.); British War and Victory Medals (15-1168 Pte. J. H. H. Rathbone. W. York R.) very fine (3) £70-£90

John Henry Hart Rathbone was born in 1896, and attested for the 15th (1st Leeds Pals) Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment, on 18 January 1915. He served with the Battalion in Egypt from 22 December 1915, and subsequently on the Western Front. On 1 July 1916 the Battalion led the attack on Serre village on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. 750 men went over the top, but were met by heavy machine-gun fire. A few men got as far as the enemy barbed wire, but no further, and in little over ten minutes the Battalion suffered 15 Officers and 233 other ranks killed, and 9 Officers and 271 other ranks wounded.

As Private R. N. Bell, also of the 1st Leeds Pals, recalled:
‘The trench was almost blocked with dead and wounded. One of the latter with both legs shattered was screaming in agony but, scrambling my way a little farther along in the blown-in remains of the trench, I realised that I was now entirely alone. For some time I remained in the ruins of one of the bays, accompanied only by the corpse of a man in No. 6 Platoon and a mole, disturbed from its burrow by a shell.’ (The First Day of the Somme, by Martin Middlebrook refers.).

The battalion was relieved on 5 July, when only 47 men marched out. Rathbone was one of the survivors; he was promoted Lance-Corporal on 25 July 1916, and was discharged to Class Z Reserve on 1 May 1919.

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