Last week, we asked if CHFT colleagues had heroes in their families who will be remembered this weekend and, of course, there were.

It's our pleasure to share them as the country commemorates the Centenary of the Armistice.

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Trish Hooson's great, great Uncle James Albert Thorpe  - main photo- was killed in action in Belgium 1915 at the age of 21. Her family have been to visit his grave in Ypres and left a memorial. 

Trish, says: " I know he was awarded the medals  - bottom right - posthumously. He was killed in the second battle of Ypres in the April of 1915. This was the first mass use of poison gas by the Germans and many lives were lost, however we are informed that our Uncle was shot which may have been the kinder option. What a terrible time!"

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Jacqui Howarth's Great Grandad Thomas Connelly, is the patient in the bed. He fought in the Battle of Mons.  

This battle  was the first major action of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) in the First World War. It was a subsidiary action of the Battle of the Frontiers, in which the Allies clashed with Germany on the French borders. At Mons, the British Army attempted to hold the line of the Mons–Condé Canal against the advancing German 1st Army. Although the British fought well against the numerically superior Germans, they were eventually forced to retreat due both to the greater strength of the Germans and the sudden retreat of the French Fifth Army, which exposed the British right flank.

Though initially planned as a simple tactical withdrawal and executed in good order, the British retreat from Mons lasted for two weeks and took the BEF to the outskirts of Paris before it counter-attacked in concert with the French, at the Battle of the Marne.

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Our local regiment - The Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (West Riding) played its full part in the conflict. The Regiment had some 22 battalions in this war, all except two, were non-regulars, some 80,000 men mostly from the West Riding served in the Regiment and over 8000 were killed. The 2nd Battalion (Regular) was first into battle in August 1914. They lost 323 men killed or wounded in about two days.