L/Cpl
Brice Pretty
Information about birth
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Date of birth: 13/10/1880 |
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Place of birth: Surrey, Lambeth, England, United Kingdom |
General information
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Profession: Bookbinder |
Army information
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Country: England, United Kingdom |
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Force: British Expeditionary Force |
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Rank: Lance Corporal |
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Service number: 41570 |
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Enlistment place: London (City), Middlesex, England, United Kingdom |
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Units: — South Staffordshire Regiment, 8th Bn. (Last known unit) |
Information about death
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Date of death: 12/10/1917 |
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Place of death: Turenne Crossing, Belgium |
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Cause of death: Killed in action (K.I.A.) |
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Age: 36 |
Memorial
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Tyne Cot Memorial Panel: 90 |
Distinctions and medals 2
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British War Medal Medal — 12/11/1920 |
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Victory Medal Medal — 12/11/1920 |
Points of interest 2
| #1 | Place of birth | ||
| #2 | Enlistment place |
My story
Lance Corporal Brice Pretty served in South Staffordshire Regiment 8th Battalion, 51st Brigade, of the 17th (Northern) Division. His Division participated in the First Battle of Passchendaele on the 12th of October 1917, the second last stage of the Third Battle of Ypres.
Brice Pretty was born on 13 October 1880, in Lambeth London. He had married his wife Alice (née Pendrill) in August 1912 and according to the 1911 Census had been a Bookbinder by profession prior to enlisting. Initially Pretty served as a Private in The Royal Flying Corps, under the service number 34705, and was later transferred to the 8th South Staffordshires. On 12 October 1917 the 17th Division attacked with one brigade, the 51st, at 5:25 a.m. with the 10th Sherwood Foresters on the right and the 7th Lincolns in the centre. The 8th South Staffordshires on the left attacked to the North of the Ypres-Staden railway.
They had assembled to their relatively exposed jump-off positions throughout the night and had waited, in a heavy torrent of rain, for zero hour. The two objective lines were defined only by map coordinates as there were no dominant or prominent features left in what is described as a ‘flat war-wasted tract of ground’. The ground over which the advance was to be made was a swamp of mud and cratered with shell-holes, with wide pools along the line of the flooded Broembeek stream. Lines of shell-holes were organised in substitute for trenches. The creeping barrage covering the advance was to progress forward at only a hundred yards per ten minutes indicating the difficulty of movement across the terrain.
Once the attack began the Staffordshires suffered heavily from machine-gun fire into the left of their line very early on. As a result they pushed slightly to the right, causing confusion and congestion and for a gap to open up on their left flank. By 6:45 a.m. estimated casualties for 8th South Staffords stood at 200 ‘Other Ranks’ and the majority of Officers. This heavy loss of Officers intensified the confusion in addition to the fact that communication, both between Companies and between the Frontline and Battalion Headquarters, was incredibly difficult due to the ‘accuracy of enemy snipers’. However, by 8 a.m. the whole objective on the Brigade Front had been taken and by 11a.m. the Division’s second and final Objective Line had been won. The final Objective for the 8th South Staffords was Turenne Crossing. “B” Company was the first to reach it, while “A” Company was held up on Angle Point Road just behind Aden House. The line won that day by the 17th Division represented the furthest advance made on this flank during the operations of Autumn 1917.
Lance Corporal Brice Pretty was killed on 12 October 1917, the day before his 37th Birthday. He is commemorated on Panel 90 of the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing. This means he was either killed or died of wounds during the attack on Turenne Crossing and his body was either never found or could not be positively identified prior to official burial.
Brice Pretty was born on 13 October 1880, in Lambeth London. He had married his wife Alice (née Pendrill) in August 1912 and according to the 1911 Census had been a Bookbinder by profession prior to enlisting. Initially Pretty served as a Private in The Royal Flying Corps, under the service number 34705, and was later transferred to the 8th South Staffordshires. On 12 October 1917 the 17th Division attacked with one brigade, the 51st, at 5:25 a.m. with the 10th Sherwood Foresters on the right and the 7th Lincolns in the centre. The 8th South Staffordshires on the left attacked to the North of the Ypres-Staden railway.
They had assembled to their relatively exposed jump-off positions throughout the night and had waited, in a heavy torrent of rain, for zero hour. The two objective lines were defined only by map coordinates as there were no dominant or prominent features left in what is described as a ‘flat war-wasted tract of ground’. The ground over which the advance was to be made was a swamp of mud and cratered with shell-holes, with wide pools along the line of the flooded Broembeek stream. Lines of shell-holes were organised in substitute for trenches. The creeping barrage covering the advance was to progress forward at only a hundred yards per ten minutes indicating the difficulty of movement across the terrain.
Once the attack began the Staffordshires suffered heavily from machine-gun fire into the left of their line very early on. As a result they pushed slightly to the right, causing confusion and congestion and for a gap to open up on their left flank. By 6:45 a.m. estimated casualties for 8th South Staffords stood at 200 ‘Other Ranks’ and the majority of Officers. This heavy loss of Officers intensified the confusion in addition to the fact that communication, both between Companies and between the Frontline and Battalion Headquarters, was incredibly difficult due to the ‘accuracy of enemy snipers’. However, by 8 a.m. the whole objective on the Brigade Front had been taken and by 11a.m. the Division’s second and final Objective Line had been won. The final Objective for the 8th South Staffords was Turenne Crossing. “B” Company was the first to reach it, while “A” Company was held up on Angle Point Road just behind Aden House. The line won that day by the 17th Division represented the furthest advance made on this flank during the operations of Autumn 1917.
Lance Corporal Brice Pretty was killed on 12 October 1917, the day before his 37th Birthday. He is commemorated on Panel 90 of the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing. This means he was either killed or died of wounds during the attack on Turenne Crossing and his body was either never found or could not be positively identified prior to official burial.
Sources 2
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8 Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment, (The National Archives, KEW (TNA), WO 95/2007/2). https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C14303 Further reference |
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McCarthy C., Passchendaele. The Day-by-Day Account, (London, Uniform, 2018), pg. 134-135. Sources used |
More information 3
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Commonwealth War Graves Commission Database https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/829789 |
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Namenlijst (In Flanders Fields Museum) https://namenlijst.org/publicsearch/#/person/_id=3cbc64f5-27cb-4bb6-9eba-0f3e98633504 |
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Lives of the First World War (Imperial War Museum) https://livesofthefirstworldwar.iwm.org.uk/lifestory/3590099 |