Current Information:

Born-Hackney

At the outbreak of war in 1914 there were two machine guns to each battalion which was far from adequate and substantially fewer than the German Army. The need for more of these weapons and the specialised training they required led to the establishment of Machine Gun Corps in the autumn of 1915 with each infantry brigade being furnished with their own machine gun company, usually taking the same number as the brigade. These companies were equipped with the new Vickers machine gun whilst the individual infantry battalions were supplied with the lighter, hand-held Lewis guns. Machine Gun Battalions were formed in the Divisions in the early months of 1918, by bringing together the four MGC Companies into a single command structure. The Battalions took the number of their Division.

The Battle of Arras was a series of offensives by the British Army between 9th April 1917 and 16th May 1917. It had been planned in conjunction with the French who would attack in Artois and between them the Allies would force the Germans out of the large salient they had held since the line of trenches was first established. But the Germans had spoiled this plan by falling back to the new and very strong Hindenburg Line in January 1917 and the salient no longer existed.  For the want of an alternative plan the attack went ahead anyway. It all started well for the British who made substantial gains on the first two days but then the offensive ground to a halt and by the end their losses amounted to over 150,000.

The First Battle of the Scarpe (9-14 April)

On 9th April, 1917, 30th Division attacked in the southern part of the battle front, just to the north of the River Cojeul. The assault by 21 Brigade on the left of the divisional front was made by 2nd Wiltshire and 18th Liverpool (Kings) accompanied by the 21st Company of the Machine Gun Corps.  Starting from the village of Mercatel, they first had to cross 2,000 yards of open, shell-torn ground to reach their assault position and not all of them made it. Their attack was not launched until 11.38 that morning and they then had two sunken roads to cross to reach their objective, both of them strongly defended. They reached the first one, the Hénin-Neuville road but in the face of intense artillery and machine-gun fire just a handful from both battalions managed to reach their objective only to find that they could not get through the wire there. Those who could made it back to the first sunken road. Among the many casualties sustained during the course of the day, one of whom was Robert Pauley.