Thomas Tyson
Thomas Tyson. 50956. Pte. 11th. Bn. East Yorkshire Regiment. KIA 3rd. Oct. 1918, Armentières, France, age 32.
Thomas was baptised on Feb. 21st. 1886, the son of Henry, a road mender and Agnes Tyson, 3, Gladstone Terrace, Cartmel. The CWGC states "son of the late Henry and Agnes Tyson......".
His father died in February 1917, the Parish Magazine says, "An old inhabitant of Cartmel, Henry Tyson, of Gladstone Terrace, was laid to rest on February 9th. He was a road mender by trade, and a man of simple, kindly disposition. He has left a daughter and grandson in his old home, while he goes to join the wife he lost some six years ago."
Cartmel from the site of Gladstone Terrace. The detached house on the centre is where Leonard Lancaster
once lived.
Tom's wife was Annie Agnes Tyson, Low Houses, Coniston Lake, Coniston, Lancs.
The Parish Magazine describes him as a former Cartmel inhabitant..."sister and nephew live in Gladstone Terrace." Gladstone Terrace has been long since demolished. It was a short row of cottages where the lay-by opposite the Priory School now is. Thomas was born in Cartmel and enlisted in his first regiment, the West Yorkshire, at Keighley, indicating that he had moved away from the village.
The war's final British advance began on 27th September, with a supplementary attack in Belgium on the 28th. The 11th East Yorks were part of 92nd Brigade, 31st Division, XV Corps in the Second Army. At 5.45pm on 28th September the 11th East Yorks were attached to 93rd Brigade for operations north of Ploegsteert Wood. The Battalion was ordered to rejoin 92nd Brigade on 1st October and marched from south of Warneton, via Messines to the west of Ploegsteert Wood, in the afternoon they moved once again, to relieve the 10th East Yorks and 18th Durham Light Infantry, to the west of the Lys between Pont Rouge and the south-west of Frehlinghien.
XV Corps orders for 2nd October were, with X Corps, to hold the line of the Lys down to Wervicq. The 40th and 31st Divisions carried out almost unopposed advances either side of Armentières, having orders not to enter the ruined town, which the Germans had only just left, due to the danger of booby-traps. The 11th East Yorkshires advanced during the night of 2nd and 3rd of October "by peaceful penetration" to the west bank of the Lys. They then prepared for the bridging of the river. “Peaceful penetration” was a euphemism for the infiltration of enemy positions and brutal fighting took place whenever enemy troops were encountered.
Armentières was entered by British troops on 3rd October. The pressure on the German front in all sectors signalled their defeat and the first request for an armistice came on 6th October. The last three months of the war saw massive German losses, but the cost to the Allies was huge. The British alone lost 80,000 men killed.
Thomas Tyson has no known grave and is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial, Belgium, Panel 4. Originally intended for Lille, due to French objections, the memorial was built in the Berks. Cemetery Extension at "Hyde Park Corner". It commemorates the soldiers who fell between the River Douve and the towns of Estaires and Furnes, when the Franco-Belgian border was of little significance and British and French troops fought side by side in this area, where trench warfare lasted longest. A total of 11,447 names appear on the memorial, belonging to 100 different regiments and 36 divisions, including 365 men from the East Yorkshire Regiment.