Arthur Haigh

Although Arthur lived in Dewsbury he was born and enlisted in Horbury. He became a Private in the 89^th Company of the Machine Gun Corps (Service Number 18474) and died on 31^st July 1917 in one of the many battles for the Ypres Salient. Arthur’s body was never found and his name is recorded on the Menin Gate at Ypres. “The site of the Menin Gate was chosen because of the hundreds of thousands of men who passed through it on their way to the battlefields. It commemorates those of all Commonwealth nations, except New Zealand, who died in the Salient, in the case of United Kingdom casualties before 16 August 1917 (with some exceptions)….. The YPRES (MENIN GATE) MEMORIAL now bears the names of more than 54,000 officers and men whose graves are not known.”

The following photograph of the Menin Gate was taken in July 2009, its size can be gauged by the barely visibly people below the arch; almost every element of the walls is filled with the names of the dead.