Military History

Herbert is listed as being killed in action on 25th April 1917 near Petit Couronné. The following description of events leading to Herbert's death are taken from the book Royal Hampshire Regiment 1914-1918 by C. T. Atkinson. Click here to purchase it.

By 8.15 p.m. on April 24th the 12th Hampshire started moving forward, to be caught by the enemy’s barrage half an hour before ‘Zero’, 9.45 p.m., and so prevented from reaching their assembly position, a sunken road between Swindon and Silbury Hills, before our barrage lifted. When they did advance they promptly came under very heavy fire.

The steep and rocky sides of the narrow Jumeaux Ravine doubled the effect of the bursting shells, creating an absolute inferno; the Devons’ rear companies, just ahead of the Hampshire, were disordered and shattered, being unable to advance they blocked the way and the ravine was soon congested with dead and wounded. The enemy’s guns took full advantage of their chance and poured in shell after shell. Nevertheless the Hampshire’s right company somehow struggled gallantly forward, some officers and men actually getting through the wire and gaining a foothold in O.3, only to have the Bulgarian barrage brought down on them and to be enfiladed from their right, where the Wiltshire had made only the slenderest lodgement near the lake.

Colonel Koebel endeavoured to bring the Hampshire’s left company across to support the right but there was no advancing through so intense and concentrated a barrage. Casualties were heavy, Colonel Koebel himself was among the wounded, and while the handful in the enemy’s lines, unsupported and outnumbered, were killed or taken, the remnants of the battalion were driven back by the shelling to the sunken road, where they rallied. Captain Prior now took command and about 70 men were eventually collected here, with a smaller party on Rocky Knoll.

Meanwhile the Devons’ leading companies had established themselves on the Petit Couronné and were holding on; parties of the 78th Brigade had also made lodgements further West, and while these detachments struggled hard to maintain their gains, beating back several attacks, the D.C.L.I., the supporting battalion, tried vainly to reach the Devons. Some Hampshires prepared to advance again with the D.C.L.I., but they were ordered to await reinforcements from the Divisional reserve. Before these could intervene counter-attacks had dislodged the 78th Brigade, the Devons, with both flanks exposed, could not possibly maintain their precarious foothold on the Petit Couronné, and they had to be ordered back.

Still, though itself a disastrous failure, the Twenty-Sixth Division’s attack had contributed to distract the enemy’s attention from the Twenty-Second, who had captured their objectives and retained them, despite counter-attacks. But the 79th Brigade had been cut to pieces, the 12th Hampshire having 15 officers and 249 men hit, the Devons over 400 and the Wiltshire over 300. Of the Hampshire Captain Graham-Montgomery, Lt. Jarvis and 2/Lts. Bench, Gibaud and Tidy were missing, almost certainly killed, the C.O., Captain Mitchell, Lts. Baker, Lewis and Stuart and 2/Lts. Biggar, Kellaway, Norman, Vincent and Willis being wounded. They had been asked to attempt the impossible.

Next day saw the much reduced battalion in camp at Piton Rocheux. Major Barry returned from leave and took command and drafts amounting to 100 men joined from an Entrenching Battalion but the brigade was unfit for any further activity. It was accordingly ordered to take over the ‘Independent Brigade’s’ frontage on the Krusha Ridge East of Lake Doiran, a really ‘quiet’ sector, where its sadly shattered battalions might recover strength and efficiency.

Both Hampshire battalions in the B.S.F. were to pass the rest of 1917 uneventfully.