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Alfred (“Fred”) Lusby was taken prisoner in the action at Serre (on the Somme) on 13 Nov 1916 and was to spend the rest of the war in captivity at Limburg and Langensalza POW camps in Germany. Conditions there were increasingly grim and as acknowledged in the Hull Daily Mail of 1 Jan 1919 Fred was grateful for the food and clothing parcels sent by volunteers of the Peel House organisation of Beverley Road, Hull via the International Committee of the Red Cross. Fred was repatriated at the end of 1918 but chose to extend his army service for a year in the Royal Army Medical Service (RAMC). Fred was awarded the War and Victory medals.
Fred enlisted in the Army with his brother, Bertie in 1916; they received consecutive service numbers, 25847 and 25848 respectively, and joined the 13th Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment (the 4th Hull Pals). At Serre on 13 Nov the attack by all four of the Hull Pals Battalions on heavily fortified German lines was driven back with heavy casualties; this included Bertie who received head and arm wounds. He recovered from his injuries and returned to serve until 1919. Fred was posted as missing and it wasn’t until mid-Jan 1917 that confirmation came that he was a prisoner in Germany.
Fred was born at Thearne, near Woodmansey, the 8 Nov 1896, his father John Lusby, originally from Lincolnshire was a farm foreman; his mother, Flora was local. Fred had five sibling,s brothers, Arthur, Albert and Bertie and sisters Florence and Clara. The family moved to Beverley and by 1911 was living at 18 Keldgate. By this time Fred had become a farm worker like his two older brothers and was working and lodging on a farm at Hempholme near Brandesburton. Following his marriage in late 1914 he moved to Beverley and living at 12 Wood Lane with his wife, Martha nee Tate of Norwood Grove was one of the nine children of George Tate, a hay cutter and carter. In Dec 1914 she gave birth to their first child, Hilda, followed by Laura in 1916. After the war Fred and Martha had a further five children.
The 1939 Register shows the family living in Woodmansey and Fred employed as a labourer for a public works contractor. Fred died in 1973 aged 71; Martha died in 1982.
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |