| Description | Work completed by volunteer includes the following information:
Corporal Sydney Coverdale (known as Sid), aged 21, died of unknown wounds on 14 Sep 1918 in the vicinity of the village of Havrincourt, near Cambrai, France. He arrived in France on 18 Apr 1915. He spent nearly three and a half years on frontline duties and died within months of the end of the war in Nov 1918. He enlisted in Driffield joining the 5th Battalion, Yorkshire Regiment, The Green Howards.
On arrival in France Sid and the 5th were immediately thrown into battle at St Julien, near Ypres, and spent the rest of 1915 and early 1916 in action in this area. The battalion was reduced to cadre status in Jul 1918. Sid joined another TA Battalion, the 2nd/4th Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding Regiment). On 12 Sep they broke through the defensive German Hindenburg line at Havrincourt, Sid was killed in the fighting for Kimber Trench. He is buried at nearby Ruyalcourt Military Cemetery. He was awarded the 1914-15 Star and the War and victory medals.
Sid was born late 1896 at Haisthorpe near Burton Agnes and brought up by his grandparents, Wilson Dandy Coverdale and Elizabeth Coverdale, he did not marry.
Sid is remembered today on the Langtoft War Memorial and on a plaque in nearby St Peter’s Church. He is not included on the East Riding Memorial in Beverley Minster
Includes photograph, information taken from census, military records, Commonwealth War Graves, newspapers |