1/12 A short #Arras103 thread on one specific pair of friends in action 103 years ago today. Some of you may know this story but please do have a read & RT if it strikes a chord.

2/12 We all have our own connections to battles, either through family or accounts we’ve read. For me, it was accessing the incredibly detailed memoir of Private Percy Clare, 7th East Surrey Regt that enabled me to minutely follow his battalion’s action.

3/12 His description of the battle is the best I’ve read. One piece that jumps out is the death of his mate, the wonderfully named Christmas James Steele soon after Zero Hour on 9 April 1917.

4/12 The battalion, along with the rest of the division, had practiced the advance many times. During these practice attacks they’d been instructed to wait whilst the creeping artillery barrage fell on the German trenches and to advance as it moved on.

5/12 However, Percy and Christmas received a new officer AFTER this training period - Lt McEvoy. He told his men he’d race for the German wire at Zero Hour. If they didn’t follow him he’d shoot them as cowards.

6/12 So, the men under his command were faced with the dilemma as to what to do. Percy chose to wait as they’d practiced whilst his mate Christmas Steele followed McEvoy into the maelstrom.

7/12 It was a fateful decision - McEvoy and a number of men under his command, including poor Christmas Steele, were killed by the British barrage. Killed by their own shells. So unnecessary.

8/12 McEvoy and his senior NCOs were later given a battlefield burial by the regimental chaplain.

9/12 Percy Clare wrote how he picked up what was left of his mate Christmas and buried him in a shell hole. ‘No one read the burial service over his grave’, he wrote.

10/12 The anger at his friend’s needless death is evident in his words, completed some nine years later.

11/12 McEvoy and his NCOs were eventually removed to Ste. Catherine British Cemetery.

12/12 The remains of Christmas James Steele were never formally identified and he is one of 35,000 men commemorated on the Arras Memorial. I visit his name every time I go there.