Service No: 305661 – 1st/8th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment

Henry George Rudd, who seems to have been known as Harry, was born in Hollywood, Worcestershire on 5th July 1895. He was the second child, and eldest son, of Henry and Fanny Greenall who had married at King’s Norton in 1893.

Available records suggest that Henry and Fanny continued to live and raise their family in Hollywood. The 1911 census shows fifteen-year-old Harry was still living with them and recorded as a farm labourer.

We don’t know when Harry joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment but Soldiers Died in the Great War notes that he was living in Castle Bromwich when he enlisted. He didn’t serve overseas before 1916 as his medal index card shows no entitlement to a 1914 or 1914/15 star so could only have been at the Front for a few months before he was killed in action on the first day of the Battle of the Somme, 1st July 1916.

The 48th Division of which Harry’s battalion formed a part was in the Corps Reserve for the first day on the Somme. But two battalions, 1/6th and 1/8th Royal Warwicks, were detailed to attack with 11th Brigade leading the assault of 4th Division towards ‘Redan Ridge’. Even before Zero hour the ‘jumping-off’ trenches came under fire from ‘crumps’ of enemy artillery, and machine guns began playing over No man’s land from both flanks. 1/8th Royal Warwicks was shielded by the ground from direct fire and managed to get into the German second line and into ‘Quadrilateral Redoubt’. 1/6th Battalion, following up, passed the Quadrilateral. The right hand companies of both battalions pushed on and made contact with the rest of 11th Brigade in ‘Munich Trench’, but the left companies suffered heavy casualties from the village of Serre, which 31st Division had been unable to reach. The 1/8th Royal Warwicks had suffered heavier casualties. Harry was one of the casualties having been killed in action. He was one of two Castle Bromwich men to lose his life in battle that day, and one of two hundred and thirty from Birmingham.

Harry has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. His name also appears on the war memorial at Castle Bromwich, and on the Roll of Honour in St Mary & St Margaret’s Church, Castle Bromwich