1/5th Battalion, Gloucestershire Regiment
Harold John McKee was born in Gloucester in 1896, one of six children born to James McKee and his wife Susan. James McKee was a blacksmith employed by the Gloucester Wagon Company Limited, better known as the ‘Wagon Works’ and he died in 1911.
The census of that year shows the family living at Clegram Road in the Linden area of Gloucester and Harold employed as an errand boy. Between the time of the census and the outbreak of war Harold emulated his father by becoming an employee of the Wagon Works.
At the age of 18 Harold was one of the first to join up when war broke out: his name appears in the list of recruits joining the 1/5th Battalion of the Gloucestershire Regiment, published in the Gloucester Journal of 5 September 1914.
He was allocated the number 2506; when Territorial Force members were allocated new six digit numbers in early 1917, he became 240596.
The battalion went to France on 29 March 1915 and in May became part of 145 Brigade, 48 (South Midland) Division.
After a period of training at Ploegsteert, the battalion was deployed at Hebuterne in the Somme sector until July 1916.
It then saw action on Pozieres Ridge and wintered on the Ancre Heights before following up the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line in the Spring of 1917. Thereafter there was a move to Ypres in July 1917 and participation in the battles of Third Ypres, principally Langemarck and Polygon Wood, before the Battle of Broodseinde open on 4 October 1917.
Harold McKee had been in France & Flanders since March 1915 and during this time had been promoted to Corporal. He was due a month’s home leave in recognition of his length of service and was expected home at any time but it was not to be.
On 4 October 1917 he was on attachment to a Trench Mortar Battery (probably the 145th) when 145 Brigade took part in an attack on objectives half way between Zonnebeke and Passchendaele. The attack went forward in heavy rain and over wet, muddy and churned up ground. The German machine guns took a heavy toll and only a modest advance was possible.
The British barrage fell too far ahead of the advance. It seems certain that the Trench Mortar Battery was firing in support of the advance and Corporal McKee was reportedly killed by a retaliatory shell burst. He was 21 years of age.
Corporal Harold McKee’s body was never recovered and he is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial to the Missing of the Third Ypres Offensive. He is also listed on the Gloucester War
Memorial.
Research by Graham Adams