Harold Horton

War Service

Harold Horton was serving with the 3rd Battalion Coldstream Guards when he died sometime between 16th March and 17th March 1943. He was 27 years old when he died. He is commemorated at the Medjez-el-Bab Memorial Tunisia face 12.
In May 1943, the war in North Africa came to an end in Tunisia with the defeat of the Axis powers by a combined Allied force.
The campaign began on 8th November 1942, when Commonwealth and American troops made a series of landings in Algeria and Morocco. The Germans responded immediately by sending a force from Sicily to northern Tunisia, which checked the Allied advance east in early December. In the south, the Axis forces defeated at El Alamein withdrew into Tunisia along the coast through Libya, pursued by the Allied Eighth Army. By mid April 1943, the combined Axis force was hemmed into a small corner of north-eastern Tunisia and the Allies were grouped for their final offensive.
Medjez-el-Bab was at the limit of the Allied advance in December 1942 and remained on the front line until the decisive Allied advances of April and May 1943.
The Medjez-el-Bab Memorial commemorates almost 2,000 men of the First Army who died during the operations in Algeria and Tunisia between 8th November 1942 and 19th February 1943, and those of the First and Eighth Armies who died in operations in the same areas between 20th February 1943 and 13th May 1943, and who have no known graves.
Pontefract & Castleford Express 16 April 1943 p3 (with photo)
“MISSING
News has been received by Mr & Mrs E Horton of 36 Quarry Avenue, Knottingley, that their sixth son Cpl Harold Horton of the Coldstream Guards was officially reported missing on March 16th. Cpl Horton joined the Forces 3 years ago and went to the Middle East in December. He was formerly of the Crystal Glassworks of Messrs Bagley & Co, Knottingley, is 26 years of age and married with one daughter. Mr & Mrs Horton have seven children serving out of a family of eight, including their only daughter who is with the WAAF.”

Family Life

Harold was born on 25th December 1915 and baptised on 13th January 1916 at the Wesleyan Chapel, Ropewalk, Knottingley. He was the son of Elijah Horton and Mary (nee Hallimond), who had married in the third quarter of 1902 and this was registered at Newcastle.
In the third quarter of 1937, registered at Pontefract, Harold married Agnes H Dibb by whom he had one daughter.

Medjez-el-Bab Memorial