Sam Wood

War Service

Sam Wood enlisted at Pontefract. His Medal Roll shows he served with the K.O.Y.L.I., the West Yorkshire Regiment and the Machine Gun Corps.
There are no Service Records for Sam, but the local paper mentioned that he joined the West Yorkshire Regiment in July 1916 and was slightly wounded in his first action on the Somme in September.
Sometime after that he transferred to the Machine Gun Corps, founded in October 1915. Sam was serving with the Heavy Branch, which meant tanks.
In April 1917 the British Army launched an Offensive from Arras and it was as part of this Sam was killed. In a letter from his officer, he tells of Sam being hit in the left leg by a shell splinter. His comrades managed to get him to a place of safety, but he died in the Field Hospital. This was on 23rd April the opening day of the Battle of Arras.
Sam is buried in the Fauberg D’Amiens Cemetery in Arras, which is also the site of the Arras Memorial for those with no known grave.
William and Emma had lost a second son and they remembered him in the Roll of Honour in the local paper as did his brothers and sisters.

Family Life

Sam Wood was born in Knottingley, in 1897, the youngest child of William and Emma Wood (nee Askam). He had three sisters and three brothers. All the brothers served in the Great War. The eldest, William, was the only one not killed.
William Wood was born in Knottingley and worked as a Seaman and Boatman. Emma Wood was born in Mexborough and her family came to Knottingley to work in the Pottery Industry. Emma also worked there.
The family lived in Aire Street and Stafford’s Yard. When Sam left school he followed his brothers to the Glassworks, where he started as a taker in.

Sam Wood

Sam Wood's grave