BRITISH commanders declared an assault on the Canal du Nord during the Battle of Cambrai as a complete success – but not for Haworth-born Sgt James Lynch.

The West Riding Regiment infantryman was killed during the attack on November 20, 1917.

The jubilant ‘Tommies’ captured more than 165 enemy soldiers and seized several howitzers and field guns as well as wiping out 10 machine gun crews.

But around midday, as his brigade made several advances into enemy territory, James was shot through the heart.

James, who before the First World War worked at Sladen Valley Waterworks, had enlisted in Skipton in 1915 by the following year was a Lance Corporal.

Following James’s death his Haworth-born comrade Harold Webster wrote to explain he had learned about his friend’s death on the night of November 20.

Harold wrote: “It knocked all the go out of me. He was the best and most truest friend I ever had. I stopped to see that he had a decent grave dug and then I had to go away for I could not stand to see him put away.

“He was the first man to fall in the attack out of our battalion, but we must not grumble for God’s will be done.”