NELSON Holmes stuck his head above the trench for just a second – and a sniper killed him.

The lance corporal from Silsden was on periscope duty when he died in the trench at Malakoff Farm in December 1915.

Skipton-born Nelson had only been in France for six months after attesting for the army the previous December when only 17.

Nelson grew up in Silsden, attending the 1st Silsden Troop of Boy Scouts, and by the age of 13 was a doffer at a spinning mill.

When he signed up for the West Riding Regiment he pretended he was 19, and by the time he disembarked in France with an entrenching battalion he was a lance corporal.

In a letter to Nelson’s father, 2nd Lt F Longsdon Smith wrote: “He was fixing his periscope, and must have exposed himself for a second or two, and was shot in the head by a sniper.

“He lived for a few minutes, and the stretcher bearer, dressed his wound, but he was never conscious, and from the first we knew there was no hope.”

Nelson was the ninth Silsden man to die in the first World War, following Harold Snoddin, Ben Hodgson, Isaac Wade, Rhodes Spence, W Gill, Ernest Bostwick, Edward Lund and Job Faulkner. (All correct)