233608 Pte. Harry Pratt British Army 4th Btn. Green Howards from:North Skelton, Yorkshire My grandfather, Harry Pratt, enlisted with his friends in Northallerton, Yorkshire when war broke out on his birthday 4th August 1914. He was a Private in the 4th Battalion Green Howards and was trained and posted to France. He subsequently ended up on the Somme. He was lucky he survived but many of his friends didn't. He told me that he and his friends were sent 'over the top' and there was a lot of shooting, he saw his friends go down one by one and then he felt what was like a 'punch in the face', he was injured (end of his nose shot off) but he "was lucky, many of his friends weren't", my grandfather's words.
It took him a long time to talk about the war, but when he did he remembered a lot of the good times of laughing and joking, trying to keep jolly and blotting out what was happening around him. He was close to tears telling me. He was sent back to the front after being patched up, only to join people he didn't know, when he looked around his friends had gone. After a while he began to smile and remembered what he and his friends had got up to...before the guns went off. He said he was relieved to get home when the war finished and he was glad he did because he married my grandmother - his grin turned into a big beaming smile at this point. I gave him a big hug. My granddad.
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