Richard Henry Tobin

Overview

Richard Henry Tobin had joined the Royal Naval Reserve Mersey Division in 1911, and when war broke out he was promoted to Leading Seaman with the Hood Battalion. Having landed at Antwerp, Henry saw the civilian impact of war in the desperate and fearful Belgian refugees. As a Sergeant Major he would spend the next three years to-ing and fro-ing over Passchendaele and the Somme, and remembers the feeling of dropping into a Somme trench in March 1918 that he had first occupied in November 1916. This is an inspiring account of how the British unwillingness to give up and give in is one of the greatest examples of human endeavour during the Great War.