James Spencer was born in 1888 in Wincham to Jesse and Fanny (Crump). Jesse was born in Witton in 1856 and, like his father Samuel Spencer worked in the local Salt Works. Fanny was from Cound in Shrewsbury. They were married at St Paul’s Church in Marston on 27th December 1877 and were to have nine children, though sadly on the 1911 census one of them is shown to have died. James was the fifth born.
It's not known when James attested for The Kings Shropshire Light Infantry. When the First World War broke out, if he was still a Cowman, he would be regarded as an essential worker.
The first battle of Bapaume was a major German military offensive during the First World War that began the Spring Offensive on 21 March 1918. It was launched from the Hindenburg Line, in the vicinity of Saint-Quentin, France. Its goal was to break through the Allied (Entente) lines and advance in a north-westerly direction to seize the Channel Ports, which supplied the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and to drive the BEF into the sea.
Two days later General Erich Ludendorff, the chief of the German General Staff, adjusted his plan and pushed for an offensive due west, along the whole of the British front north of the River Somme. This was designed to first separate the French and British Armies before continuing with the original concept of pushing the BEF into the sea. The offensive ended at Villers-Bretonneux, to the east of the Allied communications centre at Amiens,
where the Allies managed to halt the German advance; the German Army
had suffered many casualties and was unable to maintain supplies to the
advancing troops.
Much of the ground fought over was the wilderness left by the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The action was therefore officially named by the British Battles Nomenclature Committee as The First Battles of the Somme, 1918, whilst the French call it the Second Battle of Picardy (2ème Bataille de Picardie). The failure of the offensive marked the beginning of the end of the First World War for Germany.
The arrival in France of large reinforcements from the United States replaced Entente casualties but the German Army was unable to recover from its losses before these reinforcements took the field. Operation Michael failed to achieve its objectives and the German advance was reversed during the Second Battle of the Somme
4th Battalion KSLI – First Battle of Bapaume
At
6am on March 21st
the order came to stand by in readiness to advance and at 12.30 the
battalion moved towards the front line. One Company moved to a
beetroot factory near Lebucquiere with the remaining Companies
being dug in at Gaika Copse, Le Velu. At 23.30 the battalion withdrew to
a trench in the east of Fremicourt Wood, though one Company remained
at the beetroot factory. This was to support the defence of Beugny.
At midnight on the 22/23 March the battalion moved to Lebucquiere to
take up position in support of the front line. At 10.00 on the 23rd
the enemy was seen pushing back the Division on their right. An
S.O.S to the artillery had produced no response and the battalion
received orders to fight alongside the Cheshire and 8th
North Staffordshire Regiments. At 13.15 a fresh attack started from
the Beugny direction. The Battalion retired to Bancourt to
reorganize.
It is during this action that James was believed to have lost his life.
