Army Service Corps, Service no. M2/102039
Story
The identity of this soldier is unclear. The position of his name on the War Memorial, between George Goodall and Maurice Colley, would indicate that Charles Firth’s death would have been announced in September 1916, but this does not match up to any Army records. On 27th July 1917, the Leeds Skyrack published a list of Kippax dead, and the name between George Goodall and Maurice Colley, who were both killed on 20th September 1916 was Charles Smith, not Firth. This name does not appear to match any residents of Kippax or Ledston, but is likely to be the correct entry. Charles Firth is probably an incorrect transposition of Charles Smith.
There was only one Charles Firth, without a middle name, living in Kippax in the lead up to the War, and he ceases to appear on the Electoral Register after 1915. If this is the same person, Charles Firth was born in 1866, the son of William Firth and Zillah Whiteley. He was a coal miner living on Mount Pleasant until 1909, and then moved to Hanover Square. He married Annie Elizabeth Playforth in 1893, and they had eight children.
Charles Firth would have been too old to serve in active combat on the front line, so the Army Service Corps was a way for older volunteers to contribute to the war effort. It was the Army Service Corps’ job to provide Soldiers with food, equipment and ammunition; horses, and vehicles. In the Great War, the vast majority of the supplies were provided by the ASC. Using horses and motor vehicles, railways and waterways, the ASC performed prodigious feats of logistics and were one of the great strengths of organisation by which the war was won. At its peak, the Army Service Corp numbered 10,547 officers and 315,334 men. Soldiers who served in the Mechanical Transport usually had the letter M as a prefix to their number.
The British Army was already the most mechanised in the world when the Great War began, in terms of use of mechanical transport. It maintained that leadership, and by 1918 this was a strategically important factor in being able to maintain supply as the armies made considerable advances over difficult ground.
Kippax Roll of Honour 