Captain Roby Gotch joined the 7th Sherwood Foresters in 1912 and went to the front with his battalion as Lieutenant in February 1915. He was promoted to Captain and adjutant in July of the same year recieving the substantive rank the following year. Early in the advance on the 1st July 1916 near Gommecourt, close to the German barbed wire, he was wounded in the wrist but went to help his runner who was in difficulties with a telephone wire which he had volunteered to lay.. Captain Gotch stooped down to assist when he was wounded again. He was reported as "wounded and missing". In 1917 he was presumed as killed in action on the 1st July 1916. His body was never recovered and he is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial 

 

 

Lyndon Harper