Dantzig Alley British Cemetery.
Mametz, 8k East of Albert. Somme.
Alvin Mohun, on leave, 10th March 1916.
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At the Census of 1901, Alvin, aged 18, was living at 9 Boosbeck Rd and working as a grocer's assistant.
His father, who worked down the Ironstone mine as a platelayer, came from Normanby, N Yorks and his
mother from Snainton, N Yorks.
He had three brothers, Gordon 17, a bricklayer's labourer, Ethelwald 13 and Francis age 9
His four sisters were Florrie 15, Lillian 7, Annie 3 and Ruth 2.
At the start of the war the importance of the machine gun was not recognised and it was only in October
1915 that the Machine Gun Corps was authorised.
A depot and training centre was established at Belton Park in Grantham, Lincolnshire and a base depot at Camiers
in France.
Machine Gun Corps.
The Infantry Branch was by far the largest and initially formed by the machine gun sections which had previously
been part of the different infantry battalions transferring to the MGC, and grouping into Brigade Machine Gun Companies.
Shortly after the formation of the Machine Gun Corps in October 1915, the old Maxim guns were replaced by the Vickers,
which became a standard gun for the next five decades.
The Vickers machine gun is fired from a tripod, and is cooled by water held in a jacket against the barrel.
The gun weighed 28.5 pounds, the water another 10.
The tripod weighed 20 pounds.
Bullets are assembled into a canvas belt, which held 250 rounds, which would last 30 seconds at the maximum
rate of fire of 500 rounds per minute and could turn a man's body into mincemeat.
Two men were required to carry the equipment, and two the ammunition.
A machine gun detachment also had two spare men.
The battle of the Somme began at the end of June with a bombardment of the German trenches that was supposed to
clean them out.
The village of Mametz was carried by the 7th Division on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme,
after very hard fighting at Dantzig Alley (a German trench) and other points.
Alvin Mohun was killed the next day.
The Dantzig cemetery was begun later in the same month and was used by field ambulances and fighting units
until the following November.
At the Armistice, the cemetery consisted of 183 graves, now in Plot I, but it was then very greatly increased
by graves (almost all of 1916) brought in from certain smaller burial grounds and from the battlefields north
and east of Mametz.
Dantzig Alley British Cemetery now contains 2,053 burials and commemorations of the First World War.
