Leeds nostalgia: 1917 Tank Week raised over £267,000

Several reports from this day detail just how savage the battle was, as our nation lost a destroyer, along with six merchant ships and four armed trawlers, all of which were attacked by the German navy.

The convoy was travelling from Scotland to Norway when it came under attack by four German destroyers. HMS Partridge was sunk, while another destroyer, HMS Pellow, was holed on its waterline and just about managed to make it back to shore. The merchants hips and trawlers, however, were not so lucky.

Some 10 British subjects and 88 Scandinavians, including two women, were saved by four British destroyers sent to the scene. A statement to the House of Commons also revealed that several members of the Partridge crew and that of trawlers Livingstone and Tokio, were taken prisoner and taken to Kiel.

Meanwhile, in Leeds it was ‘Tank Bank’ week, which involved the good citizens of the city reaching as far into their timeworn pockets as they could and clawing out whatever change they could find in a bid to buy the country more tanks, which had proved their worth at the Battle of Cambrai.

Given there was a war on and people were having to make ends meet, they didn’t do badly on their first day, raising a really rather inspiring £269,337.

The Yorkshire Post noted: “Down came the snow and sleet, with an occasionally digression in favour of rain, the whole day long. It mattered not to the khaki-coloured leviathan.

“Tank 130 waddled to its position during Sunday and is now firmly consolidated on ground taken up on one side of City Square, opposite the General Post Office.”