Source: Michael Doyle Their Name Liveth For Evermore: The Great War Roll of Honour for Leicestershire and Rutland.
He was the son of Matthew and Emma Woodcock. He enlisted in the 5th Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment (Territorial Force) before the outbreak of war, embarking for France on the 26th February 1915. He took part in the action at the Hohenzollern Redoubt on the 13th October 1915, and fought on the Somme, at Lens and also at Loos, he was killed by a shell at Merville, France. His elder brother Samuel also fell. The War Diary for today records. NOYELLES. Advance party of 2 N.C.O.’s per Coy report to 2nd Lt BARRETT to go forward to reconnoitre dug outs. The Battn marched off to the trenches at 10.00am in the following order, D, C, B, A, HQ. On the way up B Coy had an accident. A shell landed by the side of a party marching up killing 11 and wounding 14. On arrival at trenches accommodation was found in LINE TRENCH, 10th AVENUE, LONE TREE REDOUBT. Most of the men were under cover but they were a bit squashed. Battn HQ was in HULLOCH TUNNEL shared with the 6th Battn NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE REGT. Found BROOKE up in the line and he reported that the wire on the front of the raid was not properly cut. He had been up in the line since August 2nd doing patrol work at night and observing wire cutting operations with the Forward Observation Officer, on one occasion he was informed that the enemy were suspected of having left his front line trench, so he crawled out in broad daylight and lay on the enemy’s parapet for about three minutes. Until a Bosche poked his head round the corner of a traverse, saw him and at once disappeared. BROOKE at once made off and just afterwards the place where he had been was peppered with a shower of bombs. He gained our front lines all right. About 3.00pm the Divisional Intelligence Officer and General Staff Officer’s came up and the situation was discussed, the former went up to the line to where the Forward Observation Officer’s were observing and saw things for himself and sent several reports through to Division, all to the effect that the wire was not cut through. In the end every body agreed that this was so and a message came through about 8.45pm that the raid was postponed. This only just gave time for Officer’s Commanding Coy’s to be informed before they moved to assembly positions. The Coy’s settled down to spend the night in their somewhat cramped quarters and rations arrived about 2.00am next morning.