John Lawson Tempest was born at Otley in 1893, one of six children born to William and Elizabeth Tempest. At the time of the 1911 Census, John was a 17-year-old student living at Creskeld, Arthington with his parents and siblings Annie, William, Arthur, James Stanley and Norman. The family moved later to Broomleigh in Pannal.
John enlisted into the West Yorkshire Regiment and went overseas to join the regiment's 1st Battalion before being transferred to B Company of its 18th Battalion (2nd Bradford Pals).
In the later stages of the Battle of Arras, 18th West Yorkshire went into action on 3rd May 1917 outside of the village of Gavrelle as part of a large-scale night attack. Prior to Zero Hour, the battalion had moved out into No Man’s Land in four waves with the order of companies from left to right being A, B, C and D. In a report on the operation written three days later, Lieutenant Colonel Herbert Carter, commanding the battalion, described how the attack failed amidst the confusion of darkness and smoke:
At 3.45am (ZERO) the whole line moved straight forward, keeping close up to the barrage at a distance of about 60 yards. At this time the moon had set and it was extremely dark. One could hardly see a yard in front of one for smoke and dust.
Within 30 seconds of our barrage starting, an extremely heavy enemy barrage of 8in., 5.9, and lighter calibre came down on our front line trenches, and continued incessantly until 12 noon. Machine guns from all directions also opened fire almost simultaneously with the enemy barrage.
In most cases on the left the two objectives seem to have been reached by those whose business it was to get there, but owing to the heavy enemy fire, especially from machine guns, these lines were considerably depleted by the time they had reached the second objective. So far as I can see, touch had not been kept too well. This, I think, is easily accounted for by the extreme darkness, the mass of smoke and dust from the enemy and our own barrage, and the extremely wide extension. Two consecutive casualties in the line left the men 24 yards apart, which would easily explain loss of direction and touch.
On the right the right-half battalion did not seem to have got very much further than the first objective. In one or two cases they were held up by wire, but were mostly wiped out by machine-gun fire before they reached the first objective.
In the initial stages the attack seems to have been a success, but it failed through lack of driving power, as our men took quite a number of prisoners, and others were about to give themselves up until they realised that they had no more waves coming over, and that the few oddments of men in the trenches were the only ones they had to deal with. This at once altered the situation, and our men were practically surrounded in many cases.
John was one of many from the battalion reported as missing on 3rd May 1917, and he was later presumed to have been killed on that day. His body was never identified, and he is commemorated on the Arras Memorial.