Soldier Record

My Great Uncle Frank died at the Battle of Cambrai, during the German counter attack on 30 November 1917. He was 25. He was 'last seen on the Cambrai road', where he was guarding the Sappers while they worked. His body was never found.

During his last leave home he told my Grandma and one of his other sisters, Nellie that he did not expect to live to see home again. One of their younger brothers Syd had romantic ideas about the adventure of going to war and wanted to lie about his age to join up. Frank said they must not let him, and Syd was ragged off a troop train by his mother and a recruiting Sergeant!

Nellie became ill soon after Frank returned to the Front and died a month before he was killed.

I am the only member of Frank's family to have visited Louverval to see his name on the Cambrai Memorial. I went during a British Legion pilgrimage in 2004. It was a beautiful day with a warm breeze, and the memorial looked at its best in the late afternoon sun.

They suggested that I should 'adopt' one of the unknown soldiers graves for Frank, and I found one very close to the Memorial which belonged to a unknown soldier from his regiment.

I am very pleased to have been and hope to go again one day. I would recommend everybody to tour the War Graves of Northern France. I have two to visit personally, but learned a lot by visiting many of the other memorials and cemetries.