The Story of First World war veteran Frank Stancliffe MM

The Kirkheaton History Group has carried out a great deal of research on the men from the village who died in the First World War. However, much less has been done on those who survived. Many of them, like Frank Stancliffe MM, have interesting stories which also deserve to be told and remembered.

Frank was born in 1893 to Joe and Sarah Stancliffe. The 1911 Census records him living with his parents at Cockley Hill Farm and working as a coal haulier with his younger brother Luke. In 1912, with the war clouds gathering over Europe, Frank enlisted in the Territorial Force’s 5^th Battalion of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. As a member of H Company, he was based at the drill hall in Mirfield.

With the onset of war in 1914, the men of the Territorial Force, which had been raised to defend Great Britain, were asked if they would fight overseas.  Frank volunteered and was sent to a camp near Doncaster Racecourse for further training. On 14^th April 1915, his battalion moved to France. Given time to get accustomed to the trenches, Frank was sent into the front line near Fleurbaix twelve days later. His battalion would spend the rest of the year fighting in the Ypres Salient in northern France and Belgium. During this time, Frank was promoted to Corporal and trained to use a machine gun. Although in a relatively quiet sector, the battalion suffered hundreds of casualties and faced the first use of phosgene gas by the Germans in December 1915.

In January 1916, Frank was one of over 200 men who were transferred to the 147^th Company of the newly created Machine Gun Corps. Moving to the Somme Valley, Frank spent five months being trained how to use a Vickers machine gun and preparing for the Big Push – what would become known as the Battle of the Somme. Though he had faced many dangers, Frank’s old battalion had never ‘gone over the top’. His new posting was to prove much more dangerous. With over 62,000 of its 170,500 men being killed or wounded, the Machine Gun Corps would become known as the ‘Suicide Club.’ Machine gunners were prime targets for enemy artillery and were so hated by the infantry on both sides that they were sometimes shot when they were captured.

With a firing rate of over 500 bullets a minute, a Vickers machine gun was the equivalent of 40 well-trained riflemen and Frank’s company had twelve of them. With a range of 3,000 yards, they were not just used to create devastating crossfires against attacking troops, they could also be used like artillery. Firing over the heads of the Germans in the front-line opposite, they could be used to prevent them from bringing up supplies and reinforcements.

Frank’s machine gun company went into action on the Somme near Thiepval on 2^nd July 1916. Had he still been in the Duke of Wellington’s, he could have expected to spend 3-4 days a month in the front line. On his first tour as a machine gunner, Frank was there for over seven weeks. Two more long tours followed until Frank’s unit was replaced and sent to northern France in March 1917.

Now promoted to Serjeant and in charge of two machine guns and their crews, Frank remained in almost constant action. The company faced their stiffest test in October 1917 during the Battle of Passchendaele. In the space of just five days, over 25% of the men became casualties. Although the exact date is not recorded, it seems likely that it was during one of these days that Frank was recommended for the Military Medal for his bravery. There are clues in the 147^th Machine Gun Company’s war diary and they point to 9^th October as being the most likely date. The entry in the war diary for that day shows the company having a difficult time when advancing and losing machine guns and their crews to heavy German shelling. Many men were also wounded and this may be the occasion when Frank was too. The company’s commander drew up a list of those men deserving special mention for their conduct that day and submitted it to his superiors. Unfortunately, the list does not survive but just over three weeks later a further entry in the war diary records the awarding of eight Military Medals (MM). Frank’s citation for bravery still survives when the vast majority were lost. It reads: ‘For gallantry bringing up ammunition and stores during the Third Battle of Ypres’. Frank’s name also appeared in the 1918 New Year Honours List. He would not be the only holder of the Military Medal in his family – it was also awarded to his younger brother William.

In 1918, Frank fought in the Fourth Battle of Ypres (7 to 29 April) and then took part in the Hundred Days Campaign (8 August to 11 November), which brought about Germany’s final defeat. He was released from the army in early 1919.

In the 1920s, Frank got married to Olive and started a family. In time he took over the family farm and became a haulage contractor. In their sixties, Frank and Olive made several transatlantic voyages to the United States and Canada. On one occasion, they were passengers aboard the RMS Queen Elizabeth. Frank also maintained strong links with the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment. In 1986, when in his nineties, he was part of the regimental group which returned to the Somme for the 70^th anniversary of the battle.

Frank Stancliffe MM passed away aged 95 in 1989 and was buried in the cemetery on Laneside. He was one of Kirkheaton’s most highly decorated First World War veterans and may well have been the last.

John Lindop Feb 2023

Sources

The Regimental Archive of the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment (West Riding)

The First World War Diary of the 1/5 Battalion Duke of Wellington’s Regiment

The First World War Diary of the 147^th Infantry Brigade’s Machine Gun Company

The Gazette Official Public Record

The Huddersfield Examiner

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