Sheffield City Battalion (Sheffield Pals)

[debjohn]

one of my relatives William Blenkarn was a lance corporal in the Yorks&Lancs

12 Sheffield Battalion . He was killed 10/09/1916 France/Flanders I think he had a mention in the paper but I have nt found it

[cat631]

Hello Tatoo. I've just looked at the index at the back of The Sheffield City Battalion, there are 13 Wrights but none with the initial E.

[cat631]

Hello Debjohn. Your relative is listed in the Sheffield Battalion Book. Says: Born Burngreave, 1891. Killed in action 10th Sept 1916 Loose Memorial

[cat631]

Hello Firesmudge. Thanks for that link, there are some great pics on it.

[retep]

one of my relatives William Blenkarn was a lance corporal in the Yorks&Lancs

12 Sheffield Battalion . He was killed 10/09/1916 France/Flanders I think he had a mention in the paper but I have nt found it

 

 

CWGC has

 

http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=727879

[Jossman]

Having been born during the last months of WWII, April ,45 I too played "War" and was influenced to such an extent that at the age of 15, I joined the Royal Navy as a boy. On reaching the age of 19 and with 4 years service under my belt I joined HMS Ickford, a seaward defence vessel in Singapore. We had a total of 17 ship's company including the 2 officers. In that year '64 Indonesia declared war against Malaysia and saw us as allies defending the Malay Peninsular and Borneo Confrontation. Sorry for the history lesson, but, my point is, that in reality war is very heady stuff and when that reality sets in, the real horror is realised. At 19 I was witnessing small warships in action with the dead and wounded being brought back from Borneo as deck cargo. These included Paras, SAS and Ghurkas, victims of jungle warfare. Not a pleasant task or sight. We were engaging small Indonesian warships sometimes in very heavy small arms fire.

 

My heart will always go out to the victims of any war and their families. War is a hideous and damaging way of conducting disagreements between any countries. Only the common people suffer, not the politicians that send them away under a flurry of flags and pompous glory speeches.

[JoeP]

Hi all,

 

I thought this might be of interest - a Press Release from the Passenger Transport Executive :

 

STARTS

 

PALS WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED.

 

The Sheffield Pals Battalion was honoured on 7 November with the official launch of a bus named in respect of those who fought in one of the most courageous actions of World War One.

 

In a mark of remembrance, Lord Mayor, Councillor Jackie Drayton and a senior officer from the regiment cut the ribbon to name one of South Yorkshire’s Rural Links buses ‘Serre’.

 

The unveiling was part of the ceremony hosted jointly by the Lord Mayor of Sheffield, and the York & Lancaster Regimental Museum to celebrate the new edition of a book on the Sheffield Pals Battalion by Ralph Gibson.

 

At the Town Hall event David Young, Head of Transport Integration at the Transport Executive presented Colonel Norton, a Senior Officer of the Regiment and Deputy Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire, with a model of the ‘Serre’ bus and a copy of the storyboard that is on permanent display inside the working bus.

 

The storyboard follows the battle for Serre, a small hamlet on the northern side of the Somme in German hands since 1914, and one of the strongest strategic points on the front line.

 

Within 18 days of arriving in France in 1916, the Sheffield Pals had advanced to the front line opposite Serre. On 1 July 1916 during the first day of the Somme offensive, they fought a heroic but unsuccessful attempt to capture the fortified hilltop of Serre.

 

More than 500 officers and men from the battalion were killed, wounded or listed as missing.

 

“In Sheffield brothers, cousins, friends and workmates enlisted together and within just over a week the Sheffield Pals reached its full capacity of 1,000 men,” said David Young.

 

“We feel that naming our bus Serre is a small but heartfelt way of commemorating the courage and selflessness of a generation of young South Yorkshire men.”

 

Serre is one of nineteen named rural buses in South Yorkshire and is operated by Stagecoach Yorkshire on Service 201 between Sheffield, Stocksbridge and Meadowhall.

 

END

[Teabag]

That is a very thoughtful gesture

[tatoogoo]

Hello Tatoo. I've just looked at the index at the back of The Sheffield City Battalion, there are 13 Wrights but none with the initial E.

 

Thanks, sorry it took so long to get back to you. I've done a bit more digging and I now think that maybe my grandfather wasn't in the Sheffield Pals after all despite family having told me categorically that he was.. Two things lead me to believe that he must have been in some other part of the conflict, maybe at Ypres or the Somme - one is that he was definitely gassed with mustard gas (which he was lucky to survive) which I don't think was used on the Pals and the second is that I believe that he joined up as a boy soldier at the age of 14 having lied about his age, partly to get away from a foster family with whom he was living. Now I'm back where I started and don't have a clue how to try to find more information as there are no family members left alive who might have more info.

 

Thanks for your efforts.

[debjohn]

thanks for the info about william blenkarn, his niece is still alive and she was very interested, apparently he was a sunday school teacher engaged to be married,after his death his fiancee never married