CAPTAIN GEORGE CLIFFORD WHITACKER, 15TH BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (LEEDS PALS).


CAPTAIN GEORGE CLIFFORD WHITACKER, 15TH BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (LEEDS PALS). KILLED IN ACTION 1ST JULY 1916.




George Clifford Whitaker had been a pupil at Ilkley Grammar School before the war. The son of a building contractor he lived with his family in Horsforth. After leaving school he worked alongside his father in the family business. Standing at 6'4" in height and being extremely athletic he was a natural rugby player and represented the Headingley Rugby Football Club along with several other Ilkley men. A pre-war member of the Territorial Army he was offered a commission in the 15th West Yorkshire Regiment, the Leeds Pals. In March 1916 the battalion arrived in the Somme area to prepare the forthcoming 'big push'. The Leeds Pals were to be part of the first wave on the morning of the 1st July and Clifford, now a captain, was to lead the battalions 'C' Company. At 7.30am the Leeds Pals began their advance, towards the village of Serre, only to be met by intense German machine gun and artillery fire. The Pals suffered dreadful casualties and became pinned down in 'no mans land' neither able to move forwards or backwards. Of approximately 1000 men who attacked 528 would become casualties of which almost half this number were killed. Captain Whitaker was reported missing and eventually presumed dead. In the spring of 1917 after the Germans had retreated from the Somme, men from the Leeds Pals searched the battlefield for remains of their comrades killed on the 1st July. Cliffords remains were identified and what was left put into a empty sandbag. He was 28 years old when he was killed and had been due to marry his fiance Mary Hamilton on his next leave. George Clifford Whitaker lies in the British Cemetery at Sailly-en-Bois and is remembered on Horsforth War Memorial


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