2nd LIEUTENANT RALF LESLIE MACKRIDGE 1st BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 26th APRIL 1918 AGED 20 YEARS

2nd LIEUTENANT RALF LESLIE MACKRIDGE 1st BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 26th APRIL 1918 AGED 20 YEARS

Born in Barnsley on 21st March 1898 Ralf was the oldest son of Thomas and Clara Mackridge. The family moved to Ilkley after the turn of the new century and opened an ironmongers and confectioners shop at 19 The Grove (today occupied by Eddisons Estate Agent).  Ralf was a pupil at Ilkley Grammar School and on the completion of his schooling began agricultural training. By the beginning of the war the family had moved to Wombwell and in May 1916 Ralf went to Pontefract and enlisted into the Cameron Highlanders.

Ralf arrived in France in September 1916 as part of a draft of reinforcements for the 5th Battalion Cameron Highlanders. He remained with this battalion until July the following year during which time he would have seen a considerable amount of front line action. Identified as potential officer material he left the battalion on the 17th July 1917 and returned to Britain to commence officer training.

On the 30th January 1918 Ralf was gazetted as 2nd Lieutenant in the West Yorkshire Regiment and on the 1st April joined the regiments 1st Battalion in France. Just over three weeks later the battalion were near to Kruisstraat to the east of the City of Ypres when they were asked to move forward to reinforce another unit. As the battalion completed this manoeuvre they were subjected to heavy German artillery fire. A battalion suffered a number of casualties including Ralf who was killed.

Lieutenant Col. Weir wrote to Ralf’s grieving parents, “I can hardly let you know how much we all feel the loss of so gallant a young officer, whose military career has been so suddenly brought to a close.” Another comrade, Capt. C E Peberdy , “I was very sorry to lose him. He was a very good officer, whom everyone admired, and showed an admirable example, both under fire and at all times.”

If Ralf Mackridge ever had a grave it has now been lost and instead he is commemorated on the Memorial to the Missing at Tyne Cot and remembered on the war memorials at Wombwell and Ilkley Grammar School.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PRIVATE 77570 HUGH McALISTER ALLAN-BLACK 9th BATTALION ROYAL FUSILIERS (LONDON REGIMENT) KILLED IN ACTION 8th AUGUST 1918 AGED 19

Image
PRIVATE 77570 HUGH McALISTER ALLAN-BLACK 9 th BATTALION ROYAL FUSILIERS (LONDON REGIMENT) KILLED IN ACTION 8 th AUGUST 1918 AGED 19 The youngest son of John Allan-Black and his wife Claire, Hugh was born in the hamlet of Stone Gappe near Lothersdale in the Craven District on the 25 th May 1899. His father was a wool merchant whose father Charles Ingham Black was a noted Irish scholar and poet and formally the Vicar of Burley in Wharfedale. His mother Claire nee Delius was the sister of the famous conductor Frederick Delius of Bradford and who in 1935 would write his biography. When Hugh was very young the family moved to Victoria Avenue in Ilkley where he attended the grammar school. However, in 1914 the family left the town and moved to Castletown on the Isle of Man where Hugh attended King Williams College. Hugh left school in 1917 when he achieved the age of 18 and enlisted into the army. His health was not of the strongest and he appears to have suffered from a w
Read more

2nd LIEUTENANT LEONARD FOSTER, 15th BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (LEEDS PALS BATTALION) DIED OF WOUNDS 13th AUGUST 1916 AGED 28.

Image
2 nd LIEUTENANT LEONARD FOSTER, 15 th BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (LEEDS PALS BATTALION) DIED OF WOUNDS 13 th AUGUST 1916 AGED 28. On the morning of the of the 1 st July 1916, the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, one thousand men of the Leeds Pals awaited the signal to leave the relative safety of their trenches and advance towards the German trenches situated a few hundred yards away in the remains of the village of Serre. Days of heavy British shelling had reduced the landscape to a sea of craters and it was blithely assumed that the enemy wire and trenches had been obliterated. At 7.30am precisely whistles blew and the Pals climbed out of their trenches and began to fan out before starting their deliberate advance towards the German lines. But contrary to their expectations the enemy had not been subdued and instead rushed to man their firing lines and opened up a deadly hail of machine guns bullets. The Leeds men now moving forward in lines walked steadily
Read more

CAPTAIN GEOFFREY SKIRROW 2/4th BATTALION KINGS OWN YORKSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY (Attached). KILLED IN ACTION 27th AUGUST 1918, AGED 22.

Image
CAPTAIN GEOFFREY SKIRROW 2/4 th BATTALION KINGS OWN YORKSHIRE LIGHT INFANTRY (Attached). KILLED IN ACTION 27 th AUGUST 1918, AGED 22. During the Summer of 1918 as the war on the Western Front progressed towards its conclusion there was no let up in the intensity of the fighting as the Allied armies drove against a faltering but still dangerous enemy. After the successes achieved by the Germans during their Spring Offensive the British slowly and steadily regained the ground that they had lost earlier in the year and were now poised to breach the fearsome defences of the Hindenburg Line. Even though the fighting now took place over the shattered battlefields of 1916 and 1917 fighting  was more mobile and success depended on speedy rather than meticulous planning; it was a type of warfare at which British Divisions seemed to excel. The 62 nd (West Riding) Division had only arrived in France in 1917 and was recruited largely from the old West Riding of Yorkshire. Its effi
Read more