BORN HULL 1885. SON OF WILLIAM BURN & MARY ANN JOHNSON, OF 39 JALLAND STREET (HDM ADDRESS 16/06/1916) AND 20 BRINDLEY STREET, HULL. HIS FATHER WAS HEADMASTER AT ST PETER’S SCHOOL, DRYPOOL. HE WAS A HULL TEACHER. ENLISTED IN THE HULL PALS. KILLED IN ACTION, ON 04/06/1916, AGED 31. HIS DEATH WAS REPORTED IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL ON 17TH JUNE 1916.
Hull Pals Memorial Post: Born in 1885, Frank was the third of six children to William and Mary Ann Johnson of 20 Brindley Street, Hull. A School Teacher before the war he enlisted on 1st September 1914 joining the fledgling 10th Battalion East Yorkshire, ‘The Commercial’, 1st Hull Pals. After training at barracks in Hornsea, Beverley and Ripon the Pals left Devonport for Alexandria, Egypt on 8th December 1914. They served in Egypt until late February the following year when they received orders to sail for France and the trenches of the Western Front. He had been in the Machine Gun section for a few months when Frank was killed at his post by a shell in the small hours of the morning of 4th June 1916. The battalion came under a particularly sustained and accurate bombardment, a German reprisal for one the British had hammered their own lines with just hours before. He is buried in Sucrerie Military Cemetery; he was 31 years old. Major Carver wrote ” he was one the best men I had.”
Private Tait, who was in the reserve trenches, describes the immediate aftermath:
“We rushed down to the front line to dig the poor fellows out. What a sight! Dead and wounded are strewn everywhere. The front line is blown to hell. Soon wounded are being carried out-some on stretchers, others struggling along with the help of a comrade. The dead are thrown aside until the wounded are all away. It was a veritable nightmare.”
Someone took what was left of Frank Johnson and threw it to one side. Think on that a moment.
