BORN HULL 1893. ONLY SON OF WALTER HERBERT (1868-1948) & BELLA JOHNSON 91869-1929), OF 156 ALLIANCE AVENUE, HULL (WAR PENSION ADDRESS). HE WORKED AS A CLERK IN THE IMPORT DEPARTMENT, FOR THE THOMAS WILSON LINE. HIS FATHER WAS ALSO A CLERK FOR THE SHIP OWNER.
HE ENLISTED IN THE HULL COMMEMRICALS. KILLED IN ACTION, ON 12/04/1918, AGED 25. COMMEMORATED ON THE PLOEGSTEERT MEMORIAL, BELGIUM.
HIS NAME IS LISTED ON THE WILSON LINE CRICKET & ATHLETIC CLUBS ROLL OF HONOUR. HIS PHOTO WAS TAKEN IN APRIL 1915, WITH 13 OTHER MEN FROM THE WILSON IMPPORT TEAM THAT HAD ENLISTED. (Hull Daily News)
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE FRANK HERBERT JOHNSON 10/519. Born 1893, the eldest of two children and only son, of Walter and Bella Johnson, of 156 Alliance Avenue, Hull. One of the original Pals, Frank was a Clerk before war came, but queued in those long uneven lines of September 1914 when everything still seemed like a Boy’s Own adventure and all the talk was of being home for Christmas. How that dream must have faded as Frank fought first in Egypt, then on the Somme and at Oppy Wood watching the men who stood in line with him on that balmy summer day fall one by one to be replaced by first strangers and then conscripts. He was killed in action on 12th April 1918 close to the remains of the French village of Bethune as the 10th tried desperately to hold the line in the face of the German advance begun the month before. His body was never recovered and his name is commemorated on the Ploegsteert Memorial. He was 25 years old.
