Hull Pals Memorial Post. SGT FRANK MENNELL 13/1134. Born 1894, the second of three children, to Harry (1861-1942) and Frances Mennell (1858-1944), of 71 Derringham Street, Hull (Army Address). he was 5 foot, 8 inches tall, 36-38 inch chest, 144 lbs weight
Frank was a Clerk before the war, but enlisted on 23rd December 1914, joining the 13th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment. He served at home, until posted to France, on 01/02/1917. Promoted to Sergeant and transferred to the 10th Battalion, in time for the attack on Oppy Wood in the small hours of May 3rd 1917. He was wounded in the fighting and evacuated to 30th Casualty Clearing Station at Aubigny where he died of those wounds on May 9th. He is buried at Aubigny Communal Cemetery Extension. He was 23 years old. Percy Cawkwell, the stretcher bearer, rather graphically describes the difficulty in recovering the wounded from No-Man’s Land after dark: “I struck a match to see but as soon as I did a machine gun from quite close opened up at us. I did have time, however, in the brief flare of the match to see a great hole under his arm. It was a cavity from his arm pit to his waist and it was wide and deep. I caught a glimpse through tattered uniform of splintered white rib bone, torn flesh, blood vessels and what must have been his lungs. My gorge rose. I was horrified and all I could do was try and plug it with the spare shell dressings in my pack. They just disappeared as bloody wads into his body.”
