BORN HULL 1893. ENLISTED 28/9/14. SON OF JOHN & ANN WHISKER ABOVE. ONE OF 5 CHILDREN (3 SONS). HE WON THE MILITARY MEDAL KEEPING HIS GUN IN ACTION, UNDER HEAVY FIRE. HIS PHOTOGRAPH APPEARS IN THE HULL DAILY MAIL ON 22ND MARCH 1918. HE WAS ENGAGED.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. L/CPL HARRY WHISKER MM 12/698. Born in 1893, Harry was the youngest of nine children to John and Ann Whisker of 21 Prospect Place, Church Street, Hull. A Sawmill Labourer by trade, he enlisted at Hull City Hall on 28th September 1914 joining the 12th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Sportsmen’, 3rd Hull Pals. A veteran of Egypt Harry was made Lance Corporal following the ill-fated attack on Serre in November 1916, the last action of the slaughter on the Somme that Summer. He survived Oppy Wood when so many of his comrades fell, but was wounded in the left thigh in November 1917 and injured out of the line. Unfortunately for Harry it wasn’t a ‘Blighty’- the soldiers’ term for a wound that took you out of the war- and he returned to the front line a few days later. Transferring to the 11th Battalion when the 12th was disbanded in February 1918, Harry was pushed up the meet the full onslaught of the German Spring Offensive and was killed in action on 26th March 1918. His body was never recovered and his name is commemorated on the Arras Memorial; he was 24 years old.
