Mcgreal - The Cheshire Bantams: 15th, 16th and 17th Battalions of the Cheshire Regiment

Amongst my friends there are a number of dedicated Western Front amateur historians, who have gone out of their way to borrow, beg or photocopy material in any shape or form, which they considered may be of interest to me. Each snippet or photograph they have procured no matter how big or small has been of equal value to this project, and has often arrived during a period when I have despaired of completing my task; their fresh information and enthusiasm has usually spurred me on towards my goal. I can think of no fairer way to thank them for their contributions than to acknowledge them in alphabetical order. Ian Boumhrey who donated a postcard and more significantly a scarce book from his collection. Larry Clow for consistently searching for military postcards of the Cheshire regiment and related subjects. Kevin Core, a journalist at the Birkenhead News, whose fine article prompted several of his readers to loan material now reproduced in this project. Alan Gregson assisted greatly by combing the regimental magazine Oak Leaf for information on members of the two Bantam battalions, also assisting with information for the soldiers died compilation, and the honours and awards. Ernie Ruffler for his patience while I photographed articles from delicate ninety year old newspapers, stored in the Wirral Museum, also Emma Chandler when I returned for more photos. During his research on the Wallasey war memorial Nick Simpson has acquired several Bantam photographs, which he has copied for inclusion in this project. A regular contributor to several books of this nature is my friend Peter Threlfall who has helped greatly with information on Birkenhead casualties so labouredly acquired during his research on the Birkenhead war memorial and also generously provided copies of postcards from his extensive collection. I also wish to thank fellow W.F.A. member Mark McGrath for making a pilgrimage on my behalf to the Ypres grave of Private Joseph Clarke, placing a Poppy Appeal memorial cross. Also to the members of the Birkenhead Historical Society for the use of their very scarce Bantam photographs. Finally the dynamic duo of Sylvia and Roni at Barnsley. Roni Wilkinsons good humour and advice has proved invaluable in the publication of this book. My long suffering family have tolerated my obsession with this project for over eight years, and have watched with some amusement my regular outpourings of annoyance aimed at my computer which appears to have a mind of its own. My daughter Gemmas computer skills have come to my rescue countless times, patiently redressing her Dads errors, time after time as once again I blamed the infernal machine, yes I know a bad worker does blame his tools, but something has to take the blame for losing a long evenings work at the touch of a computer key pad. My two other daughters have also helped greatly; copious amounts of tea have magically appeared alongside the computer courtesy of Nicola. The Bantams website has generated an enormous amount of emails from people who are tracing their family history; Stephanie has handled all the email correspondence and assisted greatly in searching the internet for sites containing anything relevant to this project. My lovely wife has been an absolute saint for cheerfully cutting the lawn and carrying out a million and one assorted tasks during these past eight years when I have spent precious spare time bashing away at the keyboard.

With their input this book and an extensive database of former Bantams have come to fruition and to them all I offer my sincere thanks for their generous assistance in this project.

Roll of Honour: 15th and 16th (Service) Battalions Cheshire Regiment

A total of 535 casualties.

Roll of Honour of the 16th [Service] Battalion [2nd Birkenhead].

# Denotes attached to 12th Entrenching battalion, Cheshire regiment.
Denotes attached to 16th Entrenching battalion, Cheshire regiment.
~Transferred to 232 Division Employment Co Labour Corp- Private 224823
>Transferred to 8/Yorks.

17 [Reserve] battalion Cheshire Regiment.[

a family in mourning, the black second button down on the soldiers uniform denotes the loss of a brother in service.

The following pages contain an extensive listing of gallantry awards presented to both of the former Bantam battalions. The information has been collated through my research in documents, medal catalogues, newspapers and the World Wide Web and does not claim to list every award made, simply those that the author is aware of.

Honours and Awards

15th [Service] Battalion, Cheshire Regiment
1st Birkenhead Battalion

ALBERT MEDAL

Shooter. W. 19556 A/CSM. Albert Medal.

On 8-4-1916 while bombing instruction was being given in a trench occupied by two officers, Sergt. Major Shooter and a private, the private who was about to throw a bomb from which he had withdrawn the safety pin, dropped it. Without giving any warning of what had occurred, he ran away. After about two seconds had elapsed Sergt. Major Shooter saw the bomb. He could easily have escaped round the traverse, but in order to save the others he seized the bomb and threw it away. It exploded in the air before Sergt. Major Shooter could take cover, wounding him [in the thigh]. By risking his life he undoubtedly saved the two officers who were with him in the trench from serious or fatal injury. He was one of only three men from the regiment awarded the Albert Medal in WW1. Two of which were awarded for incidents in the U.K, the third was recognized for an event in France. Only two are recorded in the Crookenden regimental history.