233587 James Townsend Sutcliffe MM.British Army 10th Btn. Duke of Wellington's (West Riding) Regiment from:Hyde, Cheshire My grandfather, James Sutcliffe, who I never met, was awarded the Military Medal on 14th September 1916. He was wounded retrieving a comrade from No Man's Land. Subsequently he was transferred to the Royal Army Service Corps and ended his war service in the RFC then RAF in the latter part of 1918. Sadly, I know nothing else about him and the only photo I have of him is from the local newspaper announcing him receiving the Military Medal and reproducing the letter he wrote to his mother obviously embarrassed about all the fuss!
My grandparent's marriage ended in separation c.1945. He had joined up again to fight in WW2, met someone else and left the family. Family history research by me has uncovered some of his story but after 1952 he was never seen again and nobody spoke of him in any great detail.
How anyone who went through two world wars could have come out the other side psychologically unmarked is difficult to understand. My own feeling is that these terrible events left him unable to function on a normal level again and he ended up just living for the moment and grabbing whatever chance of happiness came his way. To me he is a hero though and with the help available today perhaps things might have been different.
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