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World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great 1914 1918 first battalion regiment
Dvr. John Augustine Clarke
British Army 484th Company Army Service Corps
from:Kettering, Northants
My grandfather, John A. Clarke, served in the ASC, 484 Coy. He enlisted in Ipswich 14/6/15. Initially he was part of 54th Div Train ASC but his company was transferred to 27th Div Train leaving from Devonport for Salonika. He told me of time driving donkey limbers to the front line through valleys whilst under fire and of the privations during the persuit of the Bulgarian Army in 1918. He spoke of service with a friend called Teddy Drage who lived in Higham Ferrers, Northants after the war.
After the armistice with Bulgaria he was transferred to Batum, in the Crimea to support the White Russians under Denniken in the Civil war. (He disliked them and became a communist after the war teaching himself Russian.) He was demobbed on May 12th 1919. After the war he was a master tailor working for the Co-op Clothing Factory in Kettering where he was a fire watcher during WW2. He often said that WW2 was not a war in comparison with WW1. He committed suicide in 1980 aged 84. I have his two medals which he never took out of the package in which he received them. My research into his service was hampered initially by a cap badge he had for the Royal Artillery until the edge of his medal got me on the the Army Service Corps.
His father, Charles Clarke had worked at Woolwich Arsenal before the war and played for Arsenal FC until injury ended his career at Middlesbrough. Grandad last saw his father, who died tragically young, on London Bridge before he left for Salonika. Grandad used to like to go to the spot on London Bridge where he last saw his father when visiting London to see Arsenal play. He was very angry when the bridge was sold to America.
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