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Band. Frank Dodd
British Army 1st Battalion Cheshire Regiment
from:Hoole, Chester
(d.3rd September 1916)
Frank Dodd was born in Tranmere, Cheshire and died during the Battle of Guillemont, one of the campaigns of the Somme. Records are sketchy and a bit confusing. Some records have him aged 23 and others 26. Also there is some confusion over the actual date of his death. Different records show the 2nd, 3rd and 4th of September 1916. His name appears on the Thiepval memorial.
He joined the Cheshire Territorials in November 1912 and was called up at the outbreak of war in August 1914. He served with the Expeditionary Force in France and Flanders from 25th of July 1916, as a stretcher bearer attached to the 1st Battalion.
An account of his death, stating the 3rd of September, was recounted by one of his comrades. "A week today the drummers were called out to carry water up to the trenches to the boys who had driven the Huns back during the day, and were badly in need of a drink. We arrived in the line at eight o'clock in the evening, and were sitting grouped together on the slopes of a valley when a shell burst close by, and one of the fragments caught your son, which, I am sorry to say, was the cause of his death."
