Pte 24910 Daniel McCarthy

 

The March 1901 census finds the family (listed as McCarty) at 200 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool.
His father is 56, a wharfinger and his mother is 50.  Teresa is 23, a shop assistant, and Daniel, 21, is a shipping clerk.  Charles, 16, is an electrician’s apprentice, Alice is 11, and David 8.  Also living with them is his uncle John Walsh, 48, a joiner. 

His father died in June that year, aged 53.

 

Daniel married Jane Frances Sammon on 02nd August 1909 (in the Church of the Blessed Sacrament?).  No records of children born to the marriage have been found

 

In November that year his mother died, aged 55.

 

In 1911 Daniel and Frances are living with her married sister Mary Gertrude Kelly, her husband and family, at 25 Firdale Road, Fazakerley.  Daniel is 31, a salesman in the motor(?) trade, Frances is 30, a shop assistant for a retail draper.  Also in the household is his widowed mother in law, Mary Sammon, 53, and sister in law Josephine Sammon, 23.

He enlisted in Liverpool and was serving in the 17th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 24910 when he was killed in action on the 12th October 1916 aged 36 during the Battle of the Transloy Ridges which was part of the ongoing Somme Offensive.

17^th Bn War Diary:  Battle of Transloy Ridge –                                               

11-10-16 - Gird Trench/Gird Support – Battalion in front line and support trenches. British bombardment of enemy front line system commenced about midday.  Hostile shelling was intermittent throughout the day.

12-10-16  - Our bombardment continued. Enemy reply weak.  2.5 p.m. Zero hour. Attack on German front line system commenced.  Enemy wire was found to be uncut and attack was unsuccessful.  Hostile machine gun fire was very heavy and caused many casualties. Battalion H.Q. and Support Trench were heavily shelled throughout afternoon and evening. […] During this action all communication had to be carried out by runners and carrier pigeons as all wires were being continually cut by enemy shelling.

Casualties: 5 officers killed,  5 officers wounded, 38 OR killed, about 225 OR wounded/missing etc.

Graham Maddocks, in “Liverpool Pals” p.140, adds: “As the whistle blew, the 17^th Battalion left its trenches to move forward.  […]  As soon as the attacking waves left their trenches the enemy artillery began to register on them, and at the same time, the defending infantry commenced a murderous rain of fire.  […]  Although their numbers had been depleted by the British bombardment, they were trained and experienced soldiers, well dug in on high ground, and for the most part, looking out on uncut wire.  As such, it was virtually impossible for them to miss the City Battalion men struggling to advance in the mud towards them.   The 17^th Battalion, on the left, was particularly badly hit, as its portion of No Man’s Land contained a slight rise in the ground, and as the troops emerged onto it they were silhouetted against the sky and became easy targets.  Those on the left of the attack, who managed to avoid the hail of bullets and make it to the German wire, then found that it was totally uncut, and thus trapped, they too became easy targets, to be picked off almost at the enemy’s will.  It was hardly surprising that, seeing the first waves being wiped out, some of the following waves turned back and made for their start lines. These lines were now packed with other waves of troops, however, and the fleeing men added to the congestion already there, and became easy prey for the German gunners.  There is some evidence also, to suggest that at this stage, the British trenches were also being hit by their own heavy artillery shells which were falling short.” 

The amount of the War Gratuity suggests that Daniel enlisted in late 1914.  Although he would have been expected to ship to France with his battalion in November 1915, a 1914-1915 Star medal roll has not been found.

Daniel was initially reported as Wounded and Missing in Action;  his wife requested information in the Liverpool Echo on 23rd December 1916:

“Mrs. McCarthy, of 9, Ashdale Road, Fazakerley, is anxious for news of her husband, Private Daniel McCarthy, King’s (Liverpool) Regiment, who was wounded in the face on October 12, whilst taking part in the Somme offensive, and who is now reported missing.”

It is not known when Daniel was officially declared Killed in Action.

His body was not recovered or was subsequently lost as he has no known grave and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, France.

The Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. Over 90% of those commemorated died between July and November 1916. 

On 01st August 1932 the Prince of Wales and the President of France inaugurated the Thiepval Memorial in Picardy. The inscription reads: “Here are recorded the names of officers and men of the British Armies who fell on the Somme battlefields between July 1915 and March 1918 but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.” 

Frances, living at 9 Ashdale Road, Fazakerley, received his Army effects, including a War Gratuity of £8, and was awarded a pension of 13/9d a week from July 1917, replaced by an Alternative Pension of £1 a week from April 1918.

 

His brother Charles enlisted in the K.L.R. in 1902, served 12 years with the Colours, including 10 years in India, contracted dengue fever, returned home in 1915 and was discharged with a total incapacity in 1916 due to pulmonary tuberculosis aggravated by climate and military service, 

 

His youngest brother David served as a Lieutenant with the 1st Battalion K.L.R. and earned the Military Cross. He  was killed in action on 07th October 1918.  He was 25.

He now rests in Beuvry Communal Cemetery, Pas de Calais. 

 

Daniel is commemorated in the Hall of Remembrance at Liverpool Town Hall on Panel 25.

Widow Frances, dob 1^st July 1878, is found on the 1939 register still living at 9 Ashdale Road with brother John Green Sammon and sister Josephine Sammon. 

She died aged 61 in 1948 

We currently have no further information on Daniel McCarthy, If you have or know someone who may be able to add to the history of this soldier, please contact us.