L/Cpl 24471 Ernest Alfred McEvoy

 

By 1911 they have moved to 10 Milroy Street, Wavertree Road with the five surviving children at home. The census form was filled in by son Walter.  His father is 43, a coal carter, his mother 45, Ernest is 20, a milk cart driver, Walter, 19, is a junior drapery clerk, Harold, 13, and Charles, 11, are at school, and Florence is 6.

 

Ernest enlisted in Liverpool joining the 20th Battalion of The King's Liverpool Regiment with the service number of 24471. The amount of the War Gratuity suggests that he enlisted in about April 1915.  He shipped to France with his battalion, disembarking at Boulogne on 07th November 1915.  He served in 8th Platoon.

 

Formed in November 1914 the 20^th Battalion were originally billeted at Tournament Hall, Knotty Ash before on 29^th January 1915 they moved to the hutted accommodation purposely built at Lord Derby’s estate at Knowsley Hall. On 30th April 1915 the 20th Battalion alongside the other three Pals battalions left Liverpool via Prescot Station for further training at Belton Park, Grantham. They remained here until September 1915 when they reached Larkhill Camp on Salisbury Plain. 

Ernest reached France on 07th November 1915.

Ernest was killed in France on the 21st March 1917, aged 26. The circumstances of his death were recorded in the battalion diary.

 

He was taking part in a recce patrol of 11 men who were ambushed by the German's at Neuville Vitasse. The diary records that 11 men went out on the patrol and that only 4 returned. The diary advises that 2nd Lieut Green and Serjeant Knowles were captured and taken prisoner. They recorded one death, that being Corporal Robert McArdle. The other men killed in the action were 2nd Lieutenant Robert Edward Green and Private 49551 John Wilkinson.

His parents were officially notified that their son was wounded and posted as Missing from 21st March 1917.

 

His mother contacted the International Red Cross in hopes that he had been taken prisoner, but was informed on 27th April 1917 that they held no information on Ernest. 

 

Later, information was learned from a POW, Pte. Henry Johnson, who stated that Ernest had been “Seriously wounded while on patrol along with me on 21st March 1917. I actually saw him myself as he was with me.” This was communicated to the family on 06th August 1918 some 17 months after his disappearance. (Henry Johnson, from Almonds Green, West Derby, served as Pte. 14515, with the 14th, 1st, and 20th Bn K.L.R.  He was captured unwounded at Arras, and held at Friedrichsfeld and Limburg Camps. He was repatriated in January 1919.)

 

Ernest was buried close to where he fell and after the war when graves were concentrated, his body was identified (date of death given as 12th April 1917 on the CWGC Graves Registration form), and he was reinterred in London Cemetery, Neuville Vitasse at II.E.18 where his headstone bears the epitaph:

"HE HAS GONE TO BE WITH CHRIST WHICH IS FAR BETTER"  

Neuville-Vitasse was attacked by the 56th (London) Division on 7 April 1917 and captured by the same Division on 9 April. The village was almost entirely lost at the end of March 1918 but regained at the end of the following August. It was later "adopted" by the Metropolitan Borough of Paddington. The London Cemetery was made by the 56th Division in April 1917 and greatly extended after the Armistice when graves were brought in from other burial grounds and from the battlefields between Arras, Vis-en-Artois and Croisilles. London Cemetery contains 747 burials and commemorations of the First World War. 318 of the burials are unidentified and on a screen wall are panels bearing the names of casualties buried in the following four cemeteries, whose graves were destroyed by shell fire:- WANCOURT ROAD CEMETERY No.2, just East of NEUVILLE-VITASSE; NEUVILLE0-VITASSE MILL CEMETERY, close to a German strong point on the road to Mercatel; BEAURAINS ROAD CEMETERY No.2, just North-West of NEUVILLE-VITASSE; BEAURAINS GERMAN CEMETERY; and ERCHIN GERMAN CEMETERY (Nord). The cemetery was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens.

 

Ernest earned his three medals.  His Army effects and a War Gratuity of £9 went to his mother.  

 

On the 1939 register, taken in September, his parents are living at 20 Edenfield Road with married daughter Florence and her family. His father is 72, a retired coal carter, and his mother 73.

 

In December 1939 his parents celebrated their golden wedding anniversary.  

His father died on the 05th December 1943, aged 76.

His mother died in 1947, at the age of 81.

 

Ernest is commemorated on the following memorials:

St Cyprian with Christ Church, Edge Hill, Liverpool

Beacon Hall Memorial, situated at Liverpool City Mission, Jubilee Drive, Liverpool

Hall of Remembrance, Liverpool Town Hall, Panel 17.