Lieutenant Frank Smail

Lieutenant  Frank Weddell Smail, ” D” Coy. 1st/7th ( Territorial ) Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers. He died in Hospital in London on 1st December 1915 as a result of wounds received in action in Belgium on 22nd June 1915, aged 23. He was the son of Henry Richardson Smail of Berwick-upon-Tweed and is buried in Berwick-upon-Tweed Cemetery. He had previously served with the Lothian and Border Horse and before the War had farmed Linton Burnfoot, near Kelso. .At that time the Battalion were holding front line trenches in the Wulverghem sector and suffered some casualties through shellfire. His father was the proprietor of the ” Berwickshire Advertiser “. The photo shows the impressive Memorial raised to commemorate the 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division of which the Battalion was part until February 1918. It was erected near the village of Weiltje in the Ypres Salient where nearby the Division had fought its first action of the War on 26th April 1915 during the Battle of St. Julien only days after landing on the Continent.

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