Frank Woods Smith

A Lance Corporal with 9th Battalion, Frank died on 13th of September 1916 at the age of 20. 

Frank was born at Norton Subcourse, near Loddon, on 6 April 1896, a son of George Woods and Emma Esther Smith. In 1901 Frank’s mother died and Frank, and his siblings, were living at The Workhouse, Hales, Norfolk. In 1911 he was a boarder at Heckingham, Norfolk, and he worked as a domestic groom.  

Frank volunteered and enlisted in the Army at Lowestoft. He joined the Suffolk Regiment and was posted to the 9th Battalion. 

The accompanying photograph of Frank was taken at Shoreham on 6 March 1915.

On 1915 Frank married Harriet Clarissa Lucy Barrett: this was registered in the Mutford district. Their home was at 9 Kent Road, Lowestoft. Later Harriet lived at 77 Seago Street, Lowestoft, Subsequently Harriet remarried. 

Frank arrived in France with the 9th Battalion on 31 August 1915. 

Colonel Murphy’s ‘The History of the Suffolk Regiment 1914-1927’ has the following account of the 9th Battalion’s attack at The Quadrilateral 13 September 1916:

The battalion took part in an attack by the 61st Division on the Quadrilateral., the 71st Brigade being on the left and the 16th on the right. The 9th Battalion attacked with three companies in the front line and one in support, zero being 6.20 a.m. The battalion got through the German out post line quite easily, but on gaining the open ground, which stretched for about four hundred yards to the enemy’s wire, came under a terrific machine-gun fire from the formidable strong point known as the Quadrilateral. Across this bare expanse the men struggled bravely forward. Lieutenant Macdonald with others getting close enough to throw a bomb into the German stronghold before being wounded. No further progress could, however, be made. At 7.30 a.m. another attack, in which A Company participated, was launched; and in the evening a third. Still no entrance could be effected. The battalion therefore, in touch with the units on both flanks, dug itself in on a line about half a mile in front of the jumping off trenches of the morning.  

The Battalion’s casualties were: officers 2 killed and 10 wounded; other ranks 15 killed and 185 wounded. 

Frank was reported missing and his death was presumed to have taken place on, or since, 13 September.