Remembered today, with Gratitude.
Private 1097 Francis Douglas Tuck 1/5th (Flintshire's) Battalion, Royal Welsh Fusiliers.
Francis was born in Hawarden, Flintshire in 1895 the youngest son of John a Master Boot maker originally from Dulwich, South London and his wife Susan, a Hawarden girl.
Francis and his older brother Thomas enlisted at Flint Drill Hall into the local battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and after training sailed from Devonport with the rest of their battalion on 19th July 1915 bound for Imbros, they landed at Suvla Bay on 9th August. On 10th August the 1/5th made an unsuccessful attack on Scimitar Hill suffering casualties of 12 Officers and 168 Other ranks killed, wounded or missing.
Francis was wounded at some point and being transported by ship to hospital in Alexandria, Egypt when he succumbed to his wounds, died and was buried at sea on 5th October 1915 he was just 20 years old. He is commemorated on the Alexandria (Chatby) Memorial, Egypt.
Thomas his older brother aged 23, had been killed just 2 weeks after landing at Suvla on the 22nd of August, he has no known grave and is therefore commemorated on The Helles Memorial, Turkey. Thomas and Francis are both remembered on the War Memorial in Hawarden, Flintshire in North Wales.
Find at Boezinge, Belgium.
A Bayonet scabbard unearthed during the excavations at the Boezinge canal, north of Ypres in Belgium was inscribed 5 RWF and with the Army Serial No 1097.
The 1/5th battalion never served in France or Flanders at any time during the whole of the war. How did it get there? The answer it seems is quite simple, it was common practice for serviceable equipment recovered from the dead to be reissued to another soldier. It can only be hoped that its new owner, fared better in the war than Francis.