Pte 57740 David Duff

• Age: 20
• From: Scarborough
• Regiment: The King's (Liverpool Regiment) 19th Btn
• D.O.W Monday 9th April 1917
• Commemorated at: Bucquoy Rd Cem Ficheux
  Panel Ref: VI.A.7

David Duff was born in Scarborough the March quarter 1897 the only son of David Duff and his wife Elizabeth (nee Robson) who were married in 1896 in Scarborough. 

His mother died soon after David was born, likely of childbirth complications, at the age of 27.

His father remarried in 1900 to Mary Annie Duncan in Sunderland.

On the 1901 Census David senior and his second wife are living at 23 St Mark's Road, Sunderland, where his father works as a military tailor. Meanwhile David Duff jnr, aged 4, is living with his Grandmother Hannah Robson, at 8 Oxford Street, Scarborough. She is a 73 year old widow born in Knapton in 1828. Also present is Hannah's sister Jane Tindall born at Yedingham, Yorkshire in 1835. 

The 1911 Census shows the family living at 362 Whitley Road, Whitley Bay, Northumberland. David junior is 14 years of age and shows as unemployed. His father, David, aged 38 is a Dairyman Manager, Distributing and is shown as born in 1872 and a Dublin resident. His step mother Mary Annie, was born in Sunderland in 1872.  

David enlisted in Sunderland and originally served as 360, Northumberland Divisional Cyclist Company. Based on the amount of the War Gratuity, he volunteered in about August 1915.

Following a transfer he was serving in the 19^th Battalion, The King’s Liverpool Regiment as Private No 57740 when he died of wounds on the 9^th April 1917.

17^th,  19^th & 20th  Battalion at the  Battle of Arras 09^th April 1917

Everard Wyrall records the events of the day  in Volume 2 of his History of the King's Regiment (Liverpool).

The 89^th Brigade formed up for the attack with the 19^th King's on the right and the 20^th King’s on the left. The 17^th King’s supplied the “mopping up" parties and he 2nd Bedfords were in close support.

It was just after 3pm when the advance began “According to scheduled time the waves advanced in good style and with determination; everyone was cheerful and in the best of spirits”

That advance is described by others as magnificent. From the OP’s the observing officers saw a wonderful sight – long lines of men advancing steadily up a long and gradual slope towards the enemy’ front line. Then suddenly they disappeared. The observers quite pardonably, imagined that the German front line had fallen into the hands of the assaulting troops and that the latter were on the way to the enemy’s support line. Alas something very different had happened. When the advancing troops had reached the summit of the long slope up which they advanced the ground suddenly dipped before the German front line , and when the observing officers thought they  were already in the Bosche lines they had not, as a matter of fact, even reached the wire. What the observers took to be the front line was really the support line; the front line could not be seen  - it lay just behind the crest of that slight rise in the ground.

The attacking waves of the 19^th King’s got within 100 yards of the German wire but were then held up. They were faced by three belts of entanglements, practically untouched by our artillery, and nothing could be done but to dig in or else take shelter in the many shell- shell-with which “No Man’s Land" was pitted. By this time the battalion’s losses were very heavy, and when darkness fell “A" and “B" Companies (about 140 in all) lay in shell-holes, two or three hundred yards north east of St. Martin, but just south of the Cojeul River, and “C" and “D" Companies (140 all ranks) were along the river bank, but on the northern side about 150 yards north east of St. Martin.

The first waves of the 20^th King’ advanced at 3.7pm. At 4pm Lieut Beaumont, commanding “A" Company, reported that he had had some forty casualties in passing through the enemy’s barrage. The next message, timed 4.40pm, stated that the position of the battalion at that period was on a crest in front of the enemy’s wire and about 100 yards from it. On the right the 21^st Division was observed to have penetrated the enemy’s front line, but in the left the right Battalion of the 21^st Brigade (the Wilts) was on the St. Martin- Neuville Vitasse road; the left flank of the 20^th King's was, therefore, “ in the air”.

Urgent messages were sent up from Battalion Headquarters to “push on, keeping in touch with right” But little else could be accomplished until those formidable belts of wire had been cut sufficiently to allow the rapid passage of the attacking troops, headed by their bombers.

At 9:30 that night 89^th Brigade Headquarters ordered both the 19^th and 20^th Battalions to withdraw, the former to the two sunken roads running south east from St. Martin, the latter to north west of St. Martin; the guns had been ordered to cut the enemy’s wire during the night in preparation for another attack during the 10^th April.

Of the 17^th King’s  - the “moppers up" – there is little to relate. There was nothing to “mop up" so that they did not function. Yet they had shared all the perils of the advance, and when  after they had fallen back and at midnight held the following positions, “B", “C", and “D" Companies in and around the sunken road north of Boiry-Becquerelle and “A" Company in trenches west of Henin, they lost 2 officers and 16 other ranks killed, and 3 officers and 48 other ranks wounded.

He now rests at Bucquoy Road Cemetery, Ficheux, France.

In November 1916, the village of Ficheux was behind the German front line, but by April 1917, the German withdrawal had taken the line considerably east of the village and in April and May, the VII Corps Main Dressing Station was posted near for the Battles of Arras. It was followed by the 20th and 43rd Casualty Clearing Stations, which remained at Boisleux-au-Mont until March 1918, and continued to use the Bucquoy Road Cemetery begun by the field ambulances. From early April to early August 1918 the cemetery was not used but in September and October, the 22nd, 30th and 33rd Casualty Clearing Stations came to Boisleux-au-Mont and extended it. By the date of the Armistice, it contained 1,166 burials but was greatly increased when graves were brought in from the surrounding battlefields and from small cemeteries in the neighbourhood. 

The cemetery now contains 1,901 burials and commemorations of the First World War. 168 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to 23 casualties known or believed to be buried among them. Other special memorials commemorate 21 casualties buried by their comrades in Henin-sur-Cojeul German Cemetery, whose graves could not be found on concentration.

The cemetery was used again in May 1940 for the burial of troops killed during the German advance. There are 136 burials and commemorations of the Second World War; 26 of the burials are unidentified and special memorials commemorate 39 soldiers whose graves in the cemetery could not be specifically located.

News of his death was reported in the Shields Daily News:-

News has been received that Private David Duff, Liverpool Regiment, son of Mr and Mrs D. Duff of 362 Park View, Whitley, died of wounds on the 9th April.

 His two medals were returned for adjustment.

Soldiers Effects and Pension to father David including a War Gratuity of £7 at  364 Park View, Whitley Bay.

His father and step mother appear on the 1939 Register at 100 Newbridge Street, Newcastle. David Duff, dob 7th Aug 1872, a refreshment caterer, wife Mary A., dob 6th Sept 1872.

His step mother died in 1951, aged 78.

It is not known when his father died.

David is commemorated on the Whitley Bay Memorial.

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