Notes
The Bradford Grammar School website (see References) states: 'Frank Ling was the elder son of Dr. Harold Charles Ling and his second wife Catherine Mary Godfrey. Charles was from Burniston, near Scarborough, where his father was a blacksmith, publican and maltster. Charles qualified as a Physician and Surgeon and by 1891 he was practising in Keighley. His first wife was Evalina, with whom he had a daughter named Doris Mary. After she died he married Catherine, who came from Thealty in Lincolnshire, and three more children were born: Frank, Billy and Mary. Frank was born on 1st February 1896. He was twelve when he started at the Bradford Grammar School in 1908. In his three years in the Classical forms he was near the bottom of the form in most subjects. His results improved when he moved into the Matriculation Form and after leaving in 1913 he started to train as a doctor. In October 1914 he passed the London University M.B. matriculation exam in the Second Division. However, Frank had already interrupted his studies to join the Leeds University O.T.C., in which he held the rank of Lance-Corporal. He was subsequently commissioned in the West Yorkshire Regiment in April 1915. Some precise details of Ling’s career are lacking. He served in the ‘Leeds Rifles’ (2/7th West Yorks.), which went to France in January 1917 (185th Infantry Brigade, 62nd Division), and he was attached to the Trench Mortar Battery. He became its second-in-command in June, with promotion to Lieutenant, and in October 1917 commander of the battery in with the rank of Captain. Trench mortar officers were often not popular in the front line because their fire attracted retaliation, but their weapons gave important firepower to the infantry. There is no doubt that Ling was an effective officer and he as also renowned for being ‘brave and fearless’. He was awarded the Military Cross, probably in the fighting at Bullecourt in May 1917, for ‘conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty’ while supporting an attack and breaking up a German counter-attack despite being under heavy fire from machine guns and shells. He was awarded the same honour at the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917 (a ‘bar’ to his first medal). The citation reads: ‘When an
attack was temporarily held up and heavy casualties occurred among the infantry, he at once brought his section into action. He then collected a few men and charged a strong point, being the first to enter it, and killing the officer in charge and two men. But for his
great dash and initiative the whole advance would have been seriously delayed.’ He received this honour from the King at Buckingham Palace.
Ling disregarded the dangers of his job but his luck eventually ran out. On the night of 23/24th May 1918 he was giving supporting fire to 2/7th Battalion while it conducted what the War Diary called ‘a minor enterprise’ against a German post near Bucquoy. It continued that ‘Enemy trench mortar and Field Gun retaliation … was severe.’ One shell hit the ammunition for Frank Ling’s mortars causing it to explode. He was killed with two of his men, and was buried where he fell. After the war’s end his body was reburied in Gommecourt Cemetery. One officer wrote to his parents of Frank’s ‘extreme courage and cheerfulness’; another described him as ‘one of Britain’s bravest men’; a third added that ‘never thinking of
danger’ he ‘gave others confidence who were with him.’