In Warlencourt Cemetery, France is the Commonwealth War Grave of 3429 Private Frederick Brunskill serving with the 1st/6th Battalion Durham Light Infantry who died 05/11/1916.
Ron Shotton has submitted the following:-
Frederick was the son of Frederick and Emma Brunskill and was born in 1897 at High Etherley. In 1911 Frederick was 13 and at school. His father had died in 1906 at Sedgefield.
Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:
Suffolk born Emma Sangster married tailor John Gill from Woodland in 1884 and they had three children, Esther, Sarah and Philip, all born at Toft Hill. Four years after John’s death in September 1893 Sarah married road labourer Frederick Brunskill and they had four children, Margaret (b.1896), Frederick born in 1897 at Etherley as were Lizzie Annie (b.1901) and George Albert (b.1906).
1901 saw Fred and Emma living with all seven offspring at Hunters Hill (between Etherley and Spring Gardens, West Auckland). Later that year father Fred was an inmate for twelve months at the asylum at Winterton, and he died four years later in 1906. By 1911 Emma and all the children, except Margaret, were living at Benton Cottages, High Etherley, with only 18 year old Philip in work.
Kevin Richardson has provided the following service information:
Fred Brunskill enlisted at Bishop Auckland into the local territorial force, the 6th Battalion Durham Light Infantry with the regimental number 3429. He was not awarded the 14/15 Star so would not have joined his Battalion in France until 1916, where they fought as part of the 151st Brigade, 50th Division.
In November 1916 they were at the Butte de Warlencourt, an ancient burial mound, located between the towns of Albert and Bapaume in northern France, which had already resisted numerous British attacks over the previous month and was honeycombed with tunnels and dugouts providing shelter for the German garrison.
Now it was the turn of the 151st (Durham) Brigade. The 3 DLI Battalions took over the front line positions, 1st/6th DLI was in the centre of the line, 1st/8th DLI was to the right and 1st/9th DLI, known as the “Gateshead Ghurkas” were to the left. Together they would attack the Butte on 5th November 1916 at zero hour 0910.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, the companies moved forward to man the front line trench. The weather was dreadful, heavy rain, a howling gale, it was bitterly cold and there were rumours that men had drowned in the mud. Owing to the boggy ground, progress was extremely slow. The trench was in a deplorable condition and the men had to march along the parados in full view of the enemy, to reach their allocated places.
As Zero Hour struck, all the available artillery laid down a barrage some 200 yards in front of the jumping off line. The Durhams went over the top with mud high above their knees, wading, slipping, stumbling and falling forward, laden with all their equipment – it was worse than they could ever have imagined. “They were met by terrific and annihilating fire and crumpled up like snow in summer”, reported one young Lance Corporal of 1st/6th DLI.
The Germans concentrated all their machine gun fire on a devastating onslaught on the hapless Durhams, and succeeded in isolating the British front line and cut off the assaulting troops from any reserves. The Durhams fought the battle on their own.
Eventually the survivors fell back across No Man’s Land with the hard pressing Germans soon threatening even the British front line. After hard fighting, the Germans were held back with the situation exactly as it had been before they started.
From the three DLI Battalions there are 10 officers and 264 other ranks with 5th November 1916 recorded as their date of death.
There are memorials dedicated to the 50th Northumbrian Division and the 1st/6th DLI at Wieltje, Belgium, the Butte de Warlencourt in France, Durham Cathedral (D47.073), the Church of St. Mary and St. Cuthbert, Chester le Street (C105.18) and St. Andrew’s Church, South Church, Bishop Auckland (S144.03).
Private Fred Brunskill was one of those killed in action 5th November 1916.
Frederick Brunskill is remembered at High Etherley on H127.01 and H127.02 and in the D.L.I. Book of Remembrance page 306.
