Prescot Roll of Honour

Prescot Reporter 15/10/1917

Service Details

At the outset of war, each Battalion, such as the 5th, would have had a 'second line' battalion, formed to provide reinforcements and replacements. This battalion would have been designated, for example, the 2nd/5th Battalion.

However, by 1915, the ever-increasing demand for men led to these 'second line' units becoming field units. As a consequence, a 'third line' was formed to train reinforcements and also to act as a depot for personnel evacuated sick and wounded from the front after their discharge from hospital.

To implement this scheme, the 3rd/5th Battalion was raised. Few records have survived for these third line units, although owing to the heavy losses sustained on the Western Front by the parent units in 1915 and 1916 man hundreds of officers and men were simply trained and dispatched to France to fill the gaps. Private Stanley will have been one such man.

We can be reasonably sure that he was serving with the parent Battalion, the 5th, as he is buried in Buffs Road Cemetery, just north of the hamlet of Wieltje. The 5th Battalion were based here in June 1917, preparing for the attack on the Gheluvelt-Langemarck Line, in what came to be known as the Third Battle of Ypres, better known as Passchendaele.

The Battalion were tasked with taking an area known as 'The Black Line'. The artillery barrage commenced at 3.50 a.m. and the attack began with the Liverpool Scottish in the lead at 5.5 a.m.

As the attack had commenced in the dark, it had encountered light opposition and the initial 'Blue Line' was reached with very few casualties. As it became lighter, the German fire increased but the attackers maintained their pace to within 200 yards of the objective. The advance was held up at this point by machine gun fire but the arrival of two tanks soon had them on the move again and they surged into the German trenches, with lots of hand-to-hand fighting and bombing.

By nightfall the new line was secure.

The Battalion had lost 1 officer and 27 other ranks killed, with 5 officers and 133 other ranks wounded, 1 officer and 11 other ranks missing.

It is hard to say with any certainty which point in the battle caused the death of Private Stanley, but his body was recovered and buried at Buffs Road Cemetery.

The Parish Magazine (date unknown), reported 'Pte. Robert Birchall Stanley, aged 34, of 49 Cross Street. 5th South Lancs., fell in action on 31st July 1917. As one of our local coal dealers he was well known in Prescot.'

Extract from the Prescot Reporter, 14/09/1917

The Register of Soldiers Effects

Robert Stanley's Medal Index Card shows his entitlement to the British War Medal and Victory Medal. The absence of a date of entry to a theatre of war usually indicates entry after the 1st January 1916.

Private Stanley's grave at Buffs Road Cemetery

The Stanley family grave in Prescot Cemetery includes a commemoration of Robert. Picture courtesy of Les Birchall