THE FATES of three Ingrow soldiers fighting in the Dardanelles were reported in the Keighley News on September 11, 1915.
Privates Willie Sawley and William Watmough had been injured, but their comrade Lance Corporal Frank Treen was feared dead.
It was subsequently confirmed that Frank, 26, had been killed in action during the gruelling Gallipoli campaign.
Son of a Midland Railway porter, Frank spent his childhood in Ingrow and Spring Bank before becoming a joiner with local builder William Steel.
Frank, who played football for the Keighley Harlequins in peacetime, was highly regarded by his employer. He enlisted in 1914, along with several other local men.
Privates Sawley and Watmough both wrote home after receiving their wounds in the autumn of the following year.
Willie said he had been shot through the thigh during an advance up a hill, amidst “lots of bloodshed”.
He added: “We have had a very rough time of it since we landed here, but we are getting our own back.”
William, in a letter to a friend at Ingrow, wrote about the death of Lance Corporal Treen.
He said: “It knocked the life out of me when I heard, as he was one of my best pals. How I got through, God only knows.”
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