RALPH Gladstone had already experienced adventure before he joined the Royal Engineers on the outbreak of the First World War.

So it came as no surprise that he showed immense valour in bloody skirmishes while carrying out his duties as a battlefield sapper.

On one occasion, the Cross Hills man was stabbed with a bayonet while using a trenching tool to fight soldiers storming the bridge he was mending.

Another time, while serving in France, he was wounded while mending barbed-wire entanglements.

The Men of Worth Project has researched Ralph Oscar Gladstone’s experiences, gleaning information from the Keighlian, the magazine of Keighley Boys Grammar School.

Ralph, born in Cardiff in the 1890s, and grew up in South Craven, studying mechanical and electrical engineering and serving an apprenticeship with Keighley Electrical Company before working for British Thomson in Rugby.

He took charge of erecting new plant in both the UK and on the Continent and, by 1913, was helping put electrical power into sulphur mines near Seville in Spain.

Ralph was selected for the Royal Monmouth Royal Engineers in 1914 due to his experience with bridge building, and crossed to France in time to spend Christmas in the trenches before the battle of Ypres.

The Keighlian wrote: “When the Canadians made their brilliant stand at that place, Ralph Gladstone was engaged in helping to keep a bridge intact across the Ypres Canal.

“A body of Germans broke through the lines and managed to reach the bridge, where they were met by the engineers armed with spades and any tools they could find.

“During the unequal hand-to-hand combat Ralph Gladstone, armed only with a trenching tool, received a bayonet thrust in the chest.”

After his recovery Ralph returned to the firing line, only to suffer concussion within days, after a shell burst by the door of his dug-out.

A third wound led to several months in hospital and a posting back to Monmouth to lead bayonet practice, before he returned to France in November 1917 as a second lieutenant.

The Keighlian reported: “He was killed by a shell within half-a-mile of the place where he had fought so bravely in the great battle of Ypres in 1914.

“Although repeatedly wounded, Ralph Gladstone’s spirit was unconquerable, and the memory of his gallant services should always remain as a cherished tradition in the school.”