38366 Gnr Sydney W Clifton, RGA

Two days ago, the number of UK service personnel killed as a result of the Afghanistan conflict since 2001 reached 300. On this single day in 1917, the British Army lost 302 officers and men; a pretty average day for life - and death -on the Western Front during the First World War.

38366 Gunner Sydney William Clifton of the Royal Garrison Artillery was killed in action on the 23rd June 1917. He was a regular soldier who was born in Nottingham and enlisted there in December 1912. He arrived overseas with the 115th Heavy Battery, RGA on the 2nd October 1914, and could thus claim to be an Old Contemptible. He was later posted to the 19th Siege Battery and it was whilst serving with this battery that he was killed.

Sydney (spelled "Sidney" on Soldiers Died in The Great War) was 22 years old when he died. He was the Son of William and Matilda Clifton of 161 Colwick Road, Sneinton, Nottingham. He is buried in the Bully-Grenay Communal Cemetery, British Extension.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.

Sources:

Ancestry (MIC)
Soldiers Died in The Great War
Army Service Numbers
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission