Name: Frank Higgins
Rank: Ordinary Seaman
Unit/Regiment: Royal Navy, H.M.S. Raleigh
Service Number: C/JX 254062
Date of Death: 28 April 1941
Cemetery: Torpoint (Horson) Cemetery, Cornwall
Frank Higgins was born in Batley on 27 June 1921, the fourth child of Batley-born husband and wife Timothy Higgins and Sarah Emma (formerly Crabtree).
The marriage of colliery labourer Timothy to Sarah Emma took place at Batley St. Mary of the Angels R.C. church on 30 April 1910. The couple’s early married life was spent at Peel Street, where daughter Catherine Nora was born later in 1910. She died in 1915. Her birth was followed by the birth of the Higgins’ three sons – John Joseph in 1912, Timothy in 1917, then Frank; their family was completed with two more daughters – Rosemary born in 1927 and Joan in 1934.
The family lived in several addresses in Batley, including Dark Lane and Clerk Green, the latter being where Frank spent his early years. They also lived at Crescent Street in the Cross Bank area of town, which meant Frank did not have too far to walk to school, being a pupil at St. Mary’s until 1935. This street was amongst those cleared in the late 1960s/early 1970s, making way for the school and North Bank Road extension.
The parish of St Mary’s played an important part in Frank’s social life too, as a member of the Guild of the Sacred Heart and the Dramatic Society.
By 1939 the Higgins family had moved to the recently built Woodsome Estate, living at number 97, with Timothy now working as a night watchman. At number 98 lived Thomas and Ellen Armstead, plus their children, who were also St Mary’s parishioners. Romance blossomed, and Frank got engaged to the Armstead’s eldest daughter, Mary.
Frank worked as an assistant tuner at Messrs. Joseph Clay and Co.’s West End Mills, Cleckheaton. This firm made flannels, shirtings, coatings, etc., and Frank’s task would be to help the tuner in his responsibility for the output of a section of looms. The work might also have involved setting up and adjusting looms, putting in beams and doing minor repairs.
But, in addition to his day-to-day job, in the early part of the Second World War Frank was also a member of Batley’s Air Raid Precautions (A.R. P.) service, as a voluntary messenger.
These messengers, or runners, would take verbal or written messages from air raid wardens and deliver them to either the sector post or the control centre, in order to give a full picture of what was happening during a raid. Travelling on foot, or by bicycle, they only had a tin hat, marked with the letter M, for protection against flying shrapnel and debris. They also wore an ARP armband.
It was a vital communications job, particularly where bombing cut telephone lines. Belying the responsibility of it, the role was often undertaken by boys below the age of military service – some in fact were still schoolboys as young as 13. After a night on duty, the following day they would be back at school or in work.
Perhaps Frank was one of those heroic Batley A.R.P. personnel who worked so tirelessly amidst great danger when the German Luftwaffe bombed Batley on the night of 12/13 December 1940. For more details the A.R.P. work that night click here.
With his brother Timothy already serving with the Royal Artillery, in February 1941 Frank volunteered to serve with the Royal Navy. He was assigned to H.M.S Raleigh, at Torpoint in Cornwall.
Torpoint is located at the mouth of the river Tamar, Cornwall, opposite Devonport dockyard and the city of Plymouth and, at the beginning of 1940, H.M.S. Raleigh had been commissioned as a shore establishment where Ordinary Seamen undertook their basic training. Frank completed this training there, and was due home to see his family at the beginning of May 1941 – the first opportunity for Timothy and Sarah Emma to see their son in uniform.
He never made it back to Batley.
Because of its docks and naval base, Plymouth and Devonport were targets for the Luftwaffe. The area was hit by intermittent, small scale bombing raids during 1940. But this ratcheted up in March and April 1941. The devastating air raids on the nights of 20 and 21 March, and 21, 22, 23, 28 and 29 April 1941, which killed more than 900 people, and made another 40,000 homeless,1 became known as the as the Plymouth Blitz.
On the night of Monday 28 April 1941, 123 German aircraft targeted Plymouth dropping 123 tonnes of explosives.2 One of those bombs hit an air raid shelter at H.M.S. Raleigh, killing 21 Royal Engineers and 44 sailors. The fatalities included Frank. News of his death reached his parents on Wednesday 30 April, just after son Timothy has returned to his unit after a period of leave.
The 65 sailors and Royal Engineers killed that night were all buried at Torpoint (Horson) Cemetery, with Frank’s headstone bearing the inscription:
YOU ARE ALWAYS IN OUR THOUGHTS
In June 1941 Frank’s fiancée, Mary, joined the Women’s Royal Naval Service (W.RN.S.) She later married Acting Third Engineer Thomas Barr, R.N.
Frank’s family remembered the anniversary of his death in the Roll of Honour column of the local paper. This included in the 30 April 1949 edition of the Batley News – the month his father died. The tribute read:
HIGGINS. —In loving memory of a dear son and brother, Seaman Frank Higgins, who was killed April 28th, 1941.
Time passes on but we never forget,
in our garden of memories he lives with us yet.
—From his loving mother, sisters and brother.
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Footnotes:
1. The Blitz Around Britain, Imperial War Museum: https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/the-blitz-around-britain
2. HMS Raleigh Service Marks Blitz Deaths: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-13226214?app-referrer=deep-link
Other Sources (not directly referenced):
• 1911 and 1921 England and Wales Censuses.
• 1939 Register.
• A Teenage ARP Messenger, WW2 People’s War: https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ww2peopleswar/stories/57/a7790457.shtml
• Batley Cemetery Burial Registers.
• Batley Roll of Honour: https://www.batleyrollofhonour.com/
• Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
• GRO Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes.
• National Library of Scotland Maps.
• Newspapers, various.
• Parish Registers, various.
• Wikipedia – HMS Raleigh: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Raleigh_(shore_establishment)
• Wikipedia – Air Raid Precautions: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Raid_Precautions.
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