GEORGE CLARKE

Rifleman George Clarke was the second member of the Clarke family to die in World War I. He had enlisted in April 1917, two months after his brother Albert, (who was killed at Polderhoek Chateau in December 1917). Like his brother, he had worked as a labourer on the family farm in Styx. He was posted to the New Zealand Rifle Brigade, arriving in France just after Passchendaele. He would have been part of the desperate fight in late March when the “Dinks” held the Germans at Le Signy farm. On 19 May 1918, he suffered a gunshot wound to the abdomen, possibly as part of the aggressive patrolling undertaken by the New Zealanders, or in repelling the occasional German raid around Le Signy farm. He died of these wounds in the casualty clearing station operated by the No. 2 New Zealand Field Ambulance unit. He is buried at the Sailly-au-Bois Military Cemetery in northern France.

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