Francis Crake

Francis William Crake MC (1893 – 28 November 1920) was a British Army and Royal Irish Constabulary officer.

He was born and lived in Newcastle upon Tyne, where he was employed as an Insurance Agent's Clerk.

Following the outbreak of the First World War, Crake enlisted into the Hampshire Regiment and served on the Western Front from July 1915 to June 1917. Subsequently, he was selected for officer training and was commissioned into the Bedfordshire Regiment on 27 November 1917. In April 1918, he returned to the front, joining the 6th Bedfordshires, however the following month this unit was broken up and absorbed by 1/1st battalion, the Hertfordshire Regiment. He finished the conflict with the rank of Captain.

Military Cross

He was awarded the Military Cross for his conduct in September 1918 during the Allied Hundred Days Offensive. His citation reads:

"T./2nd Lt. Francis William Crake, 6th Bn., Bedf. R., attd. 1st Bn., Hert. R.

For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in an attack. When the other officers became casualties and the company had suffered heavy losses, he reorganised several scattered bodies of men and continued to lead them forward to the objective in a most determined manner. By his courage and example he assisted materially in the capture of a hostile battery."

In August 1920 he was appointed District Inspector in command of a unit of the Royal Irish Constabulary Auxiliary Division, based at Macroom in County Cork. On 28 November, while leading a motorised patrol, he was killed in an ambush near Kilmichael. A partly fictionalised account of this incident appeared in the film The Wind That Shakes the Barley.