{"id":24709,"date":"2026-05-06T21:39:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T21:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/?page_id=24709"},"modified":"2026-05-23T19:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T19:54:10","slug":"csm-ashton-frank-clarke","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/second-world-war\/personal-stories\/csm-ashton-frank-clarke\/","title":{"rendered":"CSM Ashton Frank Clarke"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>We have been been contacted by Jan Clarke, the daughter in law of CSM Ashton Clarke, who served in Italy with 1st Battalion London Irish Rifles and where he was Mentioned in Despatches.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"673\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_3398-673x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6069\" style=\"width:341px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_3398-673x1024.jpg 673w, https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_3398-197x300.jpg 197w, https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_3398-768x1169.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/IMG_3398.jpg 1238w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 673px) 100vw, 673px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>In her note to us, Jan explained that CSM Clarke had served overseas with the 56th (London) Division in Iraq, Egypt and Sicily, initially with the 10th Battalion Royal Berkshire Regiment, before transferring to 1 LIR after the bitter fighting for 168 Brigade at Anzio and where the London Irish Rifles, London Scottish and the Royal Berkshires all suffered very heavy casualties.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"653\" height=\"906\" src=\"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/SCAN1290.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6070\" style=\"width:457px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/SCAN1290.jpg 653w, https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/SCAN1290-216x300.jpg 216w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 653px) 100vw, 653px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Quite remarkably, before his death, Ashton had compiled a 300 page memoir tracing the whole of his war time service and we have been honoured that the Clarke family has sent a copy of it onto us and we plan to add excerpts of this very evocative story to the website in due course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have been been contacted by Jan Clarke, the daughter in law of CSM Ashton Clarke, who served in Italy with 1st Battalion London Irish Rifles and where he was Mentioned in Despatches. In her note to us, Jan explained that CSM Clarke had served overseas with the 56th (London) Division in Iraq, Egypt and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":24588,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-24709","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24709","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24709"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24709\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24714,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24709\/revisions\/24714"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/24588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonirishrifles.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24709"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}