Military History

William is listed as having died of wounds on 10th September 1918. There are two sources describing the events leading up to William being wounded on 9th September. The first is the 1st/5th Battalion war diary entry for the 9th September and the secord an extract from the Internet Archive book The War Record of the 1/5th Battalion The Royal Warwickshire Regiment by Lt Charles Edmund Carrington.

Asiago - 9 Sep 1918: On night of 9/10th the Bn carried out a raid on the railway cuttings and embankment on Coda and Post Spurs SW of Asiago. There was heavy fighting. The cuttings were strongly held by MGs. The right cutting and the trench on embankment were entered. 10 unwounded persons were captured and 4 MGs brought back to our lines. Several MGs were destroyed and many of the enemy killed. Our casualties 87 ORs and 8 officers.

Mt. Kaberlaba – 9 Sep 1918: All four companies moved up from their position in the support line on the night of September 9th. At half-past eleven they were to enter the enemy’s line 2,000 yards away, where it ran along a deep railway cutting. C Company were to work to the right, B Company to the left, and A Company were to take the centre of the position, while a platoon of D Company was to pass through and clear a group of houses at Gaiga. There was a complicated scheme of artillery co-operation.

Patrols of D Company cleared the front, and at zero the whole battalion was in position on Coda spur. The right company entered the trench under heavy machine gun fire and cleared the railway cutting to the right. After stiff hand to hand fighting with bomb and bayonet, they took ten prisoners and five machine guns, besides leaving twenty Austrians dead in the trench. The centre company was troubled by machine guns firing from emplacements out of its reach, but cleared the whole of its objectives, taking two prisoners and two machine guns, besides killing some more of the enemy.

The left company was held back by the British barrage, which was falling short of the objective, till after vain efforts to get it lifted they were forced to remain in the open and cover the left flank of the battalion.

The withdrawal was carried out in good order at 12-35 a.m. The infantry had done all their part that night, and the only slight check had not been their fault.

Granezza - 10^th to 17^th Sep 1918: The Brigade went back next day for its week in reserve at Granezza. Before returning to the line it was reviewed by General Walker, who presented medals won in the recent raids.