William Lewis
3619/240913 Lance Corporal William Herbert Lewis
2/6th Battalion, The South Staffordshire Regiment
William Herbert Lewis
Was born December 7th, 1898 in Willenhall, Staffordshire.
Married Lily Almond in Blackburn, Lancashire on March 5th 1921.
Died in Fort Wayne, Indina, USA on May 29th, 1981.
William joined the battalion in October 1914, where he met Arnold Wilfred Flavill. They became great friends, so much so that Arnold became engaged to marry Bill’s sister, Elizabeth (Bessie) and both families became close.
Bill was gassed at Bourlon Wood in November 1917, and was evacuated to England, thus surviving the war.
Arnold stayed with the battalion and was killed along with most of his comrades during the German offensive on March 21st 1918. His name is on the Arras Memorial.
After the war William wrote down a few of his memories of his time with the South Staffordshire Regiment.
“William Herbert Lewis, Bn. Willenhall, Staffordshire on December 7th, 1898.
October 1914
At the age of 16 years and 9 months, I told the recruiter I was eighteen. They took me. My parents could have protested and made void the enlistment, but my father said “You have made your bed, now you can lie on it”.
Minus guns and uniforms we were stationed at the Earl of Dudley’s estate named Himley Hall, about six miles from Wolverhampton. It was there that I met a fine young man who was to be my buddy until we were seperated in 1917 when I was a war casualty having received a good dose of mustard gas that put me in hospital for three months. Arnold Favill was lost in action in France in March 1918 during the Kaiser’s last attempt to win the war.
My sister Bessie would have married Arnold, they were very much in love, she did eventually marry Arnold’s brother Bill, who had served in India during WW1.”
“Arnold and I were promoted to Lance Corporal and eventually became instructors of signaling which led the the position of Signal Clerks, which meant that we were responsible for all ciphering, and incoming and outgoing
messages at battalion headquarters.
April 1916
Our first overseas assignment was to Dublin, Easter Sunday in 1916 to help quell the Sinn Fein rebellion. Four regiments landed at Kingstown, about ten miles south of Dublin. When we arrived at the outskirts of Dublin, we were faced with SinnFeiners who had set up barricades on all of the important buildings. Homes galore were raided, and finally a British gunboat sailed into Dublin Bay and up the River Liffey and knocked out the rebels in their strongholds, such as the flour mill.
February 1917
The full brigade of four Staffordshire regiments North and South stayed on in camps an barracks until early 1917 when we departed from the south of England as a full division, the 59th 15,000 strong plus support bound for Le Havre France. We crossed on the SS Karmac. It was very interesting to be standing on deck reading the Morse code being flashed from ship to ship as they formed a convoy before sailing across the English Channel.”
“I should mention that under normal conditions, the battalion headquarters signal station consisted of one NCO, one telegraph operator, two linemen and two runners. We were responsible for keeping in touch with the four companies, A B C and D, and also brigade headquarters. You could either speak, or send Morse code on the field telephones. The code word was changed every day and we would create five-letter words to read like this: TWXKR AXCPT.
Intelligence reports were passed out almost daily, telling of troop movements and other pertinent items. We were able to tell just what type of German army we confronted, the Saxons and, I believe, the Bavarians were enjoyable company, whereas the others (Prussians) would make life miserable with continuous heavy gunfire.
March 1917
Our first trench occupation was a beaut, mud from ankle to knee deep. French troops, it was rumoured, had occupied the mud hole, it was a disgrace to any army. While we were stuck in the mud, the Germans had vacated their trenches
opposite us, and I wish you could have seen their company headquarters dugout, with a ramp for mules leading down to the living quarters, full-size beds, electric lights and a cute little switch-board. The trenches had duck boards, and out in front was a pill box with thick concrete walls and a peep-hole large enough to fire a machine-gun through. Their average dugout was about thirty feet deep.
Later near Lens in France, we were to enjoy the duck-boards in all of the trenches. Us headquarter signallers did twelve hours on duty and twelve off, I well remember sauntering from our dugout to a little shack in the woods, it was covered in honeysuckle.”
“Some time around June 1917 we soldiers in the front line had the privilege of showing American officers around our section of the line, the Colonel or the Major would do the honours, and it was my pleasure to follow them around with a pad and a pencil. We were very happy because we needed help, and the Americans did take over a large chunk of the front line from the French whom we had heard had mutinied. As a youngster, the splashy uniforms and all new equipment of the new-comers intrigued me immensely.
We moved from one sector to the other, all the way from Ypres in Belgium to St. Quentin in France, and I did not see a civilian for about six months. Later, we witnessed an elderly French couple walking down the middle of the street, it was evident that they had been shopping. The man passed the bag to his wife, walked over by a store front and urinated into a small trough, in plain view of the soldiers……….”
November 1917
In a most vicious attack at Havrincourt Wood using 360 tanks the British attempted to break the German line. The Germans used mustard gas shells against the tanks, which we saw stopped short of their goal. When we relieved
the Guards Regiments who had followed the tanks into action, most of these fine big fellows were bawling like babies having suffered from shock caused by a severe artillery barrage.
Two days later mustard gas got the better of me and my buddy, the only two signallers sent up with battalion headquarters. The Sgt Major sent us down the line to the first aid station, and on the three mile walk my buddy sat down on the dge of a shell hole to rest. I persuaded him to get up and keep moving, and we had gone a few yards when a German shell exploded just where we had stopped to rest, the German observation balloon had been watching us and had intended to knock us out. I never did see my buddy Trubshaw again, but I did learn that he had survived.
I landed at the Military Hospital, Queens Park, Blackburn, Lancashire, which is where I met Lily Almond of 107 Rockliffe Street Blackburn who I was later to marry. From late December until about the middle of March, 1918 it was a good place to recuperate.
Joining my regiment (a good part of it) at the Cathedral City of Lincoln, I was given the opportunity of taking three months training to qualify as an instructor of physical training and bayonet fighting . This was my cup of tea, and I made the grade. I was sent to a newly formed Tank Corps Regiment stationed at Cannock in Staffordshire, luckily only fifteen miles away from my home at 78 Powell Street Wolverhampton. That instructing job was the most enjoyable part of my army service.
Information supplied by Steve Favill, Grandson of Elizabeth Lewis, sister of William Lewis, and Frederick, the brother of Arnold Favill.