Military History

William is listed as being killed in action on 13th May 1915. The 2nd Dragoon Guards war diary entries for the period 12th to 14th May are transcribed below.

Near Potijze - 12 May 1915: Spent a very quiet day in the trenches and at 8.30pm the Regt moved up to relieve the 19^th Hussars in the front line trenches just N of the Potijze-Velorgnhoek road. The trenches were in a very bad state and needed a great amount of work to be done on them which was carried out during the night.

On our left the trenches were held by 5^th Dragoon Guards while 1^st Life Guards were on the right.

Near Potijze - 13 May 1915: At 3am the Germans commenced a very violent bombardment of all the trench line in our vicinity. This bombardment continued until 7am by which time all telephone lines had been cut and the Regiment was no longer in communication with the Brigade.

Towards the latter part of the bombardment the 1^st Life Guards retired owing to the trenches being completely blown in.

Small parties of Germans occupied their trenches and also some ruined houses 300x to our right front, but made no attempt to come on in any number.

The trenches occupied by B Squadron had been partially destroyed by the very heavy shell fire which included “coal boxes” [German 5.9 howitzer shell] and “Jack Johnson” [German 15cm artillery shell] and a gap of 80x existed between our left and to right of 5^th Dragoon Guards.

Near Potijze - 14 May 1915: The whole day passed very quietly, except for a little shelling at about 2.30pm and the usual sniping.

At 8.30pm the Regiment was relieved by the Oxfordshire Yeomanry of the 2^nd Cavalry Division which had come up that day.

After a long delay at Putne we marched back through Ypres to Vlamertinghe where we arrived at 2.30am [15^th] and were billeted in huts ¼ miles SW of the town.