Military History

William is listed as dying of wounds on 22nd September 1918. He was a member of the 31st Bde RFA which provided artillery support to allied forces who, on 18 Sep 1918, launched an attack on Akindzali, the Germans responded with their own barrage and William received multiple wounds from which he died 4 days later. In the absence of online war diaries the following description of events is taken from Williams King Edward VI School obituary,.

"On September 18, the Greek infantry, supported by British artillery partly provided by 31 Brigade, attacked at Akindzali, a key enemy position on the main defence line to the west of Lake Doiran. The artillery opened gaps in the Bulgarian line and the Greeks advanced, but were forced, in the military phrase of the time. ‘to fall back to their original position’ by the defenders who were fighting so hard that the French had to use flamethrowers to silence some of the machine-gun positions.

The Greeks came under intensive artillery bombardment to which the British guns responded, and it was during these exchanges that William Board received the multiple gunshot wounds from which he died four days later in the 27 Stationary Hospital in Salonika. He had been in Greece for only three weeks and was 19. He was buried in Sarigol Military Cemetery at Kriston, about twenty-five miles north of Thessalonika, and is commemorated in the Oundle School Memorial of the Great War and in the Memorial Library at King Edward VI School".