Private, CLARENCE BILBE, 10/923. Born July 1897, Clarence was the fifth of six children to William and Mary Bilbe, of 131 Fountain Road, Hull (War Pension address). One of the original Pals, he enlisted for the then fledgling 10th Battalion in September 1914. He saw the war through to its bitter end, being a veteran of Egypt, the Somme, Oppy Wood, the German Spring Offensive, Ploegsteert, all the major campaigns and skirmishes. He even lived to see the Armistice, albeit in a hospital bed in Boulogne where he was being treated for acute pneumonia. He died of influenza, on 15th November 1918 and is buried at Terlincthun British Cemetery. It seems a rather inglorious end for a man who had endured so much in his 21 years. Back with the battalion all was not as quiet as one might imagine, as Private Aust recalled of November 13th:
“Two days after the Armistice we were relieved and withdrew toward Ypres. After being on the march for a short time heavy artillery fire broke out just north of us where a French unit was situated. We feared the worst but after a few minutes the tumult died down and we continued our march to the rear.”
How their hearts must have sank to hear the guns erupt once more. It must have been the worst kind of hell for those brief minutes, as though the peace was nothing but a dream they had dreamed as one.
