Lewis, William

BORN HULL 1890. SON OF MARY ELIZABETH LEWIS, OF 19 MONTROS AVENUE, GIBSON STREET, HULL (WAR PENSION ADDRESS). HE ENLISTED IN THE HULL PALS AND WAS KILLED IN ACTION, ON 12/04/1918, AGED 27.
Hull Pals Memorial Post. PRIVATE WILLIAM LEWIS 11/519. William was born in Hull and queued to enlist outside City Hall during the second week of September 1914 joining the 11th Battalion East Yorkshire Regiment, ‘The Tradesmen’, 2nd Hull Pals. He trained in Ripon, Hornsea and Beverley throughout 1915 and shipped for Alexandria, Egypt just before Christmas. Having spent the winter guarding Suez from potential attack by the Turks, the Pals left Port Said bound for Marseilles late in February 1916 and then headed north from there to the trenches of the Western Front. William’s story is the story of the battalion. He served on the Somme, witnessed the bloodbath at Oppy Wood, and survived Arras and Vimy Ridge. William was killed in action on 12th April 1918 during the darkest hours of the German Spring Offensive when all looked lost. He is buried at Outtersteene Communal Cemetery Extension at Bailleul. The cemetery was captured that day and remained in German hands until August when they conceded the ground to the final Allied advance; either William was buried by the Germans or exhumed from one of the scattered temporary cemeteries and reinterred after the Armistice. His death was reported in the Hull Daily Mail 14/08/1916.