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Lt Col. William Berkeley Wallace
British Army 1st Batallion Suffolk Regiment
from:Ickham, Kent
When the 1914-1918 war broke out my grandfather, Lt. Col William Wallace, went to France with his unit, the 1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment.
The Suffolk Regiment, and my grandfather, soon became embroiled in the Second Battle of Ypres, in April/May 1915. This was one of the few major offensives launched by the Imperial German Army and during this attack poison gas was used for the first time in modern warfare. With no gas masks, soldiers were told to urinate on pieces of rag and to hold them over their faces to prevent the inhaling of the poisonous fumes!
For a time my grandfather was in command of a detachment of two battalions in the battle of St Julien in April 1915. Later, in May, he defended Frezenberg Ridge as part of this battle. It was not the gas but the failure of a neighbouring unit to hold its position which left my grandfather’s detachment exposed on one side, of which the Germans took advantage. Grandfather, seeing that he was surrounded decided to save lives and surrender, but not before he had shared out all his cigars among his men so that they did not fall into the hands of the enemy. It is said that when the Germans overran his trench it was shrouded in cigar smoke!
My grandfather, then 49, spent the rest of the war as a prisoner until repatriated after the armistice in 1918.
