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L/Cpl, Wilfrid English
British Army 1st/10th (Liverpool Scottish) Btn. Kings (Liverpool) Regiment
from:West Hartlepool, Co Durham
(d.1st Jan 1919)
Wilfred English was a postal worker who volunteered early in 1916, training in Carnforth, Lancs before landing in France in April. He passed through Rouen and the battalion was stationed for a while near Amiens. By 19th April he wrote home to say they were under almost continuous fire and the star shells lit the sky like daylight. On May 12th he was at rest after having "a rough time in the trenches". On June 10th "everything is clay and mud", and on 22nd there was "plenty of fireng at each others airoplanes" [sic].
By August Wilf was on the Somme. Fighting at Guillemont on 10th was a day he didn't want to describe but "will never forget". That night he volunteered to go out into No Man's Land to try to retrieve the wounded and the possessions of the dead. "Everywhere one looks he sees dead and injured". He believes he finds the body of his best friend (and cousin) but cannot be sure it is him in the darkness. On 21st September he is wounded in the leg. Operated upon on 22nd he is repatriated in October to hospital in Birmingham, thence to Liverpool (the regimental HQ) before being discharged home to West Hartlepool.
In May 1917 he is back fighting, this time in Belgium, and having lost his L/Cpl rank (he may have been discharged during his convalescence and then volunteered again). The fighting is heavy "but not as bad as the Somme". Until he gets to Paschendaele where, on 19th, he writes home to say "I could tell you what we are going to do but it would be crossed out. Watch the papers". Perhaps as a result of all the losses among his regiment he is promoted to L/Cpl once again.
On 30th of November 1917 at Cambrai he is shot in the right hand and captured. Taken by the Germans first to Le Quesnoy, then on to PoW camp at Dulmen ("how dreary it is"). By March 1918 at the latest he is in PoW camp Parchim, where he is deployed working on a nearby farm. He starts to enjoy it. On August 11th "I am busy with the corn this month". Then "when I come home I am going to buy a farm (though where the cash will come from I don't know)". He tells his mother that by the time he gets home "You will find me an expert farmer". He remained at Parchim until the Armistice and then awaited repatriation. Spanish flu then swept through the barracks. Wilf was taken to the Hut Hospital where he died at 9pm on New Year's Day 1919. He was 29.
