CORPORAL 266905 WILFRED (WILFRID) HALL, 18TH BATTALION KINGS (LIVERPOOL) REGIMENT (2ND CITY).


CORPORAL 266905 WILFRED (WILFRID) HALL, 18TH BATTALION KINGS (LIVERPOOL) REGIMENT (2ND CITY).KILLED IN ACTION 31st JULY 1917, AGED 20


Wilfred Hall was born in Ilkley on 20th January 1897 the only child of Thomas and Martha Hall who lived at 51 Wellington Road. His father died in 1902 and his mother seems to have taken employment in large country houses working as a cook. Just before the beginning of the war Wilfred and his mother were working near to Ormskirk and living in Southport.


On 1st July 1915 went to the Bootle district of Liverpool and enlisted into the Kings Liverpool Regiment. Initially he wasn't sent to France but appears to have remained in Britain as a musketry instructor. In fact it was in June 1917 that he finally arrived at the front as a corporal in the regiments 18th Battalion as it prepared for the Passchendaele offensive.

For nearly two weeks before the day of the attack the British heavy artillery pounded the German positions in an effort to destroy the German strong points. However, despite the huge weight of shell sent against the enemy they were largely ineffective against the German defenses. Instead the ground was simply churned up and the high water table simply filled the craters with deep, muddy and stagnant water. Persistent rain did nothing to help and the battlefield became a huge morass of slippery mud and deep and dangerous water filled shell holes.

At 4am, Zero Hour, on the morning of he 31st July 1917 thousands of British troops began the attack against the low lying hills that surrounded the city of Ypres. The objective for the 18th Kings Liverpools was the Pilkem Ridge and in particular Sanctuary Wood. The attack began to go wrong almost from the start. The ground underfoot was a quagmire and difficult to negotiate, the vigilant German artillery shelled the attackers and the enemy strong points had not been suppressed by the British Gunners. Casualties amongst the 18th Liverpools were heavy and having failed to take even their first objective they were forced back to their own trenches. Over 200 men from the battalion became casualties including Wilfred who now lay dead in No Man's Land.

Corporal Wilfred Hall has no known grave and is commemorated on the Menin Gate. He is remembered on the war memorial in Southport and in Ilkley at Christchurch on The Grove.
(Photo courtesy of James Cooper



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