PRIVATE 110378 ALAN MOISLEY, 5TH CANADIAN MOUNTED RIFLES, CANADIAN INFANTRY.


PRIVATE 110378 ALAN MOISLEY, 5TH CANADIAN MOUNTED RIFLES, CANADIAN INFANTRY. KILLED IN ACTION 6TH APRIL 1917.

Taken from The Olicanian

Alan Moisley was another former Ilkley Grammar School pupil killed during the First World War. Born in the town on the 17th October 1893, his father, Henry, was a boot maker who had a shop at 28 The Grove and above which lived his large family.



Life in Ilkley obviously held no ties for Alan because in 1911 and aged 18 he set sail for Canada arriving in Quebec on the 25th September. At the outbreak of war he was working as a clerk in the city of Montreal and it is there that he enlisted in the 5th Canadian Mounted Rifles.
                                              Henry Moisley's Shop on The Grove, Ilkley

The 5th Mounted Rifles landed in England in October 1915 and were heavily involved in the fighting on the Somme in 1916. By the following April they were in the Arras Sector of France where the next big set piece battle was due to commence. On the 6th April Alan was serving in the front line when he was ordered to deliver a message to another unit. As he made his way along the trench system he was caught in a sudden German bombardment and killed. Alan Moisley's body was recovered and buried in a grave near to where he fell, but after the war was moved to the British Military Cemetery at La Chadiere. He is also remembered on Ilkley War Memorial.





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