PRIVATE 235102 ERNEST WAUGH, 5TH BATTALION WEST RIDING REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 26TH MARCH 1918 AGED 36 YEARS.


PRIVATE 235102 ERNEST WAUGH, 5TH BATTALION WEST RIDING REGIMENT. KILLED IN ACTION 26TH MARCH 1918 AGED 36 YEARS.




The 5th Battalion of the West Riding Regiment had been in the line at Arras at the commencement of the German Spring Offensive on the Somme Sector on 21st March 1918. It soon became apparent to the British that the ferocity of the German attacks would continue unabated. As the British retreated and with the ever present possibility that this would turn into a rout, fresh battalions were moved south to hold the line on the Somme. On the 25th March 1918 the 5th Battalion West Riding Regiment marched south to help stem the German Army’s relentless progress. Forced to march under the cover of darkness along congested roads the battalion took nearly 8 hours to reach new positions between the villages of Bucquay and Achiet-le-Petit .At the 3.30am the following morning the German artillery commenced a prolonged and violent barrage against the 5th Battalion. At daybreak highly mobile German infantry supported by units on bicycles and supported by cavalry infiltrate the positions of the West Riding battalion and vicious fighting broke out. It was during this fighting that 36 year old Ernest Waugh was killed.
Born in Horsforth in 1881 Ernest was one of five children of Aaron and Marie Waugh. His father was a mason and building contractor who eventually brought his young family to Ilkley were they lived at Dropping Well House on Skipton Road. Ernest worked as a building contractor in the family business of A Waugh and sons and was also a volunteer soldier with a part-time unit of the 2nd Yorkshire Volunteer Royal Engineers.
In 1907 Ernest married a local girl Lillian Faulding who was a maid in The Red House on Parish Ghyll Drive and together they set up home at 20 Back Weston Road. BY 1915 they had moved to 33 Trafalgar Road where a son, Herbert was born.
In 1915 and no longer a volunteer in the West Yorkshire Royal Engineers, Ernest enlisted into the 4th Reserve Battalion of the West Riding Regiment in Halifax. Remaining in Britain it was not until early February 1917 that he joined the 2/5th Battalion in France. Just a few weeks before his death he enjoyed a brief home leave from his unit. It would be that last time that his Lillian and his son Herbert would see him before his death on the 26th March 1918. His commanding officer wrote to his wife “…..he met his death gallantly facing the enemy.”
Private Ernest Waugh has no known grave and is commemorated on the Memorial to the Missing at Arras and is remembered with pride on our war memorial in Ilkley.


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