CAPTAIN NORMAN MULLER, 8th BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (LEEDS RIFLES). KILLED IN ACTION 28th JULY 1918 AGED 32 YEARS.

CAPTAIN NORMAN MULLER, 8^th BATTALION WEST YORKSHIRE REGIMENT (LEEDS RIFLES). KILLED IN ACTION 28^th JULY 1918 AGED 32 YEARS.

As spring turned to summer in 1918 the great  German Spring Offensive began to peter out. despite  tactical battlefield successes strategically Germany  failed in their objective to force either the British or the French out of the war. The allies were now under a unified command were buoyed up by the knowledge that they had stopped the best that Germany could throw at them. As the British poured more men into the Western Front and American troops began to shoulder some of the burden of battle, Allied planners turned their attention to counterattack.

In order relieve German pressure on Paris the French planned to attack the enemy close to the city of Rheims and to help their ally the British sent 4 experienced Divisions. The 8^th West Yorkshires, part of the 62^nd Division moved south from the trenches around Arras to the lush rolling country of the Champagne region. The war had barely touched this part of France and it remained an area of woods and fields; a far cry from the mud and desolation of Flanders and the Somme. Put into the line near to the village Chaumuzy to the west of Rheims the 62nd came under the command of the French 5^th Army

Norman Muller was a captain in the 8^th West Yorkshires. Born in Bradford on 4^th January 1886 to George and Josephine Muller, who lived on Farfield Road in the Manningham area of the city. As their surname suggests they had German roots and Norman’s grandfather had emigrated from Germany in the 1840s attracted by the opportunities presented by the city’s flourishing wool trade.  George Muller was an agent selling cloth and Norman appears to have worked for him as a salesman. The family also had a tradition of military service and Normans grandfather and father had commanded the city’s volunteer battalion known in 1914 as the 6^th West Yorkshire Regiment (Bradford Rifles).

Norman’s family moved to Ilkley not long after he was born and lived firstly on Margerison Road and later on Denton Road in Ben Rhydding. As a boy along with his older brother he was amongst the first pupils at the newly re-established grammar school on Cowpasture Road. He would spend 7 years at Ilkley Grammar where, although, slight of build he was described as having courage and spirit out of all proportion with his physical frame. Nowhere was this more apparent than on the rugby field where he excelled and went on to represent Ilkley RUFC.  

Following in the footsteps of both is grandfather and father, Norman, enlisted into the Bradford’s Territorial Battalion, the 6^th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment and by the beginning of the war has reached the rank of lieutenant.

Before leaving for the front Norman Muller married Doris Spencer Jennings of Cononley Hall near Skipton at a ceremony in York. Doris’s older brother would also die in the war.

In 1915 whilst serving on the Western Front with his battalion he suffered fron trench fever and was sent back to Britain for treatment. Upon his return to the war zone he was promoted to the rank of Captain then acting Major and second in command of the battalion. However, his health failed again and he was invalided home in August 1916 suffering from pneumonia where he remained for several months. It was in March 1918 that he went back to France as Captain in the Leeds Rifles in command of C Company. Coincidently another former Ilkley Grammar School pupil, Stuart Bellhouse, was his second in command.

On the 28^th July 1918 the 8^Th West Yorks were asked to attack a heavily defended German position at Montagne de Blingy. Setting of in the dark and without a preliminary artillery bombardment Norman led C Company went across No Man’s Land and surprised the enemy in their trenches. The fighting was vicious but Norman’s personal courage and leadership, when all seemed lost, meant that the objective was secured. Sadly, as he led his company forward he was hit twice by bullets fired from an enemy machine gun, the first badly wounded him but the second proved fatal.

Norman’s commanding officer wrote of him that “.....his personal bravery was only equalled by his constant care for his men never sparing himself in looking after their welfare and comfort.”

Today Captain Norman Muller lies in Chambrecy Military Cemetery and is remembered with pride on the Roll of Honour at Ilkley RUFC and the war memorial in Ilkley Grammar School.