GUNNER 65890 WILLIAM LAMBERT KENDALL, 155th SIEGE BATTERY, ROYAL GARRISON ARTILLERY. KILLED IN ACTION 3rd OCTOBER 1918, AGED 24 YEARS.

GUNNER 65890 WILLIAM LAMBERT KENDALL, 155th SIEGE BATTERY, ROYAL GARRISON ARTILLERY. KILLED IN ACTION 3rd OCTOBER 1918, AGED 24 YEARS.

William (Bill) Kendal was born on 9th March 1894 at 4 Leeds Road Ilkley, one of three sons of Thomas and Elizabeth Kendal. His father was a tobacconist who shortly after Bill’s birth moved to new premises at 25 Church Street where the family lived above the shop. After leaving school he was employed briefly as a fireman but later became a postman working from the sorting office which was then on Wells Road.

Bill enlisted into the Royal Garrison Artillery in Leeds on 1st November 1915 and within a few days was posted to the regiment’s depot which was in Dover. It was in March the following year that he crossed the English Channel and landed in France and joined the training school of the British 2nd Army and the following month was posted to the 24th Trench Mortar Battery. On 10th May whilst serving in the front line he received a shrapnel wound to his left shoulder and was sent firstly to a base hospital in France and then on to Birmingham for further treatment. After convalescence at Eastbourne and a brief period of leave with his family in Ilkley, Bill returned to France in September 1916 and was posted to the 369th Siege Battery.

Siege battery’s were usually positioned some distance behind the front line and used some of the largest artillery pieces used by the British Army, up to 12 inches in some cases. Their main role was to put highly destructive fire on enemy strong points, ammunition and storage dumps as well as to disrupt rail and road communications. They were of course the target of German counter battery fire who used equally large guns against the British Battery’s.

Bill spent some time with the 369th Battery before being transferred to the 155th in July 1917 where he would remain for the rest of his war. After nearly two years at the front he was given two weeks leave in August 1918 and came home to see his family.

The 155th Battery were attached to the 65th Australian Brigade and moved into positions on the Messines Ridge to the south east of Ypres and close to the village of Commines. On the 3rd of October 1918 the battery began to site and prepare its guns for a forthcoming offensive. An eye witness, Gunner Alfred Kenway, who served with the 155th in the same gun team as Bill, recalled in the 1930s that the battery had been subject to German counter battery fire for several days. Alfred describes how on the 3rd October whilst he was away from his gun a number of enemy shells fell on the battery. He dashed back and described the scene
“God! What a sight met our eyes!  A shell had landed right amongst the boys.  It was a slaughter house – just mangled flesh and blood.”
Four men of the gun team had been killed including Bill. Their bodies were buried nearby but in November 1919 they were exhumed and reburied.

Today Gunner William Lambert Kendall lies next to his comrades in the British Military Cemetery of Wulverghem-Lindenhoek and he is remembered with pride on our war memorial here in Ilkley.

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