SAPPER 237847 WILLIAM CLIFFORD HABISHAW, 102 AIR LINE SECTION ROYAL ENGINEERS. ASPHIXIATED 29th DECEMBER 1918 AGED 31


SAPPER 237847 WILLIAM CLIFFORD HABISHAW, 102 AIR LINE SECTION ROYAL ENGINEERS. ASPHYXIATED 29th DECEMBER 1918 AGED 31

Born at 4 Richmond Place, Ilkley in 1888 William was the son of Joseph Habishaw, a bath house attendant, and his wife Mary. The family would later move to a house on Belle Vue Terrace which they ran as a small lodging house. Educated locally, William trained as an electrical engineer but at the beginning of the war was employed as a turf accountant. In the autumn of 1915 he married local woman, Margaret Moon and together they moved into Glenholme on Parish Ghyll Drive.


William had originally enlisted into the West Yorkshire Regiment in December 1915 but his call up was deferred until May of the following year and in August 1916 posted to the Machine Gun Corps. By the spring of 1917 presumably because of his electrical engineering training was sent to join a signals company of the Royal Engineers where he learned to be a telephonist. William remained in Britain until the 9th March 1918 when he was posted to the 102 Air Line Section serving on the Italian Front. This unit was responsible for installing and maintaining overground telephone lines behind the lines and would have been considered a fairly safe posting.

At the conclusion of the war William’s unit remained in northern Italy and would have expected to return to Britain for de-mobilisation in the first months of 1919. On the 29th December 1918 the 102 Air Line Section was moved from their base at Lonigo to another camp 60 miles away at Treviso, near to Venice. The journey was undertaken in a convoy of three lorries with members of the section sat in the rear compartment. They set off at 11am and at 1pm stopped for refreshments where some of the men, including William, drank wine at a local cafe. Later in the afternoon the convoy continued its journey and stopped again at Camposampiero about 20 miles from Treviso where some of the men again visited a cafe and consumed alcohol.

The lorries travelled singularly for the final leg of the journey and William along with two other men climbed into the back of the third lorry which arrived in Treviso at about 9pm. Sat in the corner apparently asleep, William could not be roused by his comrades who carried him out of the vehicle and laid him onto the ground. A doctor was called who pronounced William dead and stated that he had died about 2 hours previously probably from the effects of toxic fumes from the lorry. Further examination and a later post mortem at a casualty clearing station reported no signs of violence and that asphyxiation was the cause of death. An Army court of enquiry speedily confirmed these findings and stated that the consumption of alcohol had caused William to fall asleep and he would have been unaware of the fumes from the engine.

Today Sapper William Clifford Habishaw lies in the British Military Cemetery at Giavera near to Treviso and is remembered with pride on our war memorial in Ilkley







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