Current Information:

Age-20

49, Hans Place, Belgravia

White House Cemetery, St Jean-les-Ypres, Belgium

On 9th November, 1917, the 9th King’s Royal Rifle Corps battalion of 42 Brigade, 14th Division, left Flêtre and moved to Ypres where for two days they came under the command of the Canadian Corps and provided working parties for various tasks. These tasks meant either providing carrying parties to take supplies of all kinds to the front line or working at trench digging, road making, railway laying and host of other tasks, sometimes under command of the Royal Engineers. The activities usually took place at night and were often very dangerous. Harassing artillery and machine-gun fire from the enemy would be kept up intermittently throughout the night designed to disrupt the work as much as possible. Tracks along which carrying parties had to travel to reach the front line were known to the German gunners and targeted accordingly. Many a soldier met his death while employed on a working party as was the case with William Villiers, who was killed on 10th November.