died of wounds

[chalkpit]

Lt William Lilley 8th Kings Liverpool Regiment taken POW at Guillemont 8/8/16 wounded and died of his wounds 13/8/16 at St Quentin trying to find out what happenened in the missing 5 days.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi,

I assume he was wounded on the 8th. If so, was he taken prisoner on the 8th or is that the day he went missing. Lying wounded on the battlefield for several days was not unusual.

Apart from that he would probably have been taken to a field dressing station where, depending on the attitude of the medical staff they would have assessed his wounds and dressed them, or they would have ignored him for a while (perhaps for several days) and then perhaps did very little but make his life a misery. Both happened on a regular basis and the experience of PoWs differers enormously.

He was then presumably transported to St Quentin and again there could have been a delay waiting for transport.

I am not certain what was at St Quentin but possibly a local hospital where again his treatment could have been good or bad.

Delays of several days in getting treatment and going to a hospital were quite usual.

Doug

[Promenade]

Hi,

I have some information somewhere about Lilley which I will have to dig out. In the meantime out of interest can you let us know your interest in this man?

Promenade

[Gordon Caldecott]

The Allied casualty evacuation process wasn`t much better.

[Promenade]

Hi,

Lieutenant Gordon (8 KLR) wrote the following account of the days leading up, and including the death of, Lieutenant Lilley. 'We then had an order to try and retire and in our attempt Capt Murphy was wounded and we had to leave him and got to the left of the line. When we saw all our men were being mowed down by the enemy machine gun fire another officer Lt Lilley came to me and said there was no getting back as the Germans were all around and that we must surrender. On looking up we found that our men had surrendered. On reaching Combles we were formed up and marched in fours towards Sailly-Sal when I was hit by a piece of shell which caused the amputation of my arm. We were a party of about 300 men including men from 1 KLR Mr Lilley and myself. Mr Lilley was afterwards killed by a shell.'

I have a lot more information on Lilley if you let me know what you already know I will see what I can add.

Promenade

[Doug Johnson]

I suppose 'Died of Wounds' and being killed by a shell could be theoretically construed as the same thing, however the report could be interpreted that he was wounded by the shell and died later. Being killed by your own shellfire as a PoW was not uncommon as was death by other causes near the front line. The account seems to infer that he was hit by the shell on the same day as capture. For an unwounded officer to still be in the front five days after capture would be very unusual, and there is no indication that he was put to work behind the lines, so my guess would be wounded by a shell on the the 8th as they were being marched away from the front and died on the 13th. Otherwise the died of wounds bit and the date of death would be wrong (asuming the date of capture is correct)

Doug

[chalkpit]

thanks for your reply i have sent an article we wrote which should tell you pretty much what information we have but anything else that you can add would be most helpful and we would be very grateful for it. If you dont mind could you tell me how you obtained your info and what your connection is it has got us very intrigued that we have something in common.THE_STORY_BEHIND_THE_PHOTOGRAPH.doc