Private William Noel Ackerley aged 18

William was born in Liverpool in January 1900. His father and grandfather, both also named William were at that time farmers at Coopers Farm, Sandy Lane, Kirkby. It is unclear when or why the family moved to Luddenden, but we know by 1918 they were living at 8 Providence Place. William Noel had 5 sisters and 2 brothers. Both William Noel and his father were working at J Bracken and Sons Paper mill, which was just a few hundred yards upstream the memorial. Both father and son served in the war and both are commemorated on the plaque behind the war memorial. William Noel was called up on 15th February 1918, a few weeks after his 18th birthday. The address given at the time was 6 Skipton Road, Anfield, and he enlisted into the 4th Loyal North Lancashire regiment. Did he enlist in Liverpool to join up with his school chums? If he did, he may have been thwarted because by the time he entered active service he had been transferred to the 2nd York and Lancaster Regiment, Private 57867. After his 6 months basic training, he was posted to France in August 1918. His war records have not survived, but we can turn to the war diaries for information. The York and Lancasters and been fighting to the south of Ypres in July and August but by mid September, they had moved to the Somme. William was involved in the push north east from Saint Quentin up towards the west of Cambrai. The war diaries for October only contain the dispatches from HQ to the troops and none from the front line back to HQ, so they contain no casualty numbers or details of the fighting. They do show us that the regiment engaged the enemy on 7th October near Fontaine Uterte which is 7 miles north west of Saint Quentin and again on 16th October near Vaux Andigny another 10 miles to the north west. So the allies were making a lot of progress. On the 20th October the war diaries have a new command from HQ for the regiment to route march on the following day to St Souplet. On the 25th Oct the next orders arrive, to clear the village of Ors and to set up positions covering the bridges over the Sambre Oise canal. Night patrols set off to establish the position of the bridges as they were not marked on the map (presumably these had been built by the enemy?), these patrols had been given a day’s food ration. But mustn’t ‘become involved in any serious fighting but remain in position by day' that is the 26th October. One company was tasked to set up posts covering the bridges whilst another company ventured closer to the bridge: ‘all men will carry 2 bandoliers of small arms ammunition and a sufficient number of bombs and ground flares.’ It was during the setting up of these new positions that William Noel was killed. This was to be the final engagement of the war for the York and Lancasters. Their positions were relieved on the 28th October and the regiment sent on rest leave.

William Noel Ackerley is one of nearly 600 soldiers buried at the Saint Souplet British Cemetery close to where he fell, including twelve soldiers from his regiment who also died during this final engagement.