William Beckett





Desborough Road (picture from SWOP website)

Memorial for William Beckett in High Wycombe Cemetery





William Beckett 1897 - 1918

My name is William Beckett. I was born in 1897 in High Wycombe to George and Annie Beckett. I had six sisters and just one brother so our house was very much a female dominated house! Like most people in our town, my parents were chair makers. We lived at number 244, Desborough Road.  You can imagine how cramped our home was with just 5 rooms between us.

At the age of 14, I followed my father into the chair trade and I was a chair machinist. When the war came along in 1914, I was so keen to join up that I lied about my age and on the 18th August 1914 I enlisted in the Oxford and Bucks Light infantry but was transferred to the Kings Royal Rifle Corps 2nd Battalion. Things moved quickly after that. I passed my medical and although I was only a small chap (just 9 stone!) I was determined to give those Boche a good hammering. I was now Rifleman service number 11814 and I felt so proud. I didn’t really think much about how worried my parents would be. I was just 17 years old.

After an extensive spell of training, I embarked for Le Havre from Southampton in May 1915. I was initially part of the Kings Royal Rifle Corps 4th battalion. I’ve always had a bit of a hasty temper and in August 1915 I got involved in a disturbance in the barracks room and was accused by my officers of speaking in an improper manner. I ended up being confined to camp for 10 days as punishment. That was so annoying! Worse was to follow though. Later that year, due to horrific trench conditions I ended up with frostbite in both feet. The left foot was especially bad. My joints were so sore and my toes were extremely swollen. So much so that I ended up in hospital. The feet were so bad that I ended up on the St. Patrick hospital ship and was sent back to Old Blighty. I was at the Endell Military hospital in Winchester from October to December 1915. It was a tough stay in hospital; two of my toes on my left foot were in such a dreadful condition that they had to be amputated. It took a while getting mobile again but I was keen to get back to the front and do my duty.

Once back in France, I was transferred to the 2nd battalion and fought in the opening battles of the Somme offensive. The battles of Albert, Bazentin and Pozieres from the beginning of July until September 1916 saw such intense fighting. These were dark days indeed and I will never forget them. I was also there in the Battle of Flers-Courcelette 1915 when we used mass tanks for the first time. What fantastic looking things they were. Great extraordinary monsters crawling on the ground. They certainly put the fear of God into the Hun! I missed the end of this battle since I was lucky enough to have some leave and went home on the 20th September 1917. It was so wonderful to get to see my parents and the rest of the family. First thing that I had was a bath and a clean-up and after that the family and I made merry! It was great to see everyone again. Little did I know that this would be the last time that I saw the family. Ten days later I was back to the job of fighting the Boche.

The month of March 1918 was a particularly nice one. The weather was ‘delightful, warm and spring-like'. However, throughout the month, the Germans continued their offensive military scheme known as ‘Operation Michael’, whose goal was to break through Entente lines and seize the Channel Ports supplying the British Expeditionary Force.  It was on Saturday 30th March 1918 that I was killed in action. All of us soldiers knew that death was a possibility but no one really thought that they would be next. I almost made it to the end of the war. Just 7 months and 12 days to go! Such bad luck! And things were going so well; we were looking so strong that month, managing to beat the enemy’s artillery. I felt invincible. I was buried at Buffs Road Cemetery, not far from Ypres in Belgium. It’s a small cemetery, just 203 named graves and 50 or so unnamed. I’m grave reference D45. There are 11 of us in a row, all killed on the same day. I’m so glad that my body was found and put to rest, so many others didn’t have that luxury. I’m also remembered on the Hospital War Memorial plaque in High Wycombe and on my parents’ gravestone in the cemetery.



Researched by Neill George, Gill Evans, and the girls of Wycombe Abbey School

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