WAKEFIELD George

Known information

Corporal George Wakefield died on the first day of the great German offensive of March 1918. He was born on 3 May 1894, son of John and Susan Wakefield, of Great Casterton, and worked with his father on a smallholding. He enlisted on 8 September 1914 in the 7th Battalion Lincolnshire Regiment. He went out to France about March 1915, was wounded on the Somme. He survived until the great German attack on 21 March 1918, when he was killed by a bullet in the head. A comrade, in a letter to the Reverend J Scott Ramsey, wrote: "I was wounded myself at the time. I happened to be in the same trench as him when I was hit. After I had laid where I was wounded for some time, I managed to crawl a little further along the trench in search of water for myself and a comrade who was also wounded. The first one I saw was Corporal Wakefield lying dead in the bottom of the trench, having been shot through the head. I saw he was quite dead, as I tried to move him, but got no answer, so I took his water bottle which happened to be full, and crawled back to my comrade as best I could." George is remembered on the Arras Memorial, Bay 4, as well as the plaque at the gates of Great Casterton church. His name is also on a plaque which was originally put up in Toll Bar Methodist Chapel but is now in Little Casterton church.

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  • Great Casterton Church
  • Gt Casterton Memorial
  • Little Casterton Church
  • Little Casterton war memorial
  • Arras memorial 1
  • Arras memorial 9
  • G Wakefield

User contributions

A picture of his name on the memorial, taken 19 March 2016.
By John Stokes on Saturday 19th March '16 at 11:27pm
A Rutlander, living in Belgium
 

Rutland and The Battle of the Somme

More than 90 Rutland soldiers died in the Battle of the Somme which lasted from 1 July 1916 until the middle of November. Today they lie in cemeteries across the old battlefield in northern France or are remembered among the 72,000 names on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme. By using our interactive map, you can find out what happened to them.

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