Soldier Record

My uncle Bill Aldridge joined the Royal Field Artillery in 1914 as a volunteer and drove a pair of horses which drew a field gun. The team comprised 3 pairs of horses and he drove the second pair. In 1916 somewhere in France his team received an incoming enemy shell which obliterated the leading pair and mutilated the horses under his control. He was blown on to some barbed wire and whilst trapped there for some hours,was affected by some noxious gas. For treatment he was repatriated to 'Blighty' and when he recovered he returned to the Artillery as a gunner in a trench mortar battery,where he remained until the Armistice.

He returned from that war his health and mentality affected by the memories of horrific trench warfare.

In 1938 when war loomed,he stated that he would kill himself before joining any military service. Then in 1943 he presented himself at a local recruiting office and taking ten years off his age stated he wished to an air gunner. This fooled nobody and as he was a cook by trade he went into the RAF as cook and served until 1945. He died from a heart attack in London in 1972

In my eyes he was a war hero but of course, he was lucky enough to survive.