William Arthur Winnett was a solicitor’s clerk from Fulham and a reluctant rifleman with the 13th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade. He died at the age of 31 on the third day of the Arras offensive, a day of heavy fighting (and friendly fire) in thickly-falling snow and conditions so cold that some men perished in their sleep.
Canadian troops had captured the strategically important Vimy Ridge only the day before, and on April 11th the British fought through icy mud to overrun the fortified village of Monchy-le-Preux, which stood between them and the road to Cambrai.
That one battle was to last more than a month, costing 4,000 lives a day on the British side and 300,000 lives in all. William’s name is listed in Bay 9 of the Arras Memorial in the Faubourg-d'Amiens Cemetery in Arras - one of 35,000 names on that memorial alone for servicemen who died with no known grave.
William’s wife received a cable announcing his presumed death on their wedding anniversary, when their daughter (my grandmother) was not yet two years old.
The report of the fighting in the London newspapers the day after William died (a verbatim bulletin from British headquarters) assured readers: “The situation is developing favourably in accordance with the general plan.”
In the army register of soldiers’ effects, he is listed as “Pres. dead” (presumed dead), and Vera’s existence is recorded with one word: “Child”. In a bureaucratic reminder of the carnage, he is number 588,864 in the ledger. A pacifist, he told his wife: “as long as there are two men in this world, there will be war.”
Andrew Johnson