244528 Sgt. William Wilson Wright British Army King's Royal Rifle Corps from:Rotherham My grandfather William Wright joined up in 1915 in Rotherham into the KRRC. I don't know which battalion. He fought at Loos, Hill 70 where he was shot 4 times in September 1915 and recorded as dead. He was cited for a VC for defending Hill 70 and already having got shot, rescued his officer. He always claimed he had one. I found his photo in a VC parade in 1952 in London in front of the Queen and the name was listed as Cpt A.W.Wright. He was by trade a dynamite man in the coal mines and my father thinks he was a mole in the war. My grandfather always talked about being laid in a metal cage for months in a hospital which was owned by a tea plantation owner from India. I suspect this was in North London. He had only 1/4 lung left when he died at 72. He returned from war in 1916 and found an Irishman living with his 'widow' in his house and threw him through the window. He recovered partially and trained officers up to 1919 as Captain. My father says he always spoke about the war as a big adventure, getting lost, hiding under a bush as Germans marched past.
It would be useful if anybody knew the battalion he was likely to be in. As a child I remember putting my fists into the holes in his back. I have found no evidence he had a VC. We know he was brave, he once rescued a miner in a pit fall by carving off his leg. We knew the miner personally in later years.
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