Lance Corporal William Suthern

Lance Corporal William Suthern, 1st/7th ( Territorial ) Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers attached to 1st/5th Duke of Wellingtons ( West Riding ) Regiment.  He was killed in action on 3rd September 1916, aged 23, during the Battle of the Somme. He was the son of John and Barbara Suthren of Berry Burn, Ancroft, Berwick-upon-Tweed and is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Thiepval, Somme, France. ( For fuller details see Ford and Etal War Memorial ). The photograph shows the impressive Memorial raised to commemorate the 50th ( Northumbrian ) Division of which the Battalion was part until February 1918 when it was transferred to the 42nd ( East Lancashire ) Division as the Pioneer Battalion. It was erected near to the village of Weiltje in the Ypres Salient where nearby the Division had fought its first action of the War during the Battle of St. Julien on 26th April 1915 only days after landing on the continent. The photos show troops on the Somme and the colour image shows a peaceful part of the Somme landscape today.

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