Private William Blyth

Private William Blyth, 17th Battalion, Australian Infantry. ( He served as William Wilson ). He was killed in action in Belgium, aged 32, on 9th October 1917 during the Battle of Third Ypres. He had been born in Selkirk and was the son of Matthew and the late Elizabeth Blyth of 15 South Port, Selkirk and is commemorated on the Menin Gate Memorial, Ypres, Flanders, Belgium. He had emigrated to Australia and was a stone mason and coal miner when he enlisted in Sydney, New South Wales in October 1916. He joined his Battalion at the front in May 1917. The photographs show the atrocious conditions of the Flanders battlefield where the incessant shelling had destroyed the drainage systems and turned much of the ground into a swamp. ( His brother Matthew had already fallen in 1916- see above ).

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