MOORE, WILLIAM JAMES LEONARD
Rank:
Service No:
Date of Death:
Age:
Regiment/Service:
Grave Reference:
Lance Corporal
14650366
01/10/1944
29
The Royal Welch Fusiliers 6th Bn.
I. E. 04.
My loved one who gave all. God grant you and your comrades peace. Wife Eileen and Robert.
Additional information:
Son of James and Charlotte Moore; husband of Eileen Minnie Moore.
Initially buried at the village of Oerle.
William Moore was my father’s cousin – son of his Aunt Charlotte – same age as my father. My father’s war diary notes on 25 October 1944 (he was serving in the army in Egypt at the time) “Letter from home – my cousin Will Moore has been killed in action in France. He leaves a wife and young child and so the slaughter goes on, a terrible waste” Obviously my father did not know where he had been killed and assumed it was France. I’m afraid that I know little more about him or his wife or child.
From the service records of William James Leonard, the following details can be established.
William James Leonard was born on 21 November 1914 in St Pancras, London. At just fourteen years of age, he enlisted in the Royal Welch Fusiliers on 21 June 1929, where he was posted as a drummer. During his early military career, he served overseas with the regiment in Hong Kong and the Sudan. In 1937, while stationed in Alexandria, he embarked for England and, at his own request, was discharged from the army.
On 28 September 1940, William married Eileen Minnie, and together they had one child. With the war well underway, he returned to military service on 15 July 1943, once again joining the Royal Welch Fusiliers. At the time of his re-enlistment, he was recorded as being 5 feet 5 inches in height, with blue eyes and light brown hair. His service records also note distinctive tattoos of daggers on both forearms.
William James Leonard was killed in action on 1 October 1944. He was twenty-nine years old.
