My Grandmothers two elder brothers.
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William Clinton Skeet, The older of the two brothers was born in 1895 in Woking and was educated at Maybury School there then at the Guildford Royal Grammar School, where he won the first trade scholarship to be awarded by the Surrey Education Committee.
He then went on to Battersea Polytechnic where he studied mechanical and electrical engineering. Following this he then worked in Skeet and Jeffes, a builder's merchant in Woking, which was partly owned by his Father, William Robert Skeet, he was also a keen sportsman and had kept goal for his school football team and after leaving school he often kept goal for the Woking Football Club
Following the outbreak of World War I he enlisted in the 2nd Battalion, of the 7th Queens Regiment,(Royal West Surrey Regiment) on the 9th of September 1914 at the age of 22, Regimental Number G 1642.
He rose to the rank of Serjeant, before being commissioned as a Lieutenant in the 13th West Yorkshire Regiment (Prince of Wales Own 12th (Service) Battalion) on December the 14th 1914. On the 10th of April 1915 this became a Reserve Battalion and June of that year William Skeet was promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant, and received his Captaincy about six months later.
On the 1st of September 1916 the battalion was converted to a training battalion in the 2nd Reserve brigade. Captain Skeet had several times applied to go to the front but these applications were refused as he had proved too useful training the recruits that were constantly joining the Regiment,
He was finally sent to France on March the 21st 1917, joining the 12th Battallion, which was in Billets in the town Wanquetin on the 27th of that month. On the 4th of Aprinthe Battalion left the billets and marched 8 miles east to the town of Arras, where they stayed for 3 nights in cellars under the ruined houses. They left Arras on the 8th of April moving up towards the front line through the Crincon Sewer then a series of tunnels and underground quarries, dug out by the New Zealand Tunnelling Company till they reached Auckland then Wellington caves.which opened onto Circular Trench, they then turned into Iceland Trench, proceeding to the assembly trench between Iceland Trench and Twenty Street, just behind the British Front Line.
Captain Skeet was killed on the Ninth of April 1917 (Easter Monday) during the first day of the Arras offensive (Third Battle of Arras) at Tilloy-Les-Mofflaines, about two miles south-east of Arras, and is buried in the Tilloy British Military Cemetery nearby, he was twenty four years old. According to the West Yorkshire Regiment's War Diary he was hit in the ankle and started to make his way back to the dressing station, which was near the rear end of Iceland Trench when he was hit again, in the shoulder and neck. He was carried to the dressing station but died of his wounds later in the day. He is buried in Plot II E 5. in the Tilloy Military Cemetery at Tilloy Les-Mofflaines which is south-east of the village, on the north-east side of the D37 road to Wancourt.
The cemetery, designed by Sir Edward Lutyens, contains the graves of 1,162 Commonwealth casualties (611 of whom are unidentified), over 900 of them were killed during the battle in April 1917. The battle, which lasted till the sixteenth of May achieved the longest British advance since trench warfare had begun.
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John Richard Skeet (known as Jack) He spent time on a training course with the Inns of Court Officer Training Corps at Berkhampstead before being commissioned as a Lieutenant in the 1st Battalion of the 2nd London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers) in December 1915. He was coming home on leave from France in March 1918 but the ship was held up by fog in the Channel and could not sail, the following morning the troops on board were disembarked and sent back to the front as the German Spring Offensive had started and the Allied front line was being pushed back right along the Somme front..
He was temporally attached to the 1st Battalion of the 2nd London Regiment (Royal Fusiliers) as acting Captain and was killed on the Twenty Seventh of April 1918. The Battalion's task was to clear the wood (Bois de Hangard) some ten miles south east of Amiens, this point was the junction of the French and Commonwealth forces defending Amiens. Following a short 'Hurricane' artillery barrage on the wood and the enemy trenches the shellfire started to roll slowly forwards and at 05:15 the Battalion left their trenches and advanced behind it, suffering heavy casualties whilst doing so from intensive shell and machine-gun fire, in some areas the advancing troops were forced back and other units were moved sideways to try to fill the gaps in the line.
At 8am on the 27th Jack was sent forward from Battalion HQ to ascertain the situation, but was unfortunately wounded in the leg before he reached the wood and was then subsequently killed by a shell. The wood and village had been the scene of incessant fighting from the 4th of April and the village was only finally cleared by the 1st and 2nd Canadian Mounted Rifles on the 8th of August.
Following the battle Jack's body was never found, and he was listed as wounded and missing, he was twenty two years old. His name is engraved on panels 85 and 86 of the Pozieres Memorial to the missing, north-east of the town of Albert on the Somme.
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Both brothers posthumously received the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. Their names were inscribed on the war memorial in Woking Square as well as on the Rolls of Honour at both Maybury School and Guildford Royal Grammar School where they were educated, and on the Great War memorial plaque to the fallen in Christ Church, Woking.
The Skeet family had a commemorative cast bronze plaque made, displaying their names, rank, unit and details of death, with the emblems of the West Yorkshire Regiment and the London Regiment displayed in the top corners. This was placed in the Congregational Church in York Road Woking when a memorial service was held in May 1919.