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“If you think, have a kindly thought, If you speak, speak generously, Of those who as heroes fought And died to keep you free”
Set up by the Black Country Society. Our aim is to highlight local men who died in the Great War and how they have been commemorated on war memorials. Its scope covers the whole of the present Dudley Municipal Borough and therefore includes the places which have come within its bounds since 1914.
There are over fifty memorials and the number of names exceeds three thousand. Research on the names has been extensive but inevitably errors and omissions occur. We would like to hear about them concentrated on life and work before 1914, involvement in military campaigns and where each man is buried or commemorated.
Wilfred Smith was the son of Enoch and Sophia Smith of 27 Ladysmith Road, Cradley, and attended Colley Lane school. He enlisted in the Berkshires and joined the 5th Battalion. In 1917 they were in the fighting at Arras and at Cambrai and were then faced by the 1918 German Spring Offensives. In the Advance to Victory they were involved in the August victories but the German forces were in retreat only to the Hindenburg Line. Their defence was still formidable. British morale, however, was high and the Berkshires' capture of Nurlu indicated this. But casualties were still taken and Private Wilfred Smith was killed in action on the 18th September. He was 26 years of age and is buried in Epehy Farm Cemetery (II G 5) and commemorated on the Cradley and Halesowen Memorials.
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ST JOHN THE BAPTIST CHURCH, High St, Halesowen, Dudley, West Midlands, England, B63 3BB
