Private William Pye   18738

6th Loyal North Lancashire Regiment

Joined the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment and was one of the first men to enlist from Bickerstaffe. He was the first son of Jane Sephton (formerly Pye) and the late William Pye.

His father died when William was only two years old. This led to his auntie, who lived at Wash Farm, fostering him. He had two brothers Ernie and John.

On the 17^th June 1915, William and his battallion sailed from Avonmouth on board the S.S. Braemar Castle, via Malta, Alexandria and Mudros to Cape Heles at the foot of Gallipoli. Here they went straight into bivouac at Gully Ravine on the night of the 6^th July 1916. The battalion of 31 officers and 946 other ranks took part in some bitter action before sailing on to Mesopotamia on board the ‘Corsican’. They arrived at Basra, (in present-day Iraq) on the 14^th of February 1916 and then went overland to Sheik Saad on the banks of the Tigris River.

After earlier set backs, his commander Sir Stanley Maude welded a new force together, (half a million strong) in the latter part of 1916.

A successful assault was then made on Baghdad against the Turks, on March 11^th 1917. This had involved a mass crossing of the River Tigris two days earlier. It was during this crossing at Diyala, eight miles south of Baghdad, that Private William Pye was killed on 9^th March 1917 at the age of 21.

Commemoration can be found on panel 27, of the Basra Memorial, Iraq.

Footnote

Sometime after his victory at Baghdad, an American reporter interviewed Sir Stanley Maude.  During the interview coffee was served. Commander Maude took milk with his, the reporter declined. Shortly afterwards Sir Stanley, at the height of his career became ill and died. It was discovered that the milk was contaminated with cholera. He was buried in the military cemetery outside the North Gate at Baghdad in November 1917.

Iraq

Basra The only memorial to the Meaopotamian Campaign ('Mespot' to the soldiers), and one of the Commission’s largest, commemorating 7000 British and 33,000 Indian soldiers lost in the campaign against the Turks 1914-1918. Until the 1960s this memorial was in full view from the Shatt-al-Arab, the river formed by the confluence of the Rivera Tigris and Euphrates, but is now obscured by a wall-like memorial, erected by the Iraqis. The Commission has not yet, in the late l980s, been able to have the wall removed and in view of the current Iran-Iraq situation, no early resolution is in sight.