Shoreham war hero celebrates 105th birthday

William Earl featured in the BBC documentary My Granddad’s War, fronted by Gary Lineker, last year and his life story has been showcased in the book Blood and Bandages, published by author Liz Coward in 2017.

William was born on May 12, 1915, in Sudbury and went on to train as a chemist’s assistant at Boots in London. He was then called up to join a field ambulance with the Royal Army Medical Corps, aged 25, leaving his wife-to-be Mary Standen back in England.

William was trained as a nursing orderly and was responsible for collecting, treating and evacuating the wounded from the front line. He says he never considered himself in the army, but ‘of the army’.

In anticipation of action overseas, William married Mary in November 1941 and their first son, David, was born the following spring.

William first saw action in Enfidaville in April 1942 with the Eighth Army. Within weeks, he was involved in a highly dangerous mission to recover the injured from No Man’s Land.

At the end of the North African Campaign, William joined a German dressing station to deal with the wounded before being assigned to join the Anglo-American Fifth Army, which was preparing to invade Italy.

William landed 25 minutes after the first assault troops at Salerno Bay in September 1943, and, along with his colleagues, treated the wounded on the beachhead before finally advancing in land.

When peace finally came to Italy in May 1945, William raced to beat the New Zealanders to Venice. They won and within two months, William was on his way home, after three years away.

William said: “I was camped outside Venice when we realised it was all over. We felt a great sense of relief that all the fighting was done and after six long years we could have peace again. We must always honour everyone who died and sacrificed their lives to give us 75 years of peace and freedom.”

William was demobbed in July 1946 and returned to Boots, where he stayed until he retired.