Current Information:

33, Hosier Street, Deptford

Naves Communal Cemetery, France

The Battle of Messines - 12th October-2nd November 1914

The Battle of Messines was one of the actions that took place during the Race to the Sea and it took place between the Comines-Ypres canal and the River Douvre. It involved the 1st and 2nd Cavalry Divisions and elements of the 3rd, 4th and 5th Divisions as well part of the Indian Division.

Because of the desperate nature of the fighting around Ypres at the end of October, 1914, the 2nd Lancashire Fusiliers battalion of 12 Brigade, 4th Division were sent north of the River Lys to Ploegsteert, to lend assistance there. On 3rd November, the battalion moved into trenches at St Yves where they remained until relieved on 6th November. The battalion diary entry for 3rd November, the day on which William Barber was killed, recorded that two men were killed by shell fire and another fourteen were wounded. Unexplainably he is buried in a cemetery many miles from Ploegsteert, down near Cambrai.