Henry Oswald William's Story.
Henry was born in 1888 in Davyhulme, Lancashire, the only son of Oswald Charles and Mary Josephine Hill. In the late 1890s the family moved residence to The Nook in Oughtrington, Lymm.He attended St Bede's College from 1897 to 1904 and studied architecture at Victoria University Manchester. He was a well known Catholic architect and helped to builld several churches and schools in Manchester including English Martyrs in Urmston.
He enlisted with the Royal Flying Corps in 1915 and was sent to Belgium as an artillery pilot and in March 1916 he was promoted to temporary 2nd Lieutenant.
He was killed on 21st October 1917 on a night flight behind enemy lines and is remembered on the Arras Flying Memorial.
He was awarded the Military Cross medal, his citation reads:
"Conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He carried out artillery observation on a hostile battery for 3 1/2 hours, subjected most of the time to heavy anticraft and machine gun fire. He has attacked hostile aircraft on 23 occasions and driven them off, in one of these attacks he succeeded in driving off five enemy airplanes, although his observer was wounded."
Major Walser in a letter to Henry's mother, wrote:
"Captain Hill had been with me for several months and was liked and respected by all of us. He was extremely brave, a hard worker, and very good at his work, and he was one of my best officers. If I had a particularly difficult reconnaissance or shoot to carry out, I could always rely on your son to carry it out successfully if it was in any way possible. Beside being a valuable officer he was a great help as a Flight Commander, and I cannot tell you how sorry we all are to lose him. He had just been awarded the Military Cross for his many brave and gallant actions performed during the last twelve months"
Researched and compiled by Lynn Smith.