2nd Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers (British Army)
Died:
21/03/1918 (Killed in Action)
Age:
23
Summary
William Shanks was born about 1895. The 1911 census lists Willie as age 16, living with his grandmother at house 12 in Castledawson. He had left school and was working as a power loom weaver. Lance Corporal William Shanks was awarded the Military Medal (M.M.). Lance Corporal William Shanks was serving with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers when he was killed in action on Thursday 21st Mar 1918 at the commencement of the German Spring Offensive. He was 23 years old.
Pozieres is a village 6 kilometres north-east of the town of Albert. The Memorial encloses Pozieres British Cemetery which is a little south-west of the village on the north side of the main road, D929, from Albert to Pozieres. On the road frontage is an open arcade terminated by small buildings and broken in the middle by the entrance and gates. Along the sides and the back, stone tablets are fixed in the stone rubble walls bearing the names of the dead grouped under their Regiments. It should be added that, although the memorial stands in a cemetery of largely Australian graves, it does not bear any Australian names. The Australian soldiers who fell in France and whose graves are not known are commemorated on the National Memorial at Villers-Bretonneux.
