Caistor St Edmund – War Memorial (Walter Ellis)

Walter Ellis is one of the names listed on the war memorial in Caistor St Edmund.

Walter Ellis was born in 1897, the son of George and Eliza Ellis who lived in Markshall which is effectively part of Caistor St Edmund. He joined the 5th Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment and was killed in action in Palestine, on 19 April 1917.

There was a major action, which was the Second Battle of Gaza, which took place between 17 and 19 April 1917 between the British Empire and France against the Ottoman Empire and the Germans. The 54th (East Anglian) Infantry Division were part of the military force, with the Norfolk Regiments losing a large number of men.

I’m not sure that Walter lies entirely at peace at Gaza War Cemetery, which is in the troubled Gaza Strip and which has been damaged twice by Israeli bombs over recent years, although they paid for the repairs to be completed to the graves. He’s a long way from home here in a place that he perhaps hadn’t even heard of when he was sent to fight there.