Service number: 12639 | Rank: Private | Regiment: Norfolk Regiment
Killed in action, October 4, 1915, in Flanders. Aged 22.
Remembered at LOOS MEMORIAL, Pas de Calais, France.
Son of Charles and Eliza Wharf, of 4 Bury Road, Brandon, Suffolk.
Born and enlisted at Brandon.
WHAT I KNOW ABOUT WALTER …
Walter, son of Charles and Eliza Wharf, of 4 Bury Road, Brandon, was another Brandon lad who had joined up at the start of the war and he stood alongside other Brandon lads in the fighting, all together as part of Kitchener’s Army. He was aged twenty-one when he enlisted at Brandon into the 7th Battalion, Norfolk Regiment and up until that time he had worked as a baker after leaving school.
Just a year after enlisting, he was killed while he was sleeping inside a dug-out. An artillery shell exploded above it, causing the roof to cave in, although his comrade was retrieved from the same dug out and survived. It was Walter’s brother, Corporal Harry Wharf, who wrote to their parents and explained Walter’s last moments.
“He was asleep when he got buried with a shell. Everyone tried their hardest to dig him out before life expired, but were, unfortunately, unable to do so. I have taken this photo from his pocket, and am sending it to you. It was a shock to me, as I stood only about ten yards from him. There was another one buried with him, but he was not so deep.
His death was instantaneous, and I am sure he felt nothing of it. He had dug a dug out under the trench where there was a sort of cover made with timber and sand. A shell, weighing, I should think, a ton, came and hit just behind where he was lying, and about six foot of earth fell on him and another young chap. Everyone worked their hardest to see if we could save them. We managed one, but he was standing up.”