William Thomas Amos, born in 1893, was a Southam lad who, before the war, lived with his widowed mother, Sarah, and older brother, Frank, at Mill Cottages on the Welsh Road. The Amos family had come to Southam in the 1870s. Sarah (b.1854) came originally from West Wigginton in Oxfordshire and her late husband George (b.1850) was born in Farndon in Northamptonshire. George, like his father before him, was an agricultural labourer. The couple had six children, George had died before he was 50 years old. 

The 1901 census shows that, with two boys still at home (Frank, aged 16 years, a lime works labourer and William an eight year old school boy), Sarah took in sewing to make ends meet. These two sons were still at home ten years later when the 1911 census shows Frank had changed to farm work, and William, often known as Bill, was working as a draper’s porter. 

William Amos had initially joined the 10th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment (RWR), however, he was subsequently transferred to 1/6th Battalion RWR, (20900) with whom he died. He was killed in action during a German trench raid that took place on Sunday 4th February 1917. 

On February 4th 1917, the 1/6th Battalion RWR were in the trenches on the Somme at Biaches opposed by the Prussian Guards. Private William Amos was one of 120 of the battalion reported killed, missing or wounded on this fateful day. How he met his death is not known.

'A short history of the 1/6th Royal Warwickshire Regiment', published after the war (1922) was able to provide a much fuller account of lead up, the raid and its aftermath, here (edited):

On the 9th January 1917, the Battalion shifted its training quarters [from Warloy-Baillon] to Liercourt, in the Abbeville back area. Snow and hard frost interfered with the digging of practice trenches, but none save the Staff regretted them. 

On January 27th, the Battalion was rudely jolted from its firesides and sent by train to Cerisy, and from there marched on to Mericourt-sur-Somme.

On January 31st, we went still further up the south bank of the Somme to Cappy. This area was in the occupation of the French, and the line south of the Somme was that reached by them in their share of the Somme attack of the previous year....The terrain south of the Somme was much less battered by shell-fire than in the British sector to the north....There was a glamour of peace and quiet about. Moreover, the intense frost gave all the trenches a specious air of tidiness and solidity.

The Battalion had few misgivings when they marched along the bleak road from Herbecourt on the night of February 1st and relived the 2nd Battalion of the 125th French Infantry Regiment to the south of Biaches. For two days things were quiet as the grave. Brilliant sunshine, a thin layer of snow on the ground, comfortable little dug-outs, apparently very snug and secure, the enemy only a hundred yards away to be sure, but no offense meant (just yet), and it was to be hoped none taken.

At noon on Sunday, 4th February, there came some ominous whistling through the air and some “blue pigeons” (a loud, but not often destructive trench-mortar grenade – coloured grey-blue – with a remarkable tail) exploded near the support line. The next minute shells of all calibres up to 9 inches began arriving, too fast to be counted.

The frozen ground broke up into jagged fragments as dangerous as the shell splinters themselves, and the trenches where not blown in by direct hits became littered deep with debris. Dug-outs were broken in bodily and men inside buried beyond hope of rescue. The roar of explosions was so continuous and deafening that orders shouted into men’s ears were barely understood.

Casualties were all too numerous, and it was impossible to move the seriously wounded, owing to the blocks in every trench. Three times the storm lulled for a few precious minutes, and then came on again with redoubled fury. The French gunners behind covering the Battalion front were short of ammunition, and the British guns relieving them, though in position, had not registered the S.O.S. line. The reply therefore of our guns was lost in the hell of that bombardment. 

At 5.40 pm, the incredible climax occurred; the bombardment increased with unmistakable emphasis. There could be no more doubt. It was no mere outburst of spleen at discovering us, as at Hebuterne in August 1915, but a preparation and protection for an actual assault. From left to right along the front the Companies were C, B, D (A Company was in reserve at Eclusier).

At 6.15 pm, the Germans came. Every Lewis gun and rifle in the front line still in action fired at them, but in places there were woefully few. The enemy, of the 1st Prussian Guard, entered our lines in the left of B Company’s sector and moved along the trench in both directions. Lieut. Belcher and two sergeants of B Company met them on the right and bombed them to a standstill. The other party did not reach C Company’s sector before it withdrew. Lieut. Harrison, of C Company, led a party of bombers to meet them, but all except Lieut. Harrison himself fell victims to the incessant shell-fire. 

By 6.25 pm our line was clear except of the dead and the dying, and so it was found when supports of B Company worked their way along until they joined hands with C Company. All night over obliterated trenches, reeking with the bitter, sickening stench of blood, stumbled the stretcher-bearers, taking the wounded out to the ambulances.

When a reckoning was taken of the losses in the three Companies, it was found that there were thirty-seven killed, seventy wounded (many very seriously), and fourteen missing, besides Lieut. Belcher, who was found lying dead where he made his stand against the raiders. Of the missing some were lying crushed under their ruined shelters, some had been captured. A German Guardsman, half blinded by a bomb, was caught in our lines and another German was found dying among our own dead in that hideous trench. So it ended.

The following night, the Battalion relieved by the 5th Battalion RWR, went back to Eclusier to recover from its wounds and bruises. No comment is needed except the eleven decorations awarded the Battalion for that single action. At Eclusier, the Somme was deep-frozen and the men played football on the ice to keep warm.

On February 10th the Battalion returned to that fatal sector and collected its dead; the frost made it impossible as yet to bury them. Beyond a few “blue pigeons” that hurt nobody, the enemy remained passive.

On February 14th, the Battalion moved back to a reserve trench near Herbecourt for six days. While there, the frost collapsed and the thaw brought down all the trenches in an irreparable ruin. The first need was to bury the bodies of those who fell on the 4th; after that the Battalion resolved itself into one endless carrying party, taking revetting materials to the unfortunates in the front.

William was originally buried in the Kiboko Wood Cemetery in a copse near Biaches where his grave was initially marked with a cross. Later, in 1920, his grave was moved to the New British Cemetery at Assevilliers about 10 km south west of Peronne. This cemetery was constructed from graves removed from twelve battlefield sites on the Somme. Many of the graves of the fallen were from the RWR and twenty were from William's battalion.

It is impossible to imagine the effect on William's mother, Sarah, of losing her youngest son. She lived to over 80 years dying in January 1935. She is buried in Southam church yard not far from the war memorial that commemorates her son’s life. 

William Amos’s image was taken from a larger framed picture that hung on the wall of his niece-to-be, Miss Doris Amos, born in 1928, long after his William’s death. Alan Griffin, who took the snapshot, recalls this portrait was in pride of place, commemorating him, through to the end of the twentieth century. Doris later donated this picture together with one of his grave to a local collection where is it now preserved.