Pte William Solley, 1st KOSB

[michaeldr]

Remembered on the GWF today

Pte. William Solley, 17480, 1st Battalion, King’s Own Scottish Borderers

Died aged 25 on 13th June 1915

William was the son of William and Miriam Clark Solley

and the husband of Jane Carson Solley, of 13 Burn Street, Dalbeattie, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland

His grave is in the East Mudros Military Cemetery, Greece; grave ref. I.C. 64

Mudros is on the island of Lemnos in the north-east Aegean. East Mudros Military Cemetery is situated on rising ground, about kilometre north east of the village of Mudros, next to the Greek Civil Cemetery.

Because of its position, the island of Lemnos played an important part in the campaigns against Turkey during the First World War. It was occupied by a force of marines on 23 February 1915 in preparation for the military attack on Gallipoli, and Mudros became a considerable Allied camp. The 1st and 3rd Canadian Stationary Hospitals, the 3rd Australian General Hospital and other medical units were stationed on both sides of Mudros bay and a considerable Egyptian Labour Corps detachment was employed. After the evacuation of Gallipoli, a garrison remained on the island and the 1st Royal Naval Brigade was on Lemnos, Imbros and Tenedos for the first few months of 1916. On 30 October 1918, the Armistice between the Entente Powers and Turkey was signed at Mudros. East Mudros Military Cemetery was begun in April 1915 and used until September 1919. It contains 885 Commonwealth burials of the First World War, 86 of them unidentified, and one Second World War burial. There are also seven non war naval graves and 32 burials of other nationalities in the cemetery, 29 of them Russians who died in the evacuation of Novorossisk in 1921, who are remembered on a memorial plaque set into the boundary wall.

The KOSB were at Mudros from 18th to the 24th April 1915 and from the 25th April onwards they were involved in heavy fighting on the Gallipoli peninsula. In the absence of any further information, it seems most likely that Pte Solley was wounded on Gallipoli and then transferred to medical facilities on Mudros, where he died.