MAJOR WILLIAM LA TOUCHE CONGREVE, VC, DSO, MC
THE RIFLE BRIGADE
20TH JULY 1916 AGE 25
BURIED: CORBIE COMMUNAL CEMETERY EXTENSION, FRANCE
Billy Congreve had been his wife's 'beloved husband' for exactly seven weeks when he was killed by a sniper. Just 25 when he died, he was marked for a great military future being bold, resourceful, utterly dedicated and a natural leader. All these qualities were on maximum display during the first weeks of the Somme Campaign, and it is for his actions during the two weeks 7 to 21 July - constantly performing acts of gallantry and by his personal example inspiring all those around him with confidence at critical periods during the operations - that he was awarded the Victoria Cross. An award that his father also held.
Both Congreve's parents served in the war, his mother in the Red Cross as a nurse and his father, Lieutenant-General Walter Congreve, in command of the XIII Corps during the Battle of the Somme. Being in the same region the two men saw a lot of each other and thus it was that Walter Congreve was able to visit his dead son before his burial: "(I) was struck by his beauty and strength of face ... I never felt so proud of him as I did when I said goodbye to him. I myself put in his hand a posy of poppies, cornflowers and daisies ... and with a kiss I left him."
One of his fellow officers - who are always left annoyingly anonymous in these war memoirs! - wrote of him, "I don't think there was ever anyone like him; he was absolutely glorious, and even when he was ADC, all the men knew and loved him - which is unusual." Mrs Congreve uses the word glorious in the headstone inscription - "in glorious expectation". When her husband died she was expecting a baby who was born on 21 March 1917 and named Mary Gloria.
In 1919 Pamela Congreve married William Fraser. He had been their best man.
Armageddon Road: A VC's Diary Billy Congreve
edited by Terry Norman 1982, reprinted Pen & Sword 2014