Walter Tull - First World War

First World War

During the First World War Tull served in both Footballers' Battalions of the Middlesex Regiment, 17th and 23rd, and also in the 5th battalion, rising to the rank of sergeant and fighting in the Battle of the Somme in 1916. When Tull was commissioned as Second Lieutenant on 30 May 1917 (still in the Middlesex Regiment), he became the first black/mixed race combat officer in the British Army, despite the 1914 Manual of Military Law specifically excluding Negroes/Mulattos from exercising actual command as officers. (Though Nathaniel Wells, the son of a white plantation owner and a black slave, received a Yeomanry commission in 1818). Tull's superior officers recommended him for a commission regardless. Tull fought in Italy in 1917/18 and was cited for his for "gallantry and coolness" by Major General Sydney Lawford, commander of the 41st division, having led his company of 26 men on a night raiding party, crossing the fast-flowing rapids of the River Piave into enemy territory and returning them unharmed. Soon after was recommended for a Military Cross. He returned to northern France in 1918, and was killed in action on 25 March during the Spring Offensive, near the village of Favreuil in the Pas-de-Calais. His body was never recovered, despite the efforts of Private Billingham to return him while under fire.

Walter Tull is remembered at the Arras Memorial, Bay 7, for those who have no known grave. He fought in six major battles: Battle of Ancre, November 1916 (first Battle of the Somme); Battle of Messines, June 1917; 3rd Battle of Ypres, July–August 1917 (Passchendaele, Menin Road Bridge); September 1917; Second Battle of the Somme, St.Quentin, March 1918; Battle of Bapaume, March 1918 (2nd Somme).