No Man's Land (Eric Bogle Song) - Identity of Willie McBride

Identity of Willie McBride

According to the song, the gravestone of the soldier, Willie McBride, says he was 19 years old when he died in 1916. According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, there were eight soldiers named "William McBride", and a further six listed as "W. McBride", who died in France or Belgium during World War I but none matches the soldier in the song. Two "William McBrides" and one "W. McBride" died in 1916 but one is commemorated in the Thiepval Memorial and has no gravestone. The other two are buried in the Blighty Valley Cemetery near Authuille but one was aged 21 and the age of the other is unknown. All three were from Irish regiments.

Piet Chielens, coordinator of the In Flanders Fields Museum in Ypres, Belgium, and organizer of yearly peace concerts in Flanders, once checked all 1,700,000 names that are registered with the Commonwealth War Commission. He found no fewer than ten Privates William McBride. Three of these William McBrides fell in 1916; two were members of an Irish Regiment, the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, and died more or less in the same spot during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. One was 21, the other 19 years old. The 19-year-old Private William McBride is buried in Blighty Valley Cemetery, near Albert and Beaumont-Hamel, where the Inniskilling Fusilliers were deployed as part of the 29th Division. The 19-year-old Private William McBride can be found at Grave A. 36, near the back of the Cemetery.

The truth may be simpler. "19" and and "1916" are an easy rhyme so his real age and date of death may be different.