#OnThisDay 1916 Captain Oswald Brooke Webb 11th Royal Irish Rifles, died of wounds on the 3rd (CWGC says 4th) July 1916 from abdominal wounds received in 1st July – the record says he was hit ‘the very moment our men slipped over parapet.’ He was taken to the Casualty Clearing Station and an officer there who knew him wrote to his brother and said, ‘I saw him when he was brought into hospital, and thought he looked pretty bad, but he was quite conscious, and not suffering any pain. I was talking to him for a few minutes and he told me he got hit before he got past our wire. He was very pleased with the way his men went forward, and seemed quite cheerful’.
He was born on the 23 June 1880 and the son of late Charles James Webb, Old Bleach Linen Company, Randalstown and his wife Charlotte Ellen Brooke. The couple had married in 1869.
Oswald Webb was married and he and his wife Kathleen had a 12 year old son. Captain Webb had written to him at boarding school from Martinsart on 30th June. He said, ‘My Dear Patrick, Just a line to let you know I am all right … I hope you are getting on well at school … Write good long letters to your mother, your ever loving father.’
He is buried in Warloy Baillon Communal Cemetery Extension, Somme.
The Irish at War 