Arthur Albert Woodyatt was born in Kidderminster, Worcestershire, on the 17th of December 1918; his dad Frederick was a stable-hand and his mum Nellie, was a cotton spinner in a mill owned by E.A. Broom. 

At the time of his birth, Arthur had just one sibling: an elder brother, four years his senior, he was named Frederick after the head of the household. The family lived at number 39 Bromsgrove Street.

In 1922, Arthur gained a little brother when Ronald was born. A year later and the three Woodyatt boys welcomed the first of their two sisters; Doreen was born in 1923. Three years later, their second little sister arrived, Ivy was born in 1926.

As a young lad, Arthur attended Lea Street school, a ten-minute walk from the family home on Bromsgrove Street.

In 1927, when Arthur was just nine years old, the family suffered a financial setback when his mum’s place of work, E.A. Broom’s Castle Mill, burnt to the floor, resulting in all 250 employees being put out of work a couple of weeks before Christmas. The town’s Mayor, George Eddy, started a support fund immediately and it continued until the mills were open again in 1929, so the Woodyatt’s at least received some compensation, albeit something of a pittance. 

When he finished his schooling, Arthur found work with a local greengrocer, Mr. Clarke, whose grocery was on Rackfields in the Clensmore district of Kidderminster; his job was that of a van driver. Meanwhile, his dad was still working with horses, being a coal merchant’s drayman.

Around this time, the 1939 Register shows that the Woodyatts had moved from their old home on Bromsgrove Street to Chester Road North, a short distance but to a larger house.

However, Arthur wouldn’t be living here for long, in October 1939, he joined up, keen to “do his bit.”

As it turned out, Arthur did more than just a “bit...”

He was assigned to a cavalry regiment (or possibly, he requested assignment to a calvary regiment, having been influenced by a dad who was so passionate about horses?). However he got there, the regiment that Arthur joined was the 10th Royal Hussars; they’d not long returned to the UK from India to commence a process of mechanisation - it had been accepted that the age of cavalry charges on trusty steeds with sabres to the fore was now long gone.

Arthur’s 10th Hussars were assigned to the 2nd Armoured Brigade of the 1st Armoured Division in 1939. At the same time, it became part of the Royal Armoured Corps.

Shortly after the outbreak of war, the 1st Armoured Division deployed to France and Arthur went with them. He fought in northern France and Belgium but was eventually evacuated via Calais as the German Blitzkrieg took Europe by storm.

His 10th Hussars returned to England without any vehicles whatsoever in June 1940, they’d all been lost or abandoned in the retreat to the coast.

In November 1941, Arthur deployed with his 10th Hussars to North Africa with the 2nd Armoured Brigade, joining the 7th Armoured Division. Now equipped with Crusader tanks, he and his unit saw action in Operation Crusader, at the Battle of Alam el Halfa in August 1942 and at the Second Battle of El Alamein in October 1942.

Whilst in North Africa, Arthur was captured by the Germans, but after just three days in captivity, he somehow managed to escape and make his way back to the British lines, getting back into the fight immediately.

Having helped chase the Germans out of North Africa, Arthur spent some time in Algiers before heading for Italy. Here, at the foot of the boot, his Hussars were required to fight both as an armoured unit and as dismounted infantry.

On June the 24th 1944, Arthur was caught out in the open and was mortally wounded, suffering fatal shell wounds. This was the very same day that his mum Nellie had received, opened and read, his last letter home...

Today, Arthur rests at peace in the Bari War Cemetery, beneath a Commonwealth War Graves Commission headstone which bears the personal inscription:

“TO THE WORLD JUST A SOLDIER BUT TO ME HE WAS ALL THE WORLD. HIS MOTHER.”

The cemetery is located on the outskirts of Bari in the locality of Carbonara, Apulia in southeast Italy.

The site of the cemetery was chosen in November 1943, seven months before Arthur fell, and although there was no serious fighting in the vicinity, Bari was an important supply base and hospital centre (with the 98th General Hospital stationed there from October 1943 until the end of the war).

Besides garrison and hospital burials, the cemetery contains graves brought in from a wide area of south-eastern Italy, from the 'heel' right up to the 'spur'. Today, Bari War Cemetery contains 2,128 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War, 170 of them unidentified; the cemetery also contains eighty-five First World War burials. 

Back in Blighty, Arthur Albert Woodyatt is commemorated on the Kidderminster War Memorial which is situated to the front of St. Mary and All Saint’s Church. Below the names of the fallen on this memorial, the following epitaph is inscribed:

“THESE DIED THE NOBLEST DEATH A MAN MAY DIE ~ FIGHTING FOR GOOD AND RIGHT AND LIBERTY ~ AND SUCH A DEATH IS IMMORTALITY”

Rest In Peace Trooper Arthur Albert Woodyatt ~ your bravery will never be forgotten ~ your sacrifice will be remembered For Evermore.

FOOTNOTE: Arthur’s elder brother, Frederick served with the pioneer Corps and his younger brother Ronald, with the forces in Southeast Asia. Thankfully both survived the war and returned home to Kidderminster.