CORPORAL GEORGE JAMES HARWOOD
DURHAM LIGHT INFANTRY
28TH OCTOBER 1918 AGE 30
BURIED: GIAVERA BRITISH CEMETERY, ARCADE, ITALY
On 27 October 1918 the 12th Battalion Durham Light Infantry, part of the 23rd Division, attacked across the heavily defended Piave River during the Battle of Vittorio Veneto in Northern Italy.
George Harwood was killed the next day, the 28th. He is buried in Giavera British Cemetery. Yesterday's casualty who died on 27 October 1918 is buried in Tezze British Cemetery. Giavera cemetery is for those who died on the west bank of the river, Tezze for those who died on the east bank. Many many soldiers died in the river itself, swept away by the fast flowing stream or killed by machine gun fire.
Harwood was a married man with two sons aged 4 and 2 at the time of his death. His wife, Ellaline chose his inscription. It comes from a piece of verse regularly seen in newspaper In Memoriam columns:
Duty called him he was there
To do his bit and take his share;
His heart was good, his spirit brave
His resting place a soldier's grave.
To do your bit was a colloquial way of saying that you were making a contribution to the war, playing your part in it.
In April 1919 Ellaline Harwood married William Robins; she was Mrs Robins when she chose her former husband's inscription. A week after Harwood's death the Austrians surrendered and the war in Italy was over.