CAPTAIN WALLENSTEIN RYAN-LEWIS, MC
ROYAL ENGINEERS
25TH MARCH 1918 AGE 36
BURIED: NOYON NEW BRITISH CEMETERY, OISE, FRANCE
"Our Wally" had the most splendid Christian name: Wallenstein, it was his mother's maiden name.
Wallenstein Ryan-Lewis was a qualified Mining Engineer and a member of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. From various mentions in the The Mining Magazine you can see that in 1912 he was working for the Amo Tin Mines in Northern Nigeria, and that in early 1914 he was "returning to Russia".
He served with the 284th Army Troops Company, a pool of Royal Engineers held at Army level as, if I have understood their role correctly, technical consultants for some of the big military engineering and construction projects: heavy bridges, railway systems, water supplies etc. Ryan-Lewis was a valuable man.
He died of wounds on 25 March 1918. I haven't found any information about his death but the citation for the award of his Military Cross is both significant and suggestive.
The enemy having captured a village, he counter-attacked, under heavy shell fire, established his company in front of it, and dug in. He held the position with great courage and coolness, for seven hours, and till nearly surrounded, and then successfully withdrew. Whilst holding the position he was wounded.
London Gazette 29 July 1918
First of all, what was a Royal Engineer doing counter-attacking with his company and holding out for seven hours before withdrawing? This is not the normal role of a Sapper in wartime. And, was the wounding referred to the cause of his death? The date of his death, 25 March 1918, makes me wonder if he was wounded on that day, the day the German Spring Offensive reached Noyon. The rate of their advance eventually leading General Haig to issue his famous 'backs to the wall' order on 11 April:
There is no other course open to us but to fight it out. Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause each one of us must fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the Freedom of mankind alike depend upon the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment.
In the face of the German attack was it a question of all hands to the deck, is that why Captain Ryan-Lewis RE found himself fighting in the role of an infantry officer? The location of his burial would certainly support this. He was originally buried in Noyon Old British Cemetery, a cemetery made by the 46th Casualty Clearing Station and the 44th Field Ambulance, close to the railway station in the town. Noyon fell to the Germans and the identity of the men's graves was lost in the subsequent fighting. After the war the bodies were exhumed and reinterred in Noyon New British Cemetery with the words 'Buried near this spot' on their headstones.
Ryan-Lewis's sister, Evelyn, chose his inscription. The first part quotes his diminutive in inverted commas, the second part a classic Roman Catholic formula, which would suggest that the family were Roman Catholics.