LIEUTENANT COLONEL ARCHIBALD JOHN SALTREN-WILLETT
ROYAL GARRISON ARTILLERY
11TH OCTOBER 1917 AGE 51
BURIED: VLAMERTINGHE NEW MILITARY CEMETERY, BELGIUM
Western Morning News Saturday 20 October 1917
"Lt-Col Archibald John Saltren-Willett (killed in action on Oct.11) was the son of the late Capt. John Saltren-Willett, of Petticombe, Torrington, and Newington House, Oxford. He was born in 1866, and after leaving Cheltenham, entered the RMA; he passed out of Woolwich into the Royal Artillery in April 1885, reaching the rank of lieut-col. in Feb. 1913. He had served on the Staff as Assistant Inspector of Warlike Stores."
Strange, this doesn't sound anything like the man that I have discovered. In the first instance he had a wife who chose his lovely inscription, she doesn't get a mention in any of the death announcements, of which thee were several. In the second, at the time of his death Saltren-Willett was in Flanders, at Zonnebeke right in the centre of the battle serving as a commander of a 1st ANZAC Heavy Artillery Battery Group.
Compare the above newspaper announcement with this:
"SECRET
Routine Order No: 62 13th October 1917 by
Brigadier-General L.D. Fraser CMG RA
Commanding 1st ANZAC Corps Heavy Artillery
1. Obituary: It is with deep regret that the B.G.H.A. announces that Lieut-Colonel A.J. Saltren-Willett, Commanding 66th H.A.G. was killed in action on the 11th instant.
Full of energy, and at all times keenly solicitous for the welfare of those serving under him, the loss of this gallant officer will be deeply felt by those serving under him so recently, and by the Royal Regiment in general."
This link to the unit war diary for October 1917 on the Australian War Memorial website shows, page after page, how deeply involved the 1st ANZACs were in the Third Ypres campaign. The site also has a digitised copy of his Mention in Despatches:
"For conspicuous energy and devotion to duty and untiring supervision of his group of counter-batteries during the offensive E. of Ypres in June, July, August and September 1917.
On active service since 10/10/1916
Dated 20th September 1917"
Saltren-Willett was killed three weeks later whilst "directing the batteries of his Group, which were then in action at Zonnebeke, he was hit by the fragment of a German shell and killed instantaneously".
In 1900 he married Helen Margaret Bird in St Peter's Lahore. His inscription comes from Genesis 31:49, "The Lord watch between me and thee when we are absent one from another". This loving blessing, often represented by the single word Mizpah, is used whether the couple are separated by distance or by death.