William Henry Crocker   (Willis)    1892 - 1988  

Willis Crocker enlisted in 1914.  He firstly was stationed on Partridge Island (at the mouth of Saint John Harbour).  In the fall of 1914 his unit "The Ammunition Column" went to Fredericton where they lived in barracks until June, 1915.  He went overseas and was stationed in England with the horses until his unit went to France.  He was wounded at the Battle of Paschendaele on October 29, 1917.  An artillery shell exploded near him, but between him and the explosion was an officer on a horse.  The officer was killed but his presence there blocked Willis from the full effect of the blast.   He recuperated from his wounds in the south of England in a hospital at Boscombe. (Simultaneously, his brother, Gordon, was recuperating from an amputation of his left leg in a hospital in London.)   In the spring of 1918 Willis had his right breast removed at a Canadian-run hospital in Basingstoke, England.  In August, 1918, he returned to Canada.  

Submitted by Betty (Crocker) Lumsden