Will Schofield (1890-1981) was a British Army lance corporal who served in the 8th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment during World War I. In April 6, 1917, he and Lance Corporal Tom Blake were sent to warn the 2nd Battalion, Devonshire Regiment (in which Blake's brother Joseph Blake was serving) not to attack the former German front line amid the Germans' secret withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line.
Biography[]
Blake and Schofield on their mission.
Will Schofield was born in 1890. At a young age he married an unknown woman and had two daughters. In the summer of 1916, Schofield joined the British Army during World War I and took part of the battle of the Somme before he was reassigned to the 8th Battalion, East Surrey Regiment, where he befriended Tom Blake and rose to the rank of Lance Corporal. Schofield earned a medal for his bravery at the the Somme, causing Blake to want a medal for himself. In April 6, 1917, General John Erinmore summoned Blake for a special assignment, and Blake selected Schofield as his companion, anticipating an easy job such as fetching food from another part of the trench.
Erinmore informed the two men that the Germans had withdrawn from the front lines to form a second defensive position, the Hindenburg Line, which was six miles deep and heavily-fortified; aerial reconnaissance suggested that the Germans were intending to lure the British into a trap and inflict heavy losses against any follow-up British offensive. Blake and Schofield were sent to deliver a message to Lieutenant-Colonel Benedict Mackenzie of the 2nd Battalion, Devonshire Regiment (the unit in which Tom's brother Joseph was serving) to call off his attack on the Germans, saving 1,600 lives in doing so.
The two men were then ordered to set out immediately, securing equipment and directions from Lieutenant Andrew Leslie along the way. Other soldiers in the trenches doubted that the mission could succeed, with Leslie saying that they might win medals, and that there was nothing like pieces of tin to comfort soldiers' widows. The two friends crossed no man's land, where Schofield injured his hand on barbed wire, and the two men noticed that the Germans had destroyed their trenches and artillery pieces. A German tripwire in one of their dugouts was triggered by a rat, but Blake was able to save Schofield from the rubble, and the two made their way out of the German defenses and to an abandoned farmhouse, where they filled their canteens with milk and watched as a dogfight between two Royal Flying Corps planes and a Luftstreitkraefte plane downed the German pilot Valentin Wildner.
Blake's death.
When Wildner was shot down and crashed into the farmhouse, Blake and Schofield rescued the German pilot from his burning cockpit, and, as Schofield exited the farmhouse to investigate the aftermath of the dogfight, a paranoid Wildner struggled with Blake and fatally stabbed him in the abdomen. Schofield shot the pilot dead with two bullets from his Enfield rifle, and he cradled his friend Blake in his arms; when Blake asked if he would die, Schofield lamented that he would. Blake gave Schofield his pocket watch and told him to complete the mission and write to his mother to ensure that she knew that he didn't die alone.
Schofield was soon met by Captain Chauncey Smith and a few other British soldiers, who buried Blake and fetched his belongings. Schofield told Captain Smith about his mission, and Smith arranged for him to ride with a truck of "Casuals" (soldiers who had been separated from their units) to Écoust-Saint-Mein. There, Schofield thanked Smith and his fellow soldiers for the ride, and Smith warned him to ensure that there were witnesses when he delivered his orders to Colonel Mackenzie, as he warned that there were some men who desired war. Schofield proceeded to cross the remnants of the Écoust canal bridge, and he engaged in a shootout with a German sniper before storming the house in which the sniper was hiding. He shot the sniper dead but was shot in the helmet, knocking him unconscious until nightfall.
Schofield proceeded to walk through the burning town of Écoust, and he took shelter with the villager Lauri Duburcq while fleeing German soldiers who opened fire on him. He shared his milk and food with Duburcq and an infant she had taken in while Lauri tended to Schofield's hand wound, and they briefly bonded before Schofield, to Lauri's dismay, had to carry on and continue his mission. He proceeded to run through the town on foot while under fire from other German soldiers, strangling Laurens Sackler to death before jumping into a river, which carried him off of a waterfall and to a riverbank near a forest where Company D of the 2nd Battalion, Devonshire Regiment was encamped.
After sitting through a performance of "The Wayfaring Stranger" by a soldier in the Devons, Schofield discovered from the other soldiers that Company D was to be the last wave of the attack, and, as the company moved towards the front, Schofield ran to the trenches to search for Colonel Mackenzie. Along the way, he found that Captain Justin Ivins intended to attack the Germans nonetheless, and he was told by other captains that he would only be able to stop the second wave. As the trenches were too crowded, Schofield ran along no man's land as the British soldiers charged, bumping into many of them and occasionally tripping, but ultimately making his way to Mackenzie's dugout. He forced his way past the sentries and confronted Mackenzie with the letter. Mackenzie initially refused to cancel the attack or read the letter, saying that he had the Germans on the run, but Schofield revealed that it was a German trap, and persuaded Mackenzie to read the letter.
Mackenzie reluctantly called off the second wave and angrily dismissed Schofield, who was then directed to the casualty tent by Major Adrian Hepburn to search for Lieutenant Blake. Schofield ultimately found Blake safe among his men, and he broke the news of his friend's unfortunate death and handed over Tom's belongings to Joseph. He then asked Joseph's permission to write his mother to inform her that Tom hadn't died alone, and he also recounted how good of a man Tom had been. A grieving Joseph thanked Will with a handshake, and he told Will to head over to the mess tent and get some food after a long journey.