Lieutenant-Colonel E.D. Wardleworth
1/4th Battalion, King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry

Wuzzle Wardleworth had taken over as C.O. He was very good; why he was several times replaced after temporary command I shall never know. He moved the companies around fairly frequently in order to give everyone a turn in the comparatively quiet rear positions.

(Lewis Keeble, “A Worm’s Eye View: The 1/4 K e View: The 1/4 KOYLI in Normandy YLI in Normandy,” CMH, 6)

Edmund Douglas Wardleworth was born on 24 October 1914 in Sheringham, Norfolk, the same day his father, a Royal Army Medical Corps lieutenant, mysteriously drowned while on active service in France. The younger Wardleworth was commissioned into the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry in 1935. He was aide-de-camp to the governor of Burma from 1938 to 1941. He fought as a company commander with the 2nd Battalion, KOYLI during the Japanese invasion of Burma in the 1941-42 campaign. When the commanding officer and second-in-command became casualties, Captain Wardleworth took over during fierce fighting in late February 1942.

He earned the Military Cross for heroism during the retreat from Burma. He and many wounded troops were trapped on one side of a river with no ability to cross. Although he had been shot in the shoulder, Wardleworth swam across to retrieve a boat: “He then swam back, although very tired, not going in the boat as he could have done. This boat was the means of saving very many wounded men and officers.”

On 27 October 1941, while stationed in Burma, he had married Gemma Eileen Mary De Bailleau Monk. Japan invaded six weeks later. Gemma was machined-gunned and killed by Japanese troops on taking Myitkyina, Burma. By 1943, Wardleworth had returned to the United Kingdom and assumed command of the 11th Royal Fusiliers for home defence duty. By the invasion of Normandy, he had been posted to 1/4th Battalion, King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry as second-in-command. After Lieutenant-Colonel J.F. Walker was promoted to brigadier of 146th Infantry Brigade on 19 June 1944, Wardleworth assumed temporary command until the arrival of Lieutenant-Colonel C.D. Barlow at the end of the month.

When Barlow was killed in action on 26 July, Wardleworth again became temporary commanding officer. He was, however, again superseded by another officer from the United Kingdom, Lieutenant-Colonel T.W.A.H. Harrison-Topham on 5 August. The KOYLI would have two more commanding officers, and in February 1945 Wardleworth was wounded by a V-1 bomb. On recovery, the next month he was appointed GSO 2 with 21st Army Group headquarters.

Wardleworth married again in 1946 and died on 18 November 1999 in Norwich, Norfolk.