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.

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