Source: Michael Doyle Their Name Liveth For Evermore: The Great War Roll of Honour for Leicestershire and Rutland.
He was the son of Mr and Mrs G. Wakefield of 9, Station Road, Essendine, Rutland. He was a butcher by trade, and after enlistment and training he embarked on the 1st July 1915 for Gallipoli, and took part in the Suvla Bay landings, and fought at Achi and Baba in Southern Gallipoli. He also served in Egypt on the Suez Canal, and was then sent to France, and took part in the Messines Ridge and Passchendaele Ridge engagements. Hi died as a result of machine gun bullet wounds in the 13th General Hospital, Boulogne. He had been wounded in the Gallipoli fighting, and writing home while on board a hospital ship in the Mediterranean said:- “He had a bullet put through his left arm just below the elbow.” He added, “there are lots of the Lincoln’s and other regiments of our Brigade on the ship wounded. We advanced across a piece of flat open ground, and captured a hill with the bayonet. We were attacking at daybreak the next hill, and they had weighed us up. We got into their position and were nearly surrounded, being shot from front and sides, and I don’t think there were many Lincoln’s to come back. I was about the first in our platoon to get wounded…….The fighting where we were is not trench fighting, but open running fights, and it is much more deadly and quicker.”