Source: Michael Doyle Their Name Liveth For Evermore: The Great War Roll of Honour for Leicestershire and Rutland.
He was the son of George Turner Sills, a barrister, born 5th August 1865 in Marylebone, Middlesex and baptised on the 9th December 1865 in St. Mark’s Church, Notting Hill, Middlesex and his wife Alice Sills (nee Silverlock, married 6th April 1893 in Putney St. Stephen’s Mission Church, Wandsworth, Surrey), born 13th May 1862 in Stockwell, Surrey and was baptised on the 15th June 1862 in St. Andrew’s Church, Stockwell Green, Lambeth, Surrey. Charles was born 24th December 1893 in Wandsworth, Surrey and was baptised on the 4th February 1894 in St. Anne’s Church, Wandsworth, he had one sibling, George Geoffrey, born 16th January 1896 in Wandsworth, in March 1901 the family home was at Rose Bank, Epsom, Surrey. In April 1911 Charles was residing as a pupil boarder at The School House, Oakham, Rutland. Charles’s younger brother died on the 25th November 1911 while a pupil boarder at Oakham School, Rutland.
Charles’s father was a Barrister at Law and His Britannic Majesty’s Magistrate, Zanzibar from 1909 – 1915, his mother was the daughter of Charles Silverlock, Charles was the grandson of the late George Sills, the Recorder of Lincoln and the great nephew of the late Colonel John Fletcher Caldwell, 24th and 16th Regiments, South Wales Borderers.
Charles was educated at Oakham School 1905-1912, and entered the Royal Military College, Sandhurst in 1912, being gazetted as a 2nd Lieutenant in the 1st Battalion of the South Wales Borderers (24th Regiment), on the 17th September 1913. At Oakham school he had been five years in the cricket XI and captain in 1911 and 1912, and was also in the rugby fifteen, and won the junior and senior Fives challenge cups twice each. He was a successful athlete, having been a double blue at Sandhurst in 1913 for the high jump and cricket, and he scored in the same year 103 for Sandhurst versus Woolwich. When at Aldershot in 1913 - 14, he played regularly at cricket and rugby football for the Aldershot command. He was a member of the M.C.C.
Charles’s Army enlistment documents were not researched, and as such all that is known of his military service is that he was commissioned into the South Wales Borderers, and was posted as a 2nd Lieutenant to the 1st Battalion South Wales Borderers and with this Battalion he first entered the theatre of war in France on the 13th August 1914. He was awarded the 1914 STAR, British War Medal and Victory Medal.
He embarked for France with the 1st Division of the Expeditionary Force, and took part in the Retreat from Mons, the Battle of the Marne and the advance on the Aisne. He was killed in the latter battle near Vendresse, while his Battalion was engaged in repelling a German attack on their trenches. The records state that a German Battalion attacked in front of the 1st Battalion of the South Wales Borderers, and penetrated the line at one point, but after a hot fight they were driven back. The German’s lost very heavily, eighty of them being picked up on the very edge of the trench. The South Wales Borderers also had numerous casualties, which totalled up to seven officers, and one hundred and eighty two men, half of whom were actually killed.
The War Diary records: 26 Sept-14 – Saturday. The most ghastly day of my life and yet one of the proudest because my Regiment did its job and held on against heavy odds. At 4:15am Germans attacked. Main attack apparently against my Regiment, which is the left of our line. “D” and “A” Companies in the trenches. “B” and “C” hustled up to support, and soon the whole place alive with bullets. News comes that they are trying to work round our left. The Commanding Officer asked the WELSH REGIMENT to deal with this, which it did. Poor “D” Company had to face the music more than anyone else. Presently news comes that the Germans are in a quarry in the middle of our line, i.e. that our line was pierced. “C” Company drove them clean out. About 3:00pm things began to quieten down, “B” and “A” Companies had done their share of the work on the right and left. We were able to reorganise more or less, except for “D” Company’s far advanced trenches, and those we searched at night and found JAMES wounded, SILLS and WELBY killed.
Total casualties. Killed – WELBY, SIMONDS, COKER, SILLS, and 86 men; wounded – PRITCHARD, JAMES and GWYNN slightly, and 95 men; and missing 12. These 12 were of “D” Company, and apparently surrendered. May they be spared to reach England again and be tried by Court Martial and get what they deserve. Never has the 24th surrendered yet, and in spite of casualties the rest of the Regiment stuck to it and fought as Englishmen and 24th men could fight. We are now left with three officers each in three Companies, and only two in the 4th, instead of six in each. A sad, sad business, but everyone played up, and as the French say, “Qui perd, gagne.” We have lost men and officers, but have again won a name for doing what it is our duty to do, and in this case we held a very important line without giving a yard.
On Friday October 9th 1914 The Leicester Journal published the following article under the heading. “THE ROLL OF HONOUR.” – Second-Lieutenant C. C. Sills, who has been killed in action, was the only surviving son of Mr. G. T. Sills, of Coed Maes, Oakham, and he was commissioned in the 1st Battalion South Wales Borderers at Bordon Camp in September 1913. He was only 20 years of age.