Private William L Colwell

12 Jun 1944

William Lewis Colwell was the son of William Albert and Eva Colwell; husband of Gertrude Mary Colwell, of Great Ayton, Yorkshire, he enlisted in the Royal Artillery and volunteered for Airborne forces.

Private Colwell successfully completed parachute training at RAF Ringway and was posted to 12th (Yorkshire) Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, and took part in Operation Overlord (Normandy).

Pte Colwell was killed in action on 12 June 1944, aged 31, and was given a field burial at Aufreville, and was re-interred to Ranville War Cemetery, Calvados, France on 20 June 1945.

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By Rod Gibson

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Service History

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