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Lieutenant Herbert Valiant WILLIS
E Battery, 4th Brigade, Royal Horse Artillery Date of birth: 18th January 1856 Date of death: 16th January 1879 Died of wounds aged 22 Unknown
Herbert Valiant Willis was born at Waterloo in Lancashire on the 18th of January 1856 the eldest son of William Valiant Willis, a commercial merchant and ship owner, and Eliza F. Willis of Upper Arley, Bewdley in Staffordshire. He was educated at Lancing College from September 1868 to July 1873. He went on to the Royal Military Academy Woolwich from where he was commissioned as a Temporary Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery on the 14th of February 1877. In 1878 the Ameer of Afghanistan was seen by the British in India as too close to the Russians which culminated the Ameer receiving a Russian delegation while refusing to meet with a British envoy. The British decided to invade Afghanistan and replace the Ameer by force. A force of some 13,000 men under Lieutenant General Sir Donald Stewart was assembled at Multan in the Punjab. They advanced across some 440 miles of hostile terrain from the Bolan Pass, to Quetta and finally to Kandahar which they reached on the 8th of January 1879. The enemy garrison had fled and the city was occupied without opposition. On the 10th of January 1879 Herbert Willis was attacked at Chaharus, in the centre of the city, and was stabbed by a Ghazi (religious fanatic). His assailant was immediately cut down by a non commissioned officer of the 2nd Punjab Cavalry assisted by Captain Hervey of the 1st Punjab Cavalry who was slightly wounded in the hand during the melee. Despite all possible assistance being rendered to Herbert Willis he "gradually sank" and died in hospital six days later.