In what what year did the battle in which Ernest Thurtle was badly wounded occur?
Ernest Thurtle Thurtle worked as an accountant and salesman. He saw service in the army in World War I and was badly wounded at the Battle of Cambrai. In 1912 he married Dorothy Lansbury, daughter of George Lansbury, leader of the Labour Party in the 1930s.
First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux The First Battle of Villers-Bretonneux (30 March – 5 April 1918), took place during Operation Michael, part of the German Spring Offensive on the Western Front. The offensive began against the British Fifth Army and the Third Army on the Somme and pushed back the British and French reinforcements on the north side of the Somme. The capture of Villers-Bretonneux, close to Amiens, a strategically-important road- and rail-junction, would have brought the Germans within artillery-range. In late March, Australian troops were brought south from Belgium as reinforcements to help shore up the line and in early April the Germans launched an attack to capture Villers-Bretonneux. After a determined defence by British and Australian troops, the attackers were close to success until a counter-attack by the 9th Australian Infantry Brigade and British troops late in the afternoon of 4 April restored the situation and halted the German advance on Amiens.