Commissioned as an officer in 1917, Walter was mentioned in dispatches for his ‘gallantry and coolness’ at the battle of Piave in Italy in January 1918, but two months later he was killed in No Man’s Land during the second battle of the Somme. Walter Tull enlisted in December 1914, suffered shell shock, returned to action in the battle of the Somme and was decorated with the 1914-15 star and other British war and victory medals.
In recent years he has become the most celebrated black British soldier of the First World War. One of the few exceptions has been Walter Tull (1888-1918). The near-total exclusion from our history books of black servicemen in the First World War is shameful.
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