KEIGHLEY-born Willie Martin was half a world away when the First World War broke out.

But within 18 months of the fighting starting he volunteered to travel from his then home in Canada to join the war effort.

And, despite being wounded at least twice, Private Martin survived the war and returned to Canada in 1919.

Born John William Martin in Keighley in 1894, Willie grew up in Keighley and by the age of 17 was an apprentice overlooker for a worsted manufacturer, probably Swire Smith and Brother at Springfield Mills in Keighley.

Willie, his parents and 11 siblings emigrated to Ontario sometime after 1911, where Willie enlisted in January 1916 and travelled to Europe that summer with the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Private Martin received a gunshot wound to his cheek and neck at the Battle of Arras in 1917, and burns to his face in 1918.

The battalion war diary for the Battle of Arras reports heavy gunfire from the Germans on the night before Private Martin was wounded, leading to many casualties, followed by “fairly active” enemy artillery fire.

The Canadians and British began an attack on the enemy lines in the early hours, braving German artillery and machine gun fire, and the fighting continued into the next night, despite the loss of many men on the Allied side.