In the run-up to Armistice Day on Sunday, the Packet online is publishing a mini-series at 7pm each evening this week to remember the ravages of the First World War and the direct impact it had on Cornish lives. The poignant pieces have been written by former Packet journalist Robert Jobson, who now lives in Redruth.

The last moments of Robert Williams, son of a Lord Lieutenant of Cornwall, gave a graphic illustration of the carnage in front-line trenches and how for hundreds of thousands of courageous young men like him death was almost inevitable.

Born in 1888 and brought up with his four brothers and sister at Caerhays Castle, just along the coast from Falmouth, he attempted to join the Army before the declaration of war but was barred from doing so by a heart defect.

He was only able to enlist in 1914 as chauffeur to General Woodhouse who no doubt enjoyed the comforts of Robert’s new Rolls Royce, bought for him by his father JC, descendant of a Gwennap family which in previous centuries had made its fortune in mining, smelting and banking.

The following spring Robert returned to England and was honoured to be given a commission into the Grenadier Guards. By June 1915 he was back in France. That autumn he found himself in a newly-formed machine gun company.

On September 16 he wrote to his family: “Naturally I can give no news and for that matter we know very little, but personally I expect to have my fill of fighting long before this letter reaches you.”

By October 4 he had been moved into the front line trenches at Loos. “Very wet and dark night. Took 10 hours to get into our places. Very complicated plan of half-finished trenches. Dug day and night but difficult to make the position even reasonably secure.”

Four days on, an entry in the 3rd Battalion Grenadier Guards Diary reads: “Heavily attacked all the way along the line. Enemy bombers rushed our left flank and came bombing down our line. They surprised and surrounded our own bombers, killing most of them.

“Sgt Williams, who was commanding a machine gun, was killed and three successive machine gun sergeants were also killed.

“Bombers of the Coldstream Guards then managed to stop the advance and clear the enemy out. The attack was repulsed along the whole line, with great loss of life to both sides.”

It was confirmed that Robert had died. His captain wrote: “ After all the men on one of his guns had been killed or wounded, he fired it himself until hit and was killed instantaneously.”

One of his fellow officers, Douglas Vernon, wrote to his father JC Williams: “The Germans were getting very near the gun and your son held on to the last, and then decided to retire.

“ His team had been practically wiped out, so he carried the gun himself down a communication trench. A private soldier took the tripod. He got the gun away, and on reaching another trench, he turned round and patted the private soldier on the back and said: “Well done, we have got it away.”

“No sooner had he said this than he was hit in the head with a bullet, and died at once.

“I found his body just over the parapet where it had been put, while the attack was still on. One of our men getting it back the next day was sniped through the head.”

Douglas Vernon added: “Your son was very much beloved and his men adored him. His energy was quite inexhaustible and he lavished every kindness on his team.

“May you find some consolation in that your son died fighting, doing his duty, bravely and courageously to the end.”

Robert Williams was buried at Vermelles Cemetery. Douglas Vernon was later killed on the Somme. Robert’s younger brother John died too. His ship, HMS Russell, struck two mines off Malta in 1916 and sank with the loss of more than 100 lives.

Brother number four Alfred, a midshipman, survived the Gallipoli landings as he took the Lancashire Fusilliers ashore and, aged 18, was awarded a Distinguished Service Cross. He served in the Second World War at Falmouth and on the Suez Canal, as a mine-sweeping officer.