Which battle wounded C.S. Lewis during his service in World War I?

C.S. Lewis was wounded during the Battle of Arras in 1918. He was serving as a second lieutenant in the Somerset Light Infantry when a shell burst near him and killed his sergeant, Laurence Kirk.

The Battle of Arras was a major Allied offensive on the Western Front in northern France. The fighting began in April 1917, but Lewis’s injury occurred during the 1918 phase of the conflict. He was sent back to England to recover and was discharged from the army later that year.

Lewis’s wartime experience strongly affected his outlook and writing. His close friend Paddy Moore was killed in the war, and Lewis later made an informal promise to care for Moore’s mother. The emotional consequences of war also appear in his reflections on suffering, grief, friendship, and faith.

Arras is often confused with the Somme or Ypres because all were major First World War battle sites. Lewis’s injury, however, is specifically associated with Arras, not with those other offensives.