What did your relatives do in World War One?
Were you told stories? Are there letters or other treasures from that time that you keep as part of your family history?
Here's why I'm asking: In June 2007 Bill Lamin emailed iPM to say he was putting a cache of his grandfather's letter from world war one online.
This is a photo of Harry Lamin's postcard to his family - dated 27th oct 1918. Looks innocuous enough - but his grandson Bill Lamin says the issuing of thse forms would have told Harry that "some serious action was imminent". With just days to go before the end of the war, Harry's unit went back into battle...we'll have more on PM tonight about Harry and Bill.
But as I say - what about YOU? What stories were YOU told about your family during the Great War? Feel free to share by clicking Comment below, or send an email to pm@bbc.co.uk.
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It's an interesting series which began last night on Beeb One.
I know the following about one side of the family. My great uncle was killed in the last few months of the War, and my mother (who is very elderly) has a memory of my grandmother serving her with a meal with tears streaming down her face, having just learnt of her brother's death. My grandmother told me a bit more about the event. Her own mother had travelled over from another part of London to tell her of her brother's death (they didn't have a 'phone), and she'd bumped into her mother in the street as she came to the house.
Her own husband (my grandfather) fought on the Maginot Line and was wounded, sent to Ireland to recuperate, then back out to the Line again. My grandmother already had two children at the time the war broke out, and another child was born as a result of home leave. She used to talk to me about those years, the Zeppelin raids, the time a Zeppelin was shot down in flames, and finally retreating out of London to stay in Cornwall with her young children. My grandfather, on the other hand, talked very little about his war experience, but in a drawer in the kitchen table there were buttons from his fusiliers' uniform, his cap badge, and French coins from the war years, all of which I still have, along with his military medals.
My mother and grandmother both told me that he returned from the war a changed man, and was prone to terrible outbursts of temper and long depressions. I've often wondered about what he witnessed.
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Correction to my post above - for Maginot Line read Western Front.
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Died.
What about yours?
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My Great Uncle Jack, now long deceased, used to tell the story of how he was in the trenches in World War One, walking along talking to one of his best friends, when a shell exploded nearby and sent over a piece of shrapnel which blew his friend's head off. The friend, he told us, took several more steps before collapsing. I don't know if it's true but my Great Uncle Jack had a wicked sense of story telling.
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My grandfather used to terrify me when I was a little girl by getting me to count his fingers. Each time I would shudder with horror because inevitably there would only be nine. He died when I was seven so I never found out the story of how he lost that finger; all I know was that he was a foot soldier in the trenches.
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I had, until recently, a series of telegrams and postcards addressed to my mother's uncle, sent during WWI, asking him to sing in the reserve choir at Westminster Abbey, for various special services. He was around 15 at the time, and working, not at school. There was also a special service paper listing the various Royals present.
Having got in touch with my Mum's cousin, I copied them and donated them to his archive, but I still have copies. The documents were special to me as I spend quite a lot of time singing and have also sung in the Abbey. I couldn't help wondering if our bottoms had sat in the same seat!
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My grandad told me that his father served in WW1 and survived the war but later died from the effects of mustard gas. My great grandmother subsequently remarried so very little was ever said about my real great grandfather. My grandad had flat feet so became an ARP warden in WW2.
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The sight of that letter made me shudder. It looks so much like one sent by my (long dead, but still beloved) father to his family when he was in a Japanese prison camp during WWII.
"I am quite well". Huh (uses mild language). "I am being starved to death" would have been nearer the mark.
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Strangely I haven't got a clue what any of my relatives did during WW1.
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I was brought up believing that my father's father was The Unknown Soldier. He had died in the first month of World War I and was carefully but hastily buried nearby. The location was noted to let his widow return later.
After the war, my grandmother visited the area, to bring his body home for proper burial. The body was nowhere to be found; she was told that this was one of the places where bodies had been removed for an "Unknown Soldier" to be chosen. I'm sure it brought her much comfort.
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8
Yeah, AND in WW2.
Shot in the calf and rifle butted on bare feet, in NI as well.
Anyone get cancer because of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
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My husband's g.grandfather was killed by sniper fire at the beginning of WW1, just before the first battle of Ypres.
His wife couldn't face telling their children - at the end of the war, she and the children went to the train station to welcome the soldiers home, and it was only when she was asked why their Dad hadn't got off the train that she told the children what had happened.
Their Dad's brother did come home safely, and married his brother's widow.
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My dad (much older than my mother) was in the Royal Artillery in 1914 and later transferred to the Royal Army Medical Corps. I knew little about his WWI career until one day, as a child, I accidently overheard a phone conversation. He had been contacted by an old RAMC comrade whom he had not seen for 40 years. Seated on the stairs out of sight I heard my dad explain “Of course we were all suddenly moved from France to Salonika [an intended second front that never came to anything]. Otherwise I would not be talking you today. “ Quite a discovery for a little boy…
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My great Uncle George (my Mum's uncle) deserted to Canada in 1914 where he married a cousin of Henry Ford. He never returned to this country as he was afraid that he would be shot. His widow came to visit shortly after he died but she was reluctant to reveal how he had made it to Canada.
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My father's uncle was conscripted and died in France in September 1217. The family said that he had been 'murdered by Lloyd George'. My father's father, however, avoided conscription because he was in an essential industry -- he was a goods train guard on the North Eastern Railway. He was 'only' relocated from north east England to Liverpool, working for the hated London and North Western Railway. Yet Liverpool wasn't so bad, because there he met his future wife, my father's mother.
On my mother's side, her father had just passed his matriculation exams for university entrance when the First World War broke out; he joined up immediately. His unit was sent out to the Khyber Pass, where he was given the job of wireless operator on the grounds that he had an education and so could be trusted with complex equipment. He told his grandchildren very little about his time there, except for describing long marches when they used to throw away tins of food which were too heavy to carry ('While we were starving in England' remarked my grandmother sourly) and telling of the bloodthirsty warfare between the local tribesmen. He returned from the war physically well, but my grandmother said that his personality changed, so that he suffered from mood swings and was no longer the happy-go-lucky young man who had gone out to war.
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My grandmother told me that a friend of hers was in London on leave from the trenches on the Western Front. Whilst walking down the street in civilian clothes he was seized by a young lady and presented with a white feather. This was a practice during the First World War, when it was assumed by some that any man seen in the UK not in military uniform was shirking, and the white feather was given to them as a mark of cowardice. Controlling his temper, he said to the lady, "Thank you for this. If you meet me here in 3 months' time I'll give you a present, a handful of lice from the trenches where I'm stationed". Needless to say, although he survived the war, she didn't keep the appointment.
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This is an interesting thread, but it seems to have some strange effects on movement around the blog. I signed on to leave a comment here, and was taken to 'Cushy' of yesterday when the signing-on thing finished. I went back to 'Main', come to here, and then pressing 'previous' from here takes me to US elecions, 'previous' from there to the Glass Box for 4th November, 'previous' from there to -- here. So it has created a loop in that bit of the blog.
help?
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It also comes here if one presses 'previous' from 'This has something to do with tonight's programme.'
Someone among the blog tech crew fix this, please?
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Chris: I've put a Flag up on the Glass Box about it, too.
Of course, we may now find the Blog won't work at all if the techies start to work on it mid programme. Perhaps best if they fix it afterwards?
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Big Sister @ 19, sounds horribly feasible.
I am constantly amazed by the sheer *variety* of glitches that this blog can manifest. A couple of days ago it wanted me to sign on for every thread rather than just once for the session, for instance. All a bit strange, but it probably keeps us all busy and happy and off the street corners!
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As I said elsewhere, my grandfather is buried in the Meuse-Argonne Cemetery France because of WW1 along with 14,000 other American soldiers.
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pml 11, Now I know why your other post are like they are.
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C_G and BS, As nobody is interested as to why I can't access those photos on that Autumn thread....
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Blog seems to be OK now...
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My mother told me this anecdote: My Grandfather was a Minister in the Church of Scotland in Ayr before the First War. Part of his duties included visiting the local prison to minister to the prisoners. Come the war he joined the Army Chaplaincy Corps. On one occasion when home on leave he met one of the prisoners he had ministered to, a member of one of the notorious Glasgow gangs, now released from prison to fight in the war. He asked the soldier how he was getting on, to which he received the reply "Aw Meenister it's braw, ah can use ma razors legal noo!" No wonder the Germans were scared of the "Ladies from Hell".
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Seldom mentioned are the Chinese who were brought over to dig the trenches. My grandfather was a doctor who accompanied these workers on their arduous journey from China and ministered to them in his field hospital. My grandfather seldom spoke of his first world war experiences. I still have the (Chinese) bible that my grandmother gave him on his departure from China.
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On a more positive note, my great grandfather had a fairly healthy income when officers decided that they would get their boots from the family business.
There were, I was told, 27 separate measurements for each pair.
My grandfather had a full disability pension, but sadly I know no more. He lived to a good age, walking with a stick.
We discover far too late how little we know.
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Evening all,
I'd like to say I know exactly why Previous and Sign In links were sending people to odd places however the problem appears to have now passed.
Will keep an eye on it in case its a recurring issue.
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PS: My grandad was gassed, like many others, and suffered from the effects until his death. He was awarded the Military Cross, a fact of which I am especially proud, as he was a non-combattant. After the war he got into trouble for preaching to his congregation that they should enjoy their Sunday; go out and have a pic-nic or a game of golf. This did not fit with the Church of Scotland's idea of proper observance of the Sabbath in those days, but he ignored the Church's critiscisms and carried on as before. I suppose once he'd been through the trenches with the troops he knew what was important.
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My grandfather, Frank Musto, had a rather unusual first world war, not serving at all in Europe, but being wounded while a signaller at Gallipolli and the being set out to East Africa to chase the Germans attacking from German East Africa. Of the many tales he recorded for staff of the Imperial War Museum the one that always struck me most was that of the four squadies who who went to sleep together under a three ton truck that was their mobile communications centre and waking up to find there were only three. The fourth had gone out for a slash in the middle of the night only to be eaten by a lion. Not sure how that was recorded by the War Office though - would be worth knowing what other unusual causes of death were recorded during WWI.
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There was a story in the family that, during the First World War, my grandfather, Gunner Walter Barber RHA, had saved the life of an officer who, after the war, sent him £1 every Christmas and an inscribed cigarette case. According to my Aunt , the cigarette case was always in the front room with the story of the £1 every year at Christmas.
I have researched this story and discovered that when interviewed on his 100th birthday in 1981, the officer, Lt F H Vince said, "I was sent with four others to cover the retreat of our troops from Ypres Salient. We were supposed to be there for 24 hours - we were there for four days and four nights, from April 11 to April 16, 1918. We got the wind up because the Very lights used to go up behind us instead of in front of us and it was very disconcerting. I made one of the men with me unpaid Lance Corporal, a gunner named Walter Barber, and neither of us knew at the time that the other came from Watford. After the war I gave him a silver cigarette case with the date on it (but he didn't smoke) and for over 50 years I sent him £1 every year to drink my health. He didn't need it and I didn't miss it."
Apparently, my grandfather had a particularly good sense of direction and was able to guide his comrades to safety over the featureless terrain.
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Two of my great uncles, aged 18 and 20 were killed in the 1stWW. One came home to die and the other was never found. Understandably, my Grandpa'a parents were devastated at the loss of their two eldest sons. Years later my Great Grandpa was on the train between Carlisle and Newcastle when he got talking to the man sitting beside him. I t transpired that the man had served with my Great uncle and knew the circumstances of his death. Obviously, all of those young men died heroes and my Uncle was no exception. My Great Grandparents finally knew that he was dead and they found some sort of closure once Great Grandpa had met this man on the train. That meeting was meant to be, but what a terrible waste of two lovely young men.
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My great grand father was killed in a Ypres shell hole I've been meaning to dig out the letter and death notice they sent and scan them in.
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If you are interested in reading a couple of non-acedemic accounts of the 1st WW there are two I can suggest. The first is "Nothing of importance to report". This is a diary kept by an infantry officer. This book is available in my local library. Yours too I should imagine.
The second is "The Muckleflugga Huzzars". This was an account written after the war as a memoire by a naval officer. The one thing Britain and Germany needed in vast quantities to prosecute the war was cotton. The cotton came from the Southern states of the USA and they wanted best price. Also, there was a powerful German lobby in Washington.
The British Government decided to block all the cotton bound for Holland and Germany and this book details those actions.
Cotton was used everywhere from stitching the soldiers' uniforms to providing an artillery explosive compound called gun cotton.
This is an aspect of the 1st WW that is never mentioned in the academic studies.
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My Grandfather was a telegram delivery boy when he signed up for a London regiment. He went to France at the beginning of the war and was caught in a German advance. He hid inside a pill box but captured when he popped out to relieve himself. He then spent the rest of the war as a prisoner.
After a year as a prisoner in very poor conditions he was offered the option to work on a farm. He took the option with a group of men. They were housed in a barn with one guard and worked each day on trust not to escape. There was not much chance. The food was no better and, instead of pictures of girls, they decorated the barn with pictures of cakes.
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My grandmother who is still living tells a story of how her father (George Smith from Barnsley) was injured in a gas attack at the Somme. He spent two days in a crater with two dead bodies before being rescued. He was moved back to England to convalesce in a hospital somewhere in the south. He lost the ability to speak and spent nine months as an inpatient. Apparently, the sister who helped him learn to speak again wrote a book which she dedicated to George. We would love to see a copy of that book if anyone had ever heard of it. After the hospital, he was moved to Chester-le-street where he continued his recovery in the care of two elderley spinsters before going back to France. He survived the war.
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My Aunty Jean was an infant school pupil in Dover during the Great War. Her father had brought the family down from Scotland to manage (or help to) the Shakespeare colliery which I think was actually on the beach below the white cliffs. As she walked to and/or from school a soldier used to have to raise a red flag to stop the big guns on the cliff top from firing. (Presumably this was practice: they wouldn't have fired across the channel in WW1 would they...?)
She once told me the family were trapped in Dover for most of the war, not allowed to travel back to Scotland. There was, she said, a great shortage of food there then - but I'm not sure that applied generally to the townsfolk.
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My father enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers at the age of 17 and spent 4 years in the trenches, with a brief break for convalescence after having a toe amputated because of gangrene. He was gassed, too, leaving him with a permanent weakness of the lungs. He never left the war behind and was constantly returning to it in his mind. Some of the more nightmarish stories were truly horrific: he told how the bodies of his friends, lying in the mud around him, would fill up with the gasses of putrefaction, and how in the night there would be minor explosions as rats gnawed their way into the abdomens of the dead soldiers. He told, too, of the time he spent unconscious, knocked out by blast on the Somme. When he came around he made his way back to field headquarters and was threatened with court martial - they assumed the fact of his being still alive to be proof of his desertion.
My father went on to have three sons. The first was taken prisoner of war by the Japanese, but survived, in spite of great suffering,the second was killed, still in his teens, in the Normandy Landings.
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My Grandfather, who died in 1966 fought in both World Wars and as a young child he, made a very deep impression upon me – as man who had ‘lived’. In 1914 at the age of 15 he ran away from home, lied about his age and joined the Army – he was a ‘Boy Solider’ – and one of many. He fought in the Somme without harm and other campaigns and came home save. When WW2 started he lied about his age again and signed up for the Merchant Navy aged 40. He was less lucky that time round. His ship was torpedoed in 42’ and Grand Dad spent the best part of 4 days in the water carrying his dead colleague before he was rescued. The oil from the ship never left his ears and it made him permanently deaf. When I was young man in the early 1970’s (I am 48 now) we had a Gardener. He was a grand old man in his early 80’s. He was a lovely Gentleman but stone deaf. He was a Solider in WW1, and was in the Artillery. For me WW1 and 2 don’t seem distant memories. I was born 15 years after WW2 and 16 years before Punk.
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When the first world war broke out, my fathers step father and his friend both volunteered for the army. Although each was two years under age. They underwent their (awfully short) training and a little while later found themselves knee deep in mud in a trench in France. As the shells rained in and the machine guns rattled, they found their sgt. major and told him of their ages and that, because of this, they should not be there. They were sent home.
The remarkable and, I think, extremley brave thing they then did was this. As soon as they were old enough, although they knew of the dreadful conditions and dangers, they joined up again. My fathers step father served until near then end of the war when, having reveived a bad wound he was "invalided home". Like many others from that conflict, the injury stayed with him for the rest of his life and restricted his working and social life. I was always amazed at the way he could ride his bike. One leg pushing a pedal, the other hanging limply on the otherside of the crossbar. I have very fond memories of going to "the offy" for him (under age of course) with a stone jug and getting his "medicine". I'm please to be able to say that, I understand, his friend survied uninjured.
Surley, it was one thing to volunteer to go into a war when you don't know what it entails. But to do so, when you do, is another thing entirely. Two very brave lads.
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During the war, my Grandmothers brother, a certain Captain Warren from Exeter, had the standard photo taken complete with cane under his arm.
I am pleased to report that he survived the war.
In 1937, before the formation of the NHS my Grandfather was diagnosed with lung cancer and was bed ridden.
The local Exeter doctor who was looking after my Grandfather one day noticed the photo of Captain Warren on the bedroom mantlepiece and asked my Grandmother if it was Captain Warren.
When she said that it was, the Doctor said he had been in Captain Warrens' brigade during the war and as he had held him in such high regard, he would immediately waive all medical charges for my grandfather.
What a very nice gesture?
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In 1914 my grandfather was a 40 year old GP working in Wandsworth, South London. As the war progressed and casualties became more severe, a call went out for more doctors. My grandfather volunteered and became medical officer for the 12th Surrey Service Battalion. He went to France in April 1916 and was wounded by shell splinters in the middle of June. He died of his wounds on 30th June 1916 and is buried at the military area of the Boulogne Eastern Cemetry. He was Lt Ernest Charles Lambert RAMC.
I often think what a brave and compassionate man he must have been to leave a wife and 2 small children and go to war at the age of 41. After my father [his youngest son] died I inherited all my grandfathers papers and they are now at the Surrey Museum at Guildford.
He rests with many other brave souls and his grave is beautifully kept by the War Graves Commission.
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My Grandfather a Catholic Priest received the MC "For indefatigable work in tending the wounded under Shell Fire in and near Fusilier Wood E. of Ypres on 20th and 21st September 1917.. In addition to hia administring to the dead and dying, he redered invaluable aid to the Medical Officers and supervised the brining in and despatching of the wounded. He many times went out under shell fire and personaly brought wounded from the communication trenches and tracks. He also performed similar acts of gallantry during the Offensive of July 31st when he was recommended for a Military Cross "
Sadly he was never able to tell his story since he left the priesthood to marry in 1923 and the fact he was once a catholic priest was always kept hidden from others.
Neither my grandparents ever had any contact with either of their families and were always shy of making friends incase his npast became known.
Although he was received back into communion with the catholic church on his death bed my grandmother still felt the need to cut his name of the top of the citation accompanying the MC incase others may still find out since it stated Rev. Bernard Walsh.
He could never wear his medals and was always coy about his war service if asked. As a family we never knew until many years after his death.
Over 500 catholic chaplains served with the BEF 51 received the MC . No VC were awarded to catholic priests although it is reported than King Geoge had stated that anyone going out under fire to attend to the wounded and brining them in deserved the VC.
During WW1 38 catholic chaplains gave their lives in the service of others and of this country. Not all were British some were proud to be Irish.
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My father after seeing the Zulu sheilds and spears that his uncle had brought home from the Boer war, volunteered at the outbreak of the Great War aged 19.
He was buried alive at one point and saw German prisoners murdered for their meagre possession when they were being taken to the rear.
He served throughout the war, refusing to sign up for the Black and Tans when he was being demobbed. He returned to Liverpool homeless because his parents had both died and spent years living in hostels.
He was a dock labourer for most of the rest of his life and ever regretted serving his country.
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In 1911, my father-in-law, Ben Hardwidge, had four brothers. By the end of 1916 he had none.
The first to die was a victim of the Senghenydd colliery explosion in 1912.
Of the remaining three, two were killed on the Somme in July 1916. Henry lay mortally wounded in No-mans-land and his brother Tom was killed by a sniper as he crawled to aid him. Ben's last surviving brother Morgan, was posted missing, also on the Somme, on Christmas Day 1916.
Tom and Henry are buried in Flatiron Copse cemetery near the town of Albert. Morgan is a name on the Thiepval Memorial.
Things were different for Private Ryan's family.
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My maternal grandfather, John Amos, and his younger brother William served together in the Royal Berkshires - at Loos.
On September 25th 1915 they were part of the advance that was caught in the first ever British gas attack when it blew back on to their own lines. Joh - my grandfather - got his smoke helmet on but his brother did not and, in effect, drowned in front of him.
My grandfather tried to assist him but an officer ordered him at gunpoint to leave him.
Shortly afterwards my grandfather was hit in the back and neck by shrapnel from an enemy shell. I still have a piece of it. As a result he was sent back to England for treatment where, he told me much later, he resolved not to go back.
He had recurring nightmares about what happened throughout his life - he died at the age of 94 - and would wake up howling like a wounded animal. When we moved in to live with him it was initially
quite disturbing. He would only talk about the Great War towards the end of his life.
Unbeknown to either of them, my dad's father was fighting with the Royal Scots in the same battle, a short distance further north. He never spoke of his experiences after he returned home.
My wife's maternal grandfather was in the Lincolnshire Regiment which fought
alongside the Canadians nearby, at Vimy Ridge. He took the risk of being court martialled and possibly executed by pouring boiling water in his boots in an attempt to get sent home.
Ian Roberts, West Yorkshire.
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My great-uncle, Billy Hesmondhalgh, was in the artillery.
He said he preferred the Germans to the French! His troop had been marching for a long period and were low on water. They stopped at a french farm and asked the farmer if they could draw a little water from his well.
The farmer went in the house and came out armed with a shotgun, telling the poor english lads (who were all young, exhausted and thirsty) that they could not have any water and must move on. He used to recount other similar tales.
I suppose in many cases, members of the french (and belgian) population might have resented the English and Germans fighting on their soil.
In any event, man's inhumanity to man decends to all levels in times of conflict.
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My grandfather went to sign up when he was only 16. He told the recruiting sergeant that he was 17 and the recruiting sergeant said 'You say you're 18 and I'll put you down as 19.'
He went to a training camp in the north of England and eventually arrived at the base camp at Etaples, France on 5th August 1916. He underwent the tough training at the notorious Bull Ring which saw an outbreak of rioting in 1917 and that type of training was then abandoned. My grandad must have been very fit as he said that he was one of the few people who managed to complete this training. My grandad became a farrier and was in charge of the mules which were used to pull limbers providing supplies to the trenches. He has written many pages of his memoirs and this is the final part:
'Suddenly, a burst of machine gun fire came from the other side of the small valley and all ten of us went down but only L/Cpl M was not hit. I was hit in the wrist but the other men had been riddled with bullets and all appeared dead. L/Cpl M crawled to me and asked where I was hit. I said "in the wrist" but the bullet had gone up my forearm and stuck in the elbow. Some Germans crouching in the dugouts were watching us but did not speak or try to molest us. L/Cpl M started to dress my wound when suddenly he realised that we two were the only British left so near to the Germans. He picked up his rifle and ran off without asking me if I could do likewise, I watched him running up the hill towards the farm, and I could see machine gun bullets tearing up the ground at his feet but he made the farm. Feeling better, I thought I would try to get back as I had no wish to be made a prisoner, Picking up my rifle, and with two streamers of bandage dangling from my wounded arm, I ran up the hill. The machine gun again opened fire and I could see the soil kicking up all around me but as I was running uphill, the gunner must not have allowed for the elevation. I jumped throught the wall and found safety in the farmyard.
After getting someone to bandage my arm, I was approached by the Company Captain and Sergeant Majoy. I explained about the platoon being almost wiped out and then asked permission to dump my equipment. The officer suggested that I should wait in the farm until dark. As it was then only about 9 a.m. and I was bleeding badly - a main artery in my forearm had been severed - I said if I waited until night, I would die from loss of blood. So off I went through the farm and almost immediately a machine gun started firing at me. I ran towards two stretcher bearers in a shell hole but they signalled for me to turn to my left, which I did, and I was out of range of the gun. I started walking and met parties of prisoners going in the same direction and without escort...I kept a respectful distance from these prisoners. Later, I met a battery of 18 pounders on the move and the officer asked me how my battalion had advanced and had the Germans made a stand. I gave him all the information I could and even some likely gun emplacements for his battery; he smiled and said he knew about those.
After walking 4 kilometres I reached a Field Dressing Station and collapsed from loss of blood. After having my arm properly dressed, I was carried on a stretcher by four German prisoners. Reaching a main road, I was then put on an ambulance and after some miles arrived at a Casualty Clearing Station. As I needed an operation, my stretcher was laid at the end of a long row of stretchers and gradually moved as the cases were dealt with. It took 16 hours before my turn came for operation!! The days of penicillin were not yet with us and the poison in my arm was getting worse.
After three or four operations, my arm was eventually amputed on 31st October 1918 and the armistice was signed 11 days later.
Was I unlucky? NO!!! I could have been killed a hundred times before." After the war, my grandad became a member of the corps of Commissionnaires and worked for many years at Thomas Hedley in Newcastle.
He never ever complained about the loss of his arm and did everything for himself, including pressing his own trousers. The only thing he could not do for himself was to tie his shoe laces.
When I was little, I used to help him polish the brass buttons on his tunic.
He did not write his memoirs until he was in his 70s but his memory was vivid and his story has been used in my children's school on Remembrance Day to bring the history of the First World War to life.
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my grandfather, a quaker, was in the RAOC. When I was little I asked him what had hapened to his army friends, and he told me that they had all died. His unit was camped in Regents Park awaiting shipment to the Dardanelles, the weather was so wet that although they dug trenches all around the tents they were sleeping in three inches of water. As a result he contracted rheumatic fever and when his comrades left for Gallipoli he was delirious with the fever in a London Hospital. His heart was weakened and he was invalided out of the army. All his friends were killed. He was one of twelve children, eight boys and four girls. All the boys were in the army, mostly as stretcher bearers and ambulance drivers, because of their religion. Samuel was in the Lincolnshire Regiment and was killed in Belgium in the last months of the war.
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I am Australian and all Australians are brought up with tales of the "brave Australian (& New Zealand) soldiers who stormed Gallipoli".
The ANZACs were slaughtered at Gallipoli as they tried to climb up cliffs towards the enemy, following the orders of their, some would say inept, British commanders.
Imagine my horror when I learned that my husband's paternal family (his grandfather's first cousin, Gen. Sir Alexander Godley) was the man in charge of the ANZACs and his maternal great uncle (Gen. Sir Ian Hamilton) was the man in charge of the entire campaign?
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Crikey, Lady Sue, that's a bit of a blinder, isn't it? I hope you've recovered from the shock ....
Did you see Dan Snow talking about his great grandfather? If you missed it, follow this link
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/19/somme-haig-snow-british-army
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richardhodgson @ 28, thank you very much!
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My mum has often told me about the dreadful week when her paternal grandmother, living in Southern Ireland, read the list of those killed in action in France. She saw the names of both my grandfather, Richard, and his younger brother, Joe. My grandad must have been 20 when he signed up, but Joe had lied about his age and was probably still in his teens. The story goes that the news broke her heart, and the boys eventully returned home to find she had passed away.
My grandfather went on to lead an eventful and sometimes heroic life as a policeman in south Wales. He often entertained us with stories of how he won the King's Police medal twice -once for a motorbike chase after some wages robbers. He never talked about the war.
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My father fought in both World Wars. At the age of about 17 he joined up as a private in what I believe was the Surrey Regiment. In about 1916 he was invalided home with trench foot.
After recovery, he attended an Officers Selection Course and was sent back to France as a2nd. Lieutenent in the Machine Gun
Corps.
On arriving in Cherbourg, there was a transport foul up and he was delayed being sent to the front by about 10 days. As an Officer (and and thus presumed to be a gentleman) he was able to draw funds from Coutts Bank who had a branch in Cherbourg. In those ten days he spent more money than he had ever seen before on high living and low women! However, since his life expectancy as a 2nd Lieutenent was about 10 days - his attitude was - who cares?
He did survive as he was taken prisoner at Deuville Wood and apart for a short time when he escaped and before recapture he spent the last two years of the war as a prisoner-of war at Koln Castle.
I recall two anecdotes of this period. The prisoners were very short of food and starving but they once caught a cat which they cooked and ate and my Dad tells me it was very tasty!! I also recall that he and his fellow prisoners were paraded on the castle ramparts as a human shield whenever the R.F.C planes were seen.
At the end of the war he was in considerable debt to Coutts Bank and it was only because his Army pay had continued to accrue, that he had sufficient funds to repay Coutts for his ten days of high life in Cherbourg.
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my granfather was 18 served in the battle of the somme and often told us grandchildren how terrible it all was having fallen asleep in the trenches woke to find rats had knawed through his rucksack on his back and eaten his rations and was also eating his boots, he was hit by a bomb and laying for two days in the thick mud surrounded by dead bodies was discovered barely alive by two stretcher bearers who whilst carrying him to safety was bombed yet again the two stretcher bearers died instantly but he was still alive and eventually taken to a french hospital where he had his leg amputated he passed away at aged 90 and was always so proud of serving his country oh how we miss him.
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Thank you for all those - fascinating. I have also put a link in the posting so you can read the Blog which got us started on this. Thanks again for everything we've had so far.
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My Grandfather Jack was killed in action on August 11th 1917 during the third battle of Ypres- 'they called it Paschendaele' . His body was never found but 'his name liveth for ever more on the Menin Gate.
Having made a link through his regiment with the great nephew of another man Albert in his company killed on the same day our family with Albert's nephew visited the likely site of his death on the 90th anniversary last year. We were joined by Frank whose great uncle Hermann was also killed that morning long ago- fighting 'our boys'.
We read poems as the dawn broke and remembered we visited the Langemark cemetry together to lay flowers for the German dead then later attended the last post ceremony at the Menin Gate to lay a wreath I will never forget that day.
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Frank Andrew Tyler was the eldest son of Frederick Tyler, my grandfather. Frank became a signaller in the navy and this interest in signalling is likely to have influenced his younger brother, my father, who became a signaller during his time in the army.
Frank joined the crew of J6 submarine of the 11th flotilla, HMS Titania at Blyth for North Sea patrols on 3rd March 1917. The J6 story is not the most glorious. On 26th April 1917 it left Blyth to patrol the North Sea. On April 3oth, although with a defective hydroplane the J6 fired on U61 with two torpedoes at a range of 2800 yards. Both missed. Later that day two further torpedoes were fired at a range of 25yards and both ran under the target. The J6 together with J4 patrolled the approaches to Heligoland Bight during the spring of 1918. On October 18th 1918 the J6 was patrolling the North Sea off Blyth on the look-out for U-boats. It is at this stage that the Q-ship 'Cymric' enters the story. Q-ships also known as Mystery ships and U-Boot Falle (U-boat trap) by the Germans, were armed merchant ships disguised as non-combatant vessels. They were primarily used to lure U-boats to the surface and then attack them with gunfire. Depth charges at that time were primitive and largely ineffective. The Cymric was a converted barquentine, a three-masted sailing boat built in Amlwch, Anglesey.
The Cymric left the Firth of Forth in the morning and sailed south. It had three encounters with submarines, all of which turned out to be 'one of ours'. The day was intermittently misty and visibility must have been poor. At 4pm J6 was sighted by Cymric and the opinion of the crew was that it was a U-boat sizing up the Q-ship for a leisurely attack. The Cymric's officers were largely influenced by what they thought was a U6 painted on the conning tower, even though the U6 had been sunk some time previously. This misunderstanding occurred as a limp flag was hanging down over the conning tower making the J appear to be a U. The Cymric had been tricked previously by a U-boat displaying a Royal Navy Ensign so the captain was in no mood for deceit. The J class submarines were not too well known and the outline was unfamiliar. This could have further confused the Cymric as J6 appeared to be approaching in a menacing manner. The Q-ship attacked firing a shell which scored a direct hit on the conning tower killing an officer and a rating who was trying to fire a recognition shot. A second shot destroyed the control room. The J6 continued on its course so that it was parallel with the Q-ship which immediately scored with a 4 inch shell fired from its side. At this stage a hatch opened and an officer appeared waving a white flag. The Cymric ceased firing. The J6 changed direction into a fog bank and the Cymric gave chase and recommenced firing. Just before it slipped away the J6 signalman was able to send a HELP message with his lamp.
The Cymric decided to follow the submarine to ensure its destruction. At one stage the fog lifted and the submarine was observed sinking with its bows well out of the water. The location of the sinking is given as 53-39N 0-30 W. Some of the crew were in the water, others in a collapsible boat. When the boat came alongside,the hatbands with HM SUBMARINES on them were seen and it was only then that it was realized that a drastic mistake had been made. The Cymric sent boats out but only 15 of the crew survived. Frank was not one of them.
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My mother's uncle Jim was the youngest of six children, whose mum died when they were young. They were brought up by an older sister until their father remarried and bought the Forth Bridge Hotel in South Queensferry.
Jim who, was married with a new baby, and his brother Bill, went off to the First World War. Jim was in the 5th Cameron Highlanders. My mother remembered him as being very small - only just over five feet tall and recalled an episode when he was on leave and hid in the wardrobe as he was terrified to go back to the front after what he had experienced. His sister, my grandmother, and his brother and friends persuaded him to go back to the troop train at the Waverley Station. He was killed on the 4th November 1916. We took my teenage children to France to visit his grave at Arras as my grandmother had always wished to see the grave of her wee brother but could never afford to go. He had no known grave but his name is on the wall with thousands of others who fell in that battle. We were very impressed with the knowledge and respect shown by the towns' people - of all ages, and overwhelmed by the scale of the slaughter and the average age of the fallen from all over the Commonwealth. His poignant last card to my grandmother thanks her for her parcel "in good condition". "Thanking you again and again"
Alison Pearson
Peebles
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My brothers and I have collected some of our Granda's letters from WW1. They can be found at Letters from the Front.
A volunteer, as were all Irishmen who joined up, Granda fought with the 9th (Service) Battalion, Royal Irish Fusiliers. Having missed the Somme, injured, in 1916, he fought at Paschendaele, and was again wounded weeks before War's end in 1918. We still have the telegram sent to my Great-Granny by the War Office, and a letter she wrote in response.
Granda died in 1971, when I was only 3, but as far as I know he never spoke of his experiences. He was twice decorated for bravery, and we are very proud of him.
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aeronca@27
"We discover far too late how little we know."
Isn't that the truth.
Many wonderful, wonderful, recollections on this part of the Blog.
It'd be fantastic to think an Historian or two, through these postings, would follow-up so that the information regarding these extremly brave service personnel, and what they scarificed for us all, will never be forgotten.
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My grandfather had a dreadful time getting into WWI. He was so small and pitiful at birth that he was baptised straight away using the water from the bedside jug, and then his parents quite forgot to get him registered officially. So he had no birth certificate, and the Army didn't seem to believe that he was properly English. He nearly ended up interned as a spy.
And when he did finally manage to get himself accepted for active service, he was seriously wounded after only three weeks in France, and invalided home.
What a lot of effort for no practical result...
On the other side of the family, of course, at least two or three of that generation were in the trenches that faced the other way.
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My Aunt told me a story about my Grandfather who was a gunner in the Royal Artillery in WW1. He was captured in France and held as a POW. He did not return home immediately after the war and was found by the Salvation Army with a small group of prisoners working in a salt mine in East Prussia.
When he subsequently returned to England, he received a letter from King George V welcoming him home. Sadly the letter was destroyed when his house was bombed in World War 2.
He held an enourmous respect for the Salvation Army until the day he died. I will think of him and his comrades on the 11th.
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My father was born on July 14 1898 and was 16 when war was declared, At that time there was great enthususiasm to be part of it and recruitment regiment tents where in the local parks. My father told me that at sixteen he tried to join at three different regiments but was refused, not for his age but because his surname name was Kirsch which sounded German. He then went to the Royal Welch Fusilliers recruitment tent and gave his name as Cherry being the English derivative of the German Kirsch and was excepted. He went through the next four year under the name of Cherry and was wounded at the July 1st 1916 battle of the Somme. As a boy he would let me feel the shrapnel that remained in his face.
I asked him once if he would tell me about his adventures but he never really opened up except one time when he told me of an occasion when he was woken by one of his fellow soldiers whilst sleeping in the trench to tell him that Nobby who was sound asleep had a hand grenade in his hand with pin out my Father climbed out of the trench together with all his collegues crept along the edge to tap Nobby on the head and ducked! fortunately Nobby held onto the grenade lever so it did not explode.
On the 11th November 1967 I visited my Father who was in hospital seriously ill, I asked him where he was on that date in 1918 armistice day he told me where his was in France and how he and his men could not believe the war was over. The next day he died.
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so what's wrong with the html?
it won't accept my story
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I met my Great Uncle Tom when he was in hospital about 40-50 years ago. He was not too well and conversation with my father was difficult becasue of his pain although he always smiled at me. My dad said to him, 'You were in the Somme, weren't you Tom?'
'Wounded on the first day Dannie. Shipped home to England. That wound saved my life; ay saved my life'. I planted a poppy for Great Uncle Tom this year with the British Legion.
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The same Aunt also told me her uncle Peter had died in the Great War, he was apparently shot in the head by a sniper as he hadn't been issued a helmet. She never knew where he was buried.
I was able to find some details from the War Graves Commission and from his medal index card at the National Archives. He went to France on 24 August 1915 and died on 13th December that year near Ypres. He was aged 21 and left behind a widow.
He is buried in a military cemetery in Belgium and I was able to print out a Commemorative Certificate for her with a photograph of the graves.
I saw my Aunt last week and she told me how pleased she was that because of this information, for the first time she had been able to sponsor a Remembrance Day cross for his grave through the British Legion.
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My grandmother told a story about my Great Grandfather, her father in law, who served on the Western Front in WW1. She told how as a relatively senior officer he had to ask for volunteers to carry out scouting missions knowing they were a) completely pointless and b) would result in the death of the volunteer who came forward. The volunteer would come and see him and my Gt Grandfather would tell him how important the mission was, talk with him about his family and how proud they should be before sending him on his way. He would then compose the letter home, while the individual was fresh in his mind, trying to break the news decently and genuinely. He carried the knowledge of these individuals and their families to his grave.
A half remembered tale from 20 years ago but Id like to think in its essentials it is true, that in the middle of the carnage and insanity of the trenches individuals did the best they could so that people could at least die decently.
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This is a story told to me a couple of weeks ago by my father.
My Grandfather volunteered for the first world war whilst underage, and was recruited into the field artillery. One of his tasks was to move ammunition to the guns at the front, and he always said he preferred mules to horses for this task. His view was that they could sense danger, and this was based on an experience he had when leading a mule called Queenie across an area that had been heavily shelled. The mule suddenly leaped to one side, dragging my grandfather with it as he would not let go of the reins. When he recovered his footing, he found the mule had been avoiding a shell hole that would have drowned my grandfather had he stumbled into it.
Later in the war my great grandmother, his mother, gave birth to another in a line of daughters and wrote to my grandfather asking if he would like to name her.
I believe my great great aunt Queenie is still living in a nursing home, aged 92, and still tells visitors "I was named after a 'orse".
My grandfather survived the war, having been invalided out of the army with shell shock, but was profoundly affected by his experiences. I still have a doily that he crocheted using the skills he acquired as therapy when being rehabilitated.
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My father sired my two brothers and myself between his late fifties and early seventies, having married my mother, who was more than thirty years younger than him, in 1940. He always told us that he didn't want to discuss the First World War, as it had been too painful an experience. Dad died in 1976 when he was 92. To the great disappointment of my surviving brother and I, when we started to trace our family history a few years ago, we found that Dad had signed up for the army, but bought himself out just two days before the start of the war. We have no idea why.
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What a wonderful, moving, rich seam of memories this thread is revealing.
Thank you all, and thanks to Bill and to Eddie for putting it on the Frog.
I wish I knew more about my father's life, but he never talked about the (WWII) Japanese prison camp; all I know was that when it was liberated, he was so thin and weak he was offered a military funeral (!!!!!!)
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After the war started, on a Tuesday, my Grandfather must have been keen to go. He gave a weeks notice at work and enlisted in the army on Monday 17th August 1914. One of Kitchener's first recruits.
Landed at Gallipoli in August 1915 in darkness, up to the armpits in water, waded ashore carrying 80 pounds of kit, and the battalion was then pinned down in darkness by snipers suffering heavy casualties.
Two weeks later, the remains of the battalion attacked a Turkish trench, which they took in 15 minutes. However units to either side had fallen back, and the Lancashire Fusiliers had only 100 men left out of 700-plus originally. No officers left. The 100 men held the trench overnight but with temperatures approaching 40 degrees next day and out of water, they had to fight their way back to the start line. Grandad was lightly wounded.
The Gallipoli troops endured a heavy flood and a blizzard before being evacuated.
From Gallipoli Grandad's battalion went to the Somme and in September 1916 he was wounded more seriously in another attack. I have a piece of shrapnel the size of my thumb, which was dug out of him.
After hospital he spent the rest of the war in a Labour Battalion and was finally demobbed in March 1919.
His health was always poor after the war and he died in 1940 aged only 51.
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Must also mention Captain Martin ex of North Irish Horse and Northern Ireland Railways; no children so no one but me to pass on his stories/memories 30 years after his death. He told Dad and I several stories including how he had been sent home to die as he was too malnourished- claimed goat's milk on Island Magee (Co Antrim Northern Ireland) brought him back to health (!) and he returned to action.
However main story is that he took part in at least three cavalry charges, with a sword, to charge barbed wire machine gun posts. His story is that they assembled at the foot of a hill, cantered to the top and charged down the other side. He said that on the three occasions his horse either bolted or refused to go. By the time he got his horse under control/to start and got to the top of the hill there was no one who was not dead or wounded on the other side among all his comrades. He was in three batallions (?) of North Irish Horse in as many weeks with all other men killed or wounded. His story was disjointed or I was too young to take it all in; a staff car stopped one night as he was walking along the road and asked what had happened to him. He told his story. The officer said 'For God's Sake get in the car (not swearing) I'm making you my aide de camp before you are killed.' Cannot reconcile being sent home to die from malnourishment with this; as he returned to the front, perhaps the three charges and his rescue took place after his return. He was not the sort of man to make things up so I believe him. Perhaps I got confused, time confused him or I didn't listen properly. Anyhow, military historians can confirm if the North Irish Horse charged machine guns in WW1 and there will be records of a Captain Martin. God bless him and his wife who gave me an antique french dictionary and 6 silver fish knives. I have them both 40 years on and still think of our conversations and his stories of days even then gone by - like breaking the general strike (or strike) by going out as managers and driving the engines - 'Great fun he said; I was only young!'
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THE CASE OF THE MISSING EYELASHES
Both my grandfathers and 3 great uncles fought in WW1.
Two died (brothers aged 19 and 22) and three survived. I've discovered a lot about all of them but this blog is about my maternal grandad Tom, a coalminer from Atherton, and his missing eyelashes!
When I was a child my dad told me grandad lost his eyelashes when he picked up a german grenade and threw it back at the enemy to save himself and his comrades.
Until recently I thought this was just another of dad's tall tales - now I am not so sure.
I recently found Tom's soldier records on Ancestry. These are packed with info and I have written 'Tom Barnes' War' for my grandaughters, full of interesting facts about where he served, his injuries,the trouble he got into etc.
I was lucky to find these - unfortunately only a small percentage of the records survive.
Anway - to return to the missing eyelashes.
After returning from Gallipoli Tom was at the Somme in October 1916 when (the records tell us) he was badly burned on the face, hands, left buttock and thigh. He was in Casualty Clearing Stations and French hospitals until December 1916 when he was invalided to England on the Hospital Ship Glenart Castle (later sunk by a German sub in the English Channel with loss of lives)
Tom was sent to Bristol General Hospital where he remained until the end of January 1917. Given leave in England he went back north and married my grandmother in February in Bolton. He returned to France after his marriage and managed to survive the War, with various other injuries and incidents, returning home in February 1919.
The eyelashes were obviously lost in the burning but I still don't know how he was burned- is the grenade story true, did a shell explode nearby, or was there an accident with his own big gun? I will probably never know unless by a miracle I found the Bristol Hospital record.
Whatever the truth though I think it is important we never forget those ordinary yet extraordinary guys who died and those who survived and I will be wearing my poppy with pride this week
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As a young child in the 1950's I can remember my Great Grandfather. He told me stories about the Great War that always seemed to be interrupted by my Grandmother saying "he doesn't want to know about that!"
What I didn't know until much later was that he and both his sons fought in the great War and the fact that one of them, my Great Uncle was killed, was never referred to.
Apparently, this was not at all unusual. Those who did not have direct experience of it, didn't want it talked about.
My Great Uncle was brought up in Sussex. His first and only journey abroad was to Northern France and he fought for a year on and around a slag heap. On 16th April 1916 he was killed whilst returning to his billet after a day in action.
Today, it's impossible for me to imagine the horror, but when I look at my children and grandson I know he did not die for nothing.
On 16th April 1996, the 80th anniversary of his death, I found his grave in France. It was as close as I could get to a man that I wish I could have met.
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My father joined the Royal Artillery in 1916 (approx) instead of going up to Cambridge University. Details are sketchy as the family never asked, except that he once told me that he rose to the dizzy heights of Lance Bombadier and on arrival in France fell foul of the local "Vin du Collapso" and was demoted to Gunner. He was subsequently wounded and returned to UK with his total service under six months! He, too, rode a bike adapted so that it had only one pedal. His two brothers were killed but no details are known. The large plaques that were presented to the next of kin of those killed are in our family somewhere, must dig them out.
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The following is a transcript of a letter dated July 1915 from my great uncle, then aged 17, to his father, a Welsh farmer. The really interesting bit comes at the end.
Dear Father,
I had your letter on Saturday as I was on picket duty in Liverpool, that means that I was patrolling the main streets with another fellow; the picket, which numbered eighteen men was divided into pairs, looking for drunk & disorderly soldiers. We were on duty from 7 to 11 pm & had as our headquarters the main police station. In all my friend & I took about ten men to the cells & about twenty on tramcars, which took them back to their camps. I had a loaded cane & a bayonet as weapons should I want to use them, but luckily their use was not called for. There was plenty of excitement in the work I can tell you & the civil police were most grateful for our help. With regard to that haymaking proposition of yours, I am afraid that you must dismiss it from your mind as impossible. Remember I am in the regular army now, not in Kitcheners where men may be spared for outside work. In this battalion every man goes out to the front as soon as he has fixed his course of musketry. If I asked for two months leave I would be the laughing stock of the whole battalion, one man tried it unsuccessfully lately. I think that your request is more an excuse to try & get me out of the army than any help that I may be, I, the lazybones & good-for-nothing. There are men in this battalion almost as old as you are with large families, who have all their sons in the army, think of their example & then think of yours. I believe that you think more of your hay than of your country, you grudge her even the one son who could most easily be spared. I enlisted for three years or the duration of the war & until then nothing will induce me to leave the army. This is final.
Your surprised Son
Ivor
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In case the many new people here are worried because their posts have been 'awaiting moderation' for a while, you might be happy to be reassured that it is only because you are new and they check posts from people they haven't encountered before, then put them up on the board. It can take a while, and look as if they are censoring you, but the chances are that the moderators are just working their way through a backlog.
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I am in the position that I know more about my grandfather's 'death' in WW1 than ever did my mother or grandmother. He was reported missing, presumed dead, just five weeks after my mother and her twin sister were born in 1918. Neither grandma nor my Mum seemed to know where he had been but the PRO shows that he fell at Asiago or thereabouts. I have his commemorative medal but have been unable to discover what military action was being pursued in Asiago. I hope one day to visit the area to see if his name is recorded on any memorial. I feel that it must have been such a sadness for grandma never to have known what happened and for my mother to have no photograph or memory of her father. She says it was never talked about as she grew up.
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A ghost has just walked over my grave! I posted a comment about my grandfather and submitted it and when the next screen came up on my computer is showed comment No. 72 from a_eccles. That was my grandfather's surname!
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(51) Bis Sis: nearly had to hand over my Ozzie passport...
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Good to read so many interesting stories and that so many remember them and carry on in some way the memories of all those who died there and lived through the horror of it.
Similar to post number 57, my Great Grandfather fought and died at the the Third Battle of Ypres - Paschendaele. Lyn MacDonald's book "They Called It Passchendaele" gives a good insight into the circumstances and impact of the events there.
Our family legend recalled by my Great Aunt who told the story of her father, my Great Grandfather who was about to go to the front line and had a few hours leave to see his family shortly before he left. A request was made to the school for his two daughters (my Great Aunt and Grandmother) to have a day off to say goodbye to their father. Apparently this was refused. Later the school was struck by lightening and had to close for the day so his daughters were able to see him for what was to be the last time.
What always interests me about the Great War through this and similar stories is the sheer impact not just on the combatants but on the whole of society in this country. My Great Aunt never married and worked for the gas board to be able to buy a house for her and her widowed mother. I remember she always had a picture of her father in the front room with a poppy on the frame. We worry about the credit crunch but the impact of these events 90 years ago is unimaginable to most of us in the younger generations today in this country.
The war lost a whole generation of young men and scarred those left behind but also drove changes in all areas of society in Britain for example in patterns of work and leisure especially for women. The seeds of change were planted for new attitudes towards authority developing the often (more than) slightly cynical traits which we still often see today throughout British society. These were brought together after the further stress of the WW2 and the subsequent rationing and passing away of some of the traditional ways of doing things.
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My grandfather served in WW1, and like my father (and his siblings) who served in WW2, there was very little talk at home about war time experiences. However, a consistent family trait is a desire to keep diaries, scribblings, momemtos and a whole range of bits and pieces from our lives. And so, after my grandfather died back in 1976, he left amongst his papers a faded copy of an old periodical "World War 1914-18 A Pictured History", part 23 dated 11 April 1935.
The magazine carried a cover picture and an identical enlarged centrefold sepia picture depticting a battle-stained section of British soldiers marching at ease with rifles slung along a debris covered street in a shelled and ruined town and captioned "In Peronne at last". The date given was 18 March 1917 and the caption stated that Peronne had been in German hands for two and a half years and had been one of the objectives which the British army had failed to reach in the offensive which became the batttle of the Somme. My grandfather had pencilled in several names to the figures, including his initials above one of the men.
My grandfather had mentioned this article to my father and his brother, explaining that his officer had seen the photographer whose first photograph caught the group in a dishevelled state, carrying wounded men, walking a fairly haphazard manner and one of them carrying a military issue jar of rum!
On seeing the photographer, the story was that the officer called his men to order (hiding wounded men and rum) so that they appeared to have some sort of military structure (albeit fairly relaxed). And so the photographer was invited to take his picture again and it was this second take which appeared in the journal.
All of this was just a family story, until my grandfather's death when my uncle decided to pursue it with the Imperial War Museum. Incredibly they were able to confirm that their records showed that two photos had been taken on 18 March 1917 in Peronne. Even better, they had the negatives and could produce glossy prints from them. Imagine the delilght when the preceding negative to the magazine picture did indeed show the same group of bedraggled infantry soliders, just as my grandfather described, and with him clearly present.
This old yellowing magazine, with its accompanying photos, are some of my most treasured possessions. Perhaps only rivalled by items in my father's 'army box' - a treasure trove of memorabilia from WW2, all covered over by a Nazi flag, hastily shoved up his jumper as his regiment advanced as the German troops withdrew...but that's a whole other story!
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Father, Robert Arnett, was in the 15th Squadron of the RFC as a fitter, later a flight sgt. The time came in 1915 for the squadron to move to France for aerial reconnaisance of the lines. It was essential for the engineers to go at the same time, but in the BE2a's there were no passenger seats, so Dad sat astride the fusilage for the crossing of the Channel!
He told tales of total exhaustion, falling asleep at the top of a ladder with his head against the engine. When stationed in Dover, those who took their boots off to sleep had the skin on their soles eaten away by rats, and they were disciplined for this, as they couldn't walk for days after.
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My grandmother lived in Leigh, Lancashire. When she was around 12 years old, during the first world war, she and her sister found a man they took to be German escaped POW, hiding in their shed. Apparently they were impressed with his black leather jacket. They fed him fior a few days, until their father found out. Rather than upset the girls by turning him over to police, he just made him leave the shed. My gran's last sight of him was wandering down the lane, looking miserable, picking balckberries. In the 1970s I wrote to Speed and Power magazine, hoping to win the weekly prize Airfix model for best story. She had kept the story buried for fifty years, and told me it was my fault if the police now turned up and arrested her.
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in the bbc archive there is a fantastic documentary made in the late 50s or early 60s. filmed locally in south wales it concentrates on the life experiences of two retired miners both of whom served in the first world war. one of them had also won the MM.
one line spoken by one of the men in reply to a question from a child about the medals on his coat (after an 11th november rememberance parade) "what are they for"", asked the child. he answered "these", pointing to the medals, "are symbols of my ignorance"
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My family is Australian, and my grandfather served as an Anzac, as did all his three brothers. His wedding photo, from 1916, shows him in uniform with the traditional Digger's slouch hat. My grandfather told us that he had the task of running with messages, in front of the front lines, and under deafening bombardment from both sets of artillery: ours as well as the Germans. He was gassed twice, but survived to return home to his job as a school teacher, and lived into the 1960s. He was at the second battle of the Somme, and, as a tactless teenager I once asked him if he had ever killed anyone, or seen any Germans. He told of a beautiful morning when he was walking through a cornfield, and a young German soldier jumped up out of the corn, only a few feet away, very young and frightened. They looked each other straight in the eye, and both turned away and ran for it. He was tremendously proud of his war service and marched every year in the Anzac Day parade. He was also very proud that he was a distant cousin of Earl Haig, and it was only years later that I came to understand that Haig's conduct of the war had been questionable, to say the least.
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My rellies came home and then went and joined the Black and Tans. Not very proud of that but we must always tell the truth.
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I just posted a blog, but I notice a theme beginning in other blogs that might be interesting to develop. It is that sense that people who returned from 'the War' would not want to talk about it - as children in the fifties and sixties we were encouraged not to ask our grandfather about his experiences. But it was clear - I suppose from the way that older family members shushed us - that these had been unmentionably hideous. He was a famously angry man - fierily short-tempered and impatient - and there was some sense that this was a result of 'the War'.
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My Great-Uncle, Robert James Bruce Macdonald served with S/1640 8/10th Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders and died on 8th September 1916 in France aged 25. It is said that after he fell, he was placed with a group of dead bodies where he lay until there was time to bury him with the others there. However when they came to bury him he was found to be still alive having lain there for 3 days. He died later in hospital.
My Grandfather, his brother, survived the war and we have some old postcards of his from France.
Another Great-Uncle died within weeks of the end of the war: Thomas Dakin of the Royal Field Artillary died on 15th Spetember 1918 age 24. My mother remembers his picture on the wall of their family home and how upset her father (his brother) was at the loss. My daughter (age 13) has just been to visit his grave during a school trip to the battlefields and was very moved.
My Great-Uncle Lawrence Dernie served with the Yorks and Lancs and died age 21 on 24th March 1918. We have a bronze plaque given to the family to commemorate his contribution.
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My father enlisted in the Sheffield City Battalion (one of the Pals Battalions) of the Yorks & Lancs. He was one of the few survivors of those who went 'over the top' on 1st July 1916. He rarely spoke of his experiences but once told me that they advanced in Open Order so that as few as possible could be caught by a shell burst. He told the man next to him that he was too close and the man veered away, only to be blown to pieces a minute later by a shell
My father was hit by machine gun fire and spent 3 days in a shell hole in No Mans Land before crawling back to his own lines. He was sent back to Blighty and was in hospital in Alderley Edge, Cheshire where my mother stayed for some time in lodgings in a private house to be near him.
He recovered sufficiently to return to France where he was employed as a cook in an Officer's Mess - he was probably not fit enough for the front line. He protested that he could not cook but was told that the officers were not fussy and he was just to do the best he could. He was complimented on a meat & potato pie he concocted and asked where the pastry came from as there was no flour. He had in fact soaked hard tack biscuits for hours in water to make a paste which was fashioned into a pie crust
He was demobbed in 1919. His next military service was from 1940 to 1945 as a Sergeant in the Home Guard. Fortunately they never had to do any fighting.
My brother was born in 1920 and died last year. I was born in 1927 and am still here!
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My grandfather, Harold Wiltshire, of Bexhill was knocked from his horse by a shellblast in France during WW1 and was recovered the next day.
He suffered serious injuries to one of his legs and it was amputated in a field hospital, we are told without benefit of anesthetic. He next recovered consciousness in a hospital transport train in Andover Hants.
Whilst of interest the main story concerns what he did thereafter. Despite being told that he would not long survive he married and fathered five children. After the war he made a point of creating international friendships for his family including with a number of German young men who came to visit them in England.
When WWII commenced he lost contact with his German friends but made contact again as soon as hostilities ceased. He was instrumental in helping one man, Wolfgang, (marooned by the German surrender in Denmark) locate his fiancee who was then in Munich and as soon as civilian travel was possible he and my grandmother Kate travelled to Germany to visit Wolfgang and his now wife, Mechtield.
My parents became firm friends of Wolfgang and Mechtield and their daughters visited us and my sister and I visited them regularly during the 50s and 60s. Wolfgang told with great pleasure how on my Grandfather's first visit after WW II he and Kate brought two suitcases.--one for their clothes, the other full of food from rationed England for his German friends. His greatest pleasure however was the fact that my Grandfather's hollow leg which replaced that blown to pieces by a German shell was stuffed full of contraband cigarettes for his German hosts.
My children now know his grandchildren and I suspect that soon we will be able to meet his great grandchildren. The familial friendship continues.
Geoffrey Sturgess Romsey Hants.
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And what about the women??
My grandfather was a marine in the navy from 1898 and was recalled aged about 30 in 1914. He served in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean where he was torpedoed twice on the same day. He survived despite being a non-swimmer. He always claimed that he didn't learn to swim because if he was going to drown he wanted to do it quickly!
Meanwhile his wife, my grandmother was left with 5 small boys, the eldest having been born in 1910. My grandfather's wages were not getting through to her and she had to get work to survive. She became a postwoman but was always very grateful to the wife if one of the naval officers who lobbied and pulled strings to get the sailor's wages through to their wives, albeit belatedly.
My family has letters between my grandmother and a Mrs Vera Sturt of W. 65th Street, New York who seems to have run some sort of hostel for allied servicemen where she talks of very jolly parties and mentions several names. In the closing weeks of the war Mrs Sturt also went to France with the president's party. Her purpose was to accompany home some of the injured, but she seems to have done sightseeing too.
Mrs Sturt also mentions the occasion of my grandfather being torpedoed, confirming his own story. She also offered to obtain anything for grandmother that she was unobtainable here. As thanks grandmother sent comics for the servicemen which seem to have been well received. Mrs Sturt suggests that they were preferred to the american ones (politeness???)
BlueCygnet
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This is a family story but I have no way of verifying it.
My grandmother was in service during the First World War. She was not allowed men friends but managed to set up a relationship with a post boy. But he was posted to the front. She did not hear from him again until he returned from the Somme with one eye gone and shrapnel in his brain. He was sturdy man, apparently he looked like a skeleton. She left service took him home, nursed him and married him.
I remember my grandfather as a frightening figure to a tiny boy. His eye weeped almost all the time and was often very red. He was also subject to rages and unfortunately these left a stronger mark than the other times when I remember him making a saddle so I could ride on the huge dog they had. My grandmother was always a tower of tough love.
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My Grandfather served with the then South Stafforshire regiment. They are now joined with the North and just called the Staffordshire regiment. In 1918 at the end of the war he was fighting at Bellenglise over the Saint Quentin Canal. He took out three machine gun posts and was awarded the DCM. I have been informed that the medal is one down from the Victoria Cross. The medal along with his citation is in the regiment museum.
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Forgot my grandfathers name he was Albert E Taylor of the South Staffordshire regiment
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We visited Ypres this year to visit the Ploegsteert memorial where Private George Durrant is listed among those with no known grave. He lied about his age to join the army at 17, and his letters home show he was still in Norfolk at the end of March 1918. But at some point in the next few days he was sent to Belgium and died on 9 April. His body was never found.
We were the first family members to visit Ploegsteert since his mother attended the opening ceremony in 1931.
Ypres 2008
Did they return, those spectral soldiers,
to the places where they fell,
to the dug-outs and canal-banks,
at Ypres and Poelkapelle?
Did they haunt the gentle pastures,
turned to cattle and to corn,
and the girls they should have married
with their babies gone unborn?
And do they sometimes linger,
in the quiet of the night,
uncertain outside windows
warm and welcoming with light?
Can they see the hallowed places
where their lives and loves were laid,
and in reckoning their bargain
do they think the price well-paid?
Do the fallen play at football
with the remnants of the foe,
they met at truce in No Man's Land
one Christmas long ago?
In silent circled Ploegsteert
do the restive graveless roam,
and trace with wondering fingers
their names engraved in stone?
At Menin’s blasted tribute, do the halls of Heaven hush?
As pausing we remember them, do they remember us?
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My great grandfather Christopher French served with the 1st Battalion The Wiltshire Regiment, he saw action at Leipzig Salient where he was shot and wounded in the neck and leg whilst capturing an enemy position. He was transfered back to England on the hospital ship West Australia and spent two years in hospital recovering. He was awarded the Military Medal for his actions during battle.
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Just a quick note for no. 79 charley wood.
Visit the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website to find your relative's name. It will tell you where his name is recorded. Not sure of website address but googling CWGC will find it immediately.
Regards
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My grandmother's uncle by marriage, Henry Rowe Vennard from Cornwall, was a pilot with No 10 Squadron with the BEF France in 1918, flying Armstrong Whitworth FK8s. I have a letter written by him to his wife on 10th November 1918, in which he describes the news of the armistice:
"Darling the 'impossible' has happened - News has just come through on the wireless that the armistice is actually signed. Everybody here is crazy with joy. The scene is indescribable - Belgians and Frenchies going up and down singing the French and English national anthems. The sky is lit up for miles around with coloured lights, rockets etc. Searchlights are turning night into day. I'm about the only _sober_ pilot in the squadron. Hostilities close at 11AM tomorrow (Monday) and I am on a show at 9:30. Can't write more now the crowd are kicking up an awful noise."
He continues on Monday on return from the sortie:
"I have just come back from the patrol. I was over the lines at 11:00 and was actually firing my machine gun at a Bosche balloon fifteen minutes before the cessation of hostilities. Poor old Bosche - he must have been about the last casualty of the war. However, he was only wounded and I didn't fire at him as he went down from the balloon in a parachute. I had the balloon in flames, that was all I wanted. Another fellow and myself did the trick between us. I can't tell you or describe to you the scenes here today. They are wonderful. The people are wild with joy, and they are much more demonstrative than English folks."
He returned safely from the war and lived to a ripe old age, helping to run the Torquay ATC during WWII.
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Before my mother died, she sent me a number of stories about her childhood in Liverpool. She was already in her nineties when she wrote the two stories below about the war years. Her name was Violet May Hirst (nee Bunting). She was born in Liverpool in 1910 and died in Shropshire aged 94. Her father was Joseph Bunting.
My teddy bear
When I was little and my father went off to war, I gave him my teddy bear to look after him. He put him in his kitbag and carried him with him for years while he was fighting in the trenches in France and Flanders.
Once my father was wounded and had to come back to England. My mother and I went to Blackpool to visit him. We went on the train and then had to walk the rest of the way. It was a very windy day and I was blown right across the road but luckily at that time there weren’t so many cars around so I wasn’t hurt. My mother ran after me and I held tightly onto her hand after that.
When we got to the convalescent hospital, we found my father in a ward with lots of other men. They had a narrow gold stripe on their sleeves to show they had been wounded. Most of them were in bed but some of them were getting about on crutches. One of them was running round the ward and making a lot of noise and one of the nurses came and took him back to his bed. My father said the man was shell-shocked.
I remember there was a big wooden trunk at the end of the ward and when the nurse opened it it was full of sticks and crutches.
When it came time to leave, I was very upset so my father gave me back my teddy bear to comfort me. I can’t remember what happened to it after that.
The flag in the parlour
When I was little, my father was wounded in an explosion on the battlefield and he was gassed as well. He was brought back to a hospital in Oswestry and my mother and I went to visit him there. It was nearly the end of the war and at that time there was an epidemic of influenza. My father’s lungs had been damaged by mustard gas and he caught flu and died.
He was given a military funeral and I remember seeing his coffin on the table in the parlour with the Union Jack draped over it. On the day of the funeral I was taken to spend the day at my Auntie Polly’s shop. It was a millenary shop and I remember trying on all the hats.
Auntie Polly was my father’s sister. His other sister was my Auntie Annie. My father had two sisters and two brothers. His two brothers were called Freddy and Bob. One was a sailor and one was a soldier and they were both killed in the war so my grandparents lost all their sons when my father died.
Not long after this my mother and I went to live with my mother’s parents and I gradually lost touch with my father’s side of the family till years later when I got in touch with my Auntie Annie again. She was married and living in Anfield and she was thrilled to bits to see me again. We became good friends and my husband stayed with her before our wedding.
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My grandfather was desperate to fight in WW1 but he was only 17 in 1914 and so too young. Also he had bad eye sight which would have excluded him. However, undeterred, he lied about his age (this was easy as he didn’t have a birth certificate having been born in India as the son of an army officer, where such things didn’t exist) and got past the 1st hurdle. But the second was harder, so he got in touch with a friend who was already ‘in’ and asked him to go to the medical room and copy down the letters on the eye test board. This was done and my grandfather learnt them off by heart and so got into the army where I gather he distinguished himself in many ways and also lived to tell the tale.
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My father (177147 Kent WH) served in WW1. He enlisted in 1916 and first saw action as an infantry man walking beside the early tanks deployed on the Somme. As he could drive he was soon moved on to supply lorries delivering munitions to the front line. His days were 12hr shifts, the first hour being vehicle maintenance including checking the acetylene lamps. He then went to ambulance driving and ended the war as chauffeur to an Australian general. After the armistice he was kept on as an ambulance driver to bring home wounded POWs from right across europe. He survived the carnage and got two medals and a piece of shrapnel which finally worked its way out in 1948. He died in 1966.
Dad's brother, Charles, flew in The Royal Flying Core and, by chance, they met in field in France. Charles also survived.
Some contributors have said how their relatives hardly mentioned their wartime exploits but this was not my experience. My Dad was a bit like Trotter's Uncle Albert and it was treated as the second religion in our house.
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I belong to the 'between the wars' generation, b. 1930.
WW1 was always known as the 'last war' when I was a child during WW2.
Already we knew that it wasn't 'last' in the sense of the final one!
Soon after the 1st moon landing I wrote this little poem to my Dad who had recently died. In WW1 he was wounded in the head by sniper fire whilst digging trenches - I believe in the Bethune area. He suffered all his life from terrible headaches, but nevertheless worked as a baker and later delivering parcels for a printer until he was over 60. He always attended regimental dinners whilst he was well enough. He served in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps in a 'chums type' battalion for ex Church Lads' Brigade members. Although from Kent, he served with mostly northern lads of whom he always spoke with great tenderness and sometimes tears.
A letter to Dad (born 1895 died 1967)
Dear Dad, what do you think? On telly we saw
Americans walk on the moon!
But more marvellous still Dad,
when they did it again (to prove it no fluke)
most folk watched footy instead!
So many changes Dad, you wouldn't believe -
if (heaven forbid)
we needed 'em again; today Dad, the 'Bradford Chums'
could raise a company of Sepoys
all speaking broadly
with the accent you loved,
and spoken by those with whom you soldiered -
your friend Jimmy; beside you when you fell
'Eh Frank lad, ah thought thee were dead!'
So many changes Dad - most have gone now
- your son Tom, your brothers Dick and Harry
(Yes, Tom, Dick and Harry!)
and your sister May.
Our Mum made it to 96,
leaving us with the dignity which no doubt drew your eye
when that billeting officer placed YOU in HER house
and wrote OUR page of history.
Cherrio for now Dad
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My mother celebrated her 97th birthday last Sunday and roundabout this time of year always reminisces about the wars.
Her father had suffered two bouts of rheumatic fever as a young man and therefore was not fit to serve in the army. He became a special constable instead and did his bit after work.
The family lived in Greenwich at the time and Mum remembers being carried in her father's arms down to the end of the road to watch a German Zeppelin overhead. Suddenly they saw a small plane flying over the Zeppelin and strafing it with bullets. The Zeppelin caught fire and they could see its crew jumping out to their deaths. Most onlookers cheered but my grandmother said "They are some mother's son and you should be ahamed of yourselves.".
My grandmother was all for female emancipation and Mum can remember her dashing out into the garden to lean over the neighbour's fence to tell her that women had got the vote.
Mum also has a vivid memory of the Silvertown explosion in January 1917. Her older brother was sitting at the kitchen table doing his homework while his sisters were getting their father's tea. As they went to the cupboard Jack said sharply - "Stay there you two girls - don't move." He had seen the glass in the window vibrating, and suddenly the whole window - frame and all - fell in onto the table. The whole sky around was lit up red and my mother kept saying "It's the end of the world". Both her parents were out and came rushing back to find an empty house. Fearing the worst, they fell on their knees in the street, but fortunately the children had been taken into a neighbour's house.
My father was French and therefore had different memories of the war. His father was on the Italian front. His uncle was in the French army and disappeared, presumed killed. The family searched for over 50 years to find any trace of him, but failed. One of the hundreds of thousands who never came back to their families who never forgot them even though they had no grave to visit.
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One of my sisters in the US has letters that my grandfather sent to my grandmother from France. I remember giving them a quick glance after my mother died (she kept them in her cedar chest) when I returned to help dispose of her things. Neither sister now knows where they are and I should have grabbed them when I had the chance.
Going back farther, I have before me an American flag (48 stars by the look of it and without unfolding) that was on my great grandfather's coffin at his funeral. It gets passed down to the oldest male in the McNickle family (sexist bunch, we are). His name was Cassius Marion McNickle and he was in the US Civil War, but lived to tell about it, but not to me. I was told that he was to young, but played the fife for soldiers to march to. Probably a myth as I have never seen the fife.
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During the Dardanelles Campaign, early in the war, my father, Alfred William Cousins, was a signalman on a British Warship supporting the ANZAC landings. There was a French Cruiser squadron also in support and he volunteered to serve as signalman to liaise between the FRench gunners and the Australian troops on shore.
He was sent up the mast of the French cruiser flag-ship into the crow's nest with a set of semaphore flags. The cruiser approached to less than a mile from the coast and he received semaphore messages from Australian troops to direct the French fire where it was needed.
After a couple of hours a Turkish sniper fired at him and hit him. The bullet lodged half in half out of his forehead, right between the eyebrows. He carried on signalling for some time until he collapsed through loss of blood and had to be lowered from the crow's nest.
The French sailors took him to their sick bay, removed the bullet and revived him. He collapsed again and they thought he was about to die.
The French Squadron Admiral visited the sick bay and thanked him for his devotion to duty and made him an immediate award of the CROIX DE GUERRE, being the highest award the French could make to a foreigner.
Dad then rallied and recovered enough to be put aboard a pinnace, sent to collect him, complete with his kitbag and medal.
But then the Turkish artillary sank the pinnace and dad was thrown into the sea, losing his kit and medal.
The family knew nothing of all this until a few weeks before my father died in 1986. My brother visited him in hospital and he told him of the lost medal. My brother - an airman - wrote to the French Naval Attache at the French Embassy in London to ask for confirmation, telling him that our father was in hospital and not expected to live much longer.
He received a letter from French Defence Ministry to confirm the award, enclosing a replacement CROIX DE GUERRE.
He went again to the hospital and presented him with his replacement medal and their compliments. He died three weeks later, but I think he had a few moments happiness reliving those times, before he died.
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My mum, Amy Trowler, was born in 1908 and lived in Wavertree Road in Edge Hill, Liverpool. Her father wasn't in the war, due to a hearing disability I think, but his brother, her uncle Alex was.
Her school had big dolls to give to all the girls who had fathers in the war (I don't know what the boys got), and asked the girls to put their hands up to be given one. So she put her hand up, thinking to herself that an Uncle was almost the same as a Dad, and got one too.
As soon as she got home the story came out she was in big trouble and was marched very reluctantly back to school to give it back. She said that, being only about 6, she had no idea why she couldn't have one too.
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Just before 'going over the top' at Ypres, the lads usually had a stiff tot of rum. For some reason, my grandfather (Tom Smith) refused his. He was the only one to survive the attack. He wandered in no man's land for some time and claimed that the Angel of Mons guided him to safety. From the end of the war he never drank again. Also he would become furious at the sight of a pack of playing cards - the lads had all been playing cards before the whistle blew. Like many, he was badly affected by his experiences and angry at the war office because he never received his pay or medals. (Stuart Smith)
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My maternal Grandfather born in 1895 served in the Navy in 1914-18. I can just recall him telling me stories of his Navy days, but as I was only 4-5 years old, I cannot remember much. I think he was at Jutland and may have been sunk once.
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I rember a story told by my paternal Grandmother of a (I think) relative who worked at the Toton shell factory in 1918.
She was sick and off work the day it blew up, killing many of her friends.
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My Grandfather was one of the many who survived the trenches in the First World War but sadly died in March 1919 of influenza. He was waiting in Dieppe to return home and died the day before my father's 4th birthday, so we had no stories from him about the war to hear or retell. However my family is now left with one question which we believe can never be answered. Our First World War story began about 10 years ago when our son was researching a history project for school. He wanted to know what it was like to fight in the trenches in France during the First World War and began to investigate my Grandfather, his maternal Great Grandfather. With dates, names and some sketchy information in hand he approached the Commonwealth War Graves Commission who were able to provide him with further details about his Great Grandfather. One of these precious pieces of information told us that he served in the 8th Battalion of the Post Office Rifles. When reporting his project progress and discoveries to his Grandmother (my husband's mother) it occured to her that he might be able to find out similar information about her father (our son's paternal Great Grandfather) and his 2 brothers who all fought in France during the First World War. Back to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission he went who once again provided him with more information. One amazing piece of information revealed that they too had all spent their time during the war fighting in France with the 8th Battalion of the Post Office Rifles. So two of his Great Grandfathers and two Great Uncles had been in the trenches together in the same battalion of solidiers. Although they all lived in London before the war they came from opposite sites of the city, they all served together in the same battalion of soldiers in France during the First World War. Many questions will remain unanswered, but still linger with us today. Did they know each other? Were they aquainted? What would they have thought about their grandchildren meeting, marrying and sharing the same Great Grandson. It was he who found this connection years later. Their memories still live on in our household. To end this story we have been able to find, purchase and keep safely on a shelf at home, the book which tells the story of the 8th Battalion of the Post Office Rifles. 'The Terriers in the Trenches' and on the back pages their names are listed along side each other with many other of their peers.
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My father hardly spoke about WW1. However he did tell me what happened to him on the ship that was to take him and his horse to France. I wrote a poem describing that event - an event that, if it had not occurred, would almost certainly have meant his death within a few weeks. The piece has been published a number of times. (I hold the copyright.) Here is the poem:
MARSTON'S TALE
In 1914, Marston prepared for war.
A good horseman, he joined a regiment
of cavalry and saddled up. At Harwich,
that grim point of embarkation,
horse and man
teetered on the screeching planks
that strung together stone and iron.
Stone and iron and sweat and shout
and a core of fear that no Sam Browne
or Sergeant's foul mouth could pluck out.
Deep in the bowels of the great ship,
cramped makeshift stalls were filling up
with horse stink men stink
bred on a bed of oil stink, and the scent
of fresh straw that made you think
what a fool you'd been to volunteer.
Some horses panicked, as did some men.
Marston, knowing better, did the wrong thing:
stood behind his horse
which reared - fell - kicked -
pinning him against the rust and rivets
of the side. Trussed-up and invalided out
he lasted sixty years - a lonely man
kicking his life about.
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My Dad was ten when WW1 began. He wrote regularly to a former teacher who was serving in France, and three of the the letters written in reply, from 'Gunner W.E.Durrans 151903', have survived, reproduced below.
The dreadful conditions in the trenches are only touched upon; the schoolmaster seems concerned to make light of encounters with rats and 'other animals' to entertain his young pupil. And there is a wonderful recommendation to the little lad (who lived in the streets close by the steelworks on Teesside) to follow the advice of 'the philosopher of centuries ago, Socrates by name'.
Saturday Nov. 24th 1917
Dear Frank
Perhaps you think I have forgotten you and the other boys – not likely, Frank. I am very sorry I have not written before & my delay, I am afraid, in answering, seems to have dampened the ardour of one or two of the boys who were writing me. I received letters from Porter, Templeman, Spencer, John and Fred Tombs whilst I was at Catterick. Thank all these boys for me and tell them how pleased I was to hear from them.
I have your letter here at present Frank and the 1d stamp attached makes me smile. Did you think when you sent it that soldiers receiving their modest salary could not afford stamps? However, it has got a queer resting place now as it is in my wallet and has spent something like 3 months “somewhere in Flanders”.
I hope you are now quite well by this time – in fact, my best wish is that you feel as fit as I do – that is, as fit as the proverbial fiddle.I hear Mr Bacon is now back at work at South Bank, I don’t know whether he knows and realises how lucky he is.
How is the music going down Frank? How do you like a “4 flat” piece for the first time trying & what about the chromatics, etc?
Thanks very much for the photographs. They are quite good I consider for a budding amateur.
Have you left school yet, if so, what are you tackling at the present time?
I expect you want to hear news of things out here. I am not allowed to say much but I really think old Fritz’s knees are knocking a bit and that American assistance next Spring will just about stand him on his head.
We have had a rather hot time on this sector since I came here but I think things will begin to quieten down shortly. The weather is very cold now, and the land – well, mud and water means nothing in comparison to what it really is like sometimes.
How would you like to get up Frank at 6.30 in the morning this time of the year and have a good cold bath at some good shell hole full of water?
I don’t know whether you are a lad for pets or not, but if you would care to start a hobby of that kind we’ve got a few score mice in our dug-out you can commence with. There are rats and smaller animals as well if you want them. It is marvellous what mice can do, only today we found the paper bag, enclosing cocoa inside a cocoa tin with a lid on, was all chewed up. We have investigated the case thoroughly but the unanimous verdict after a most exhaustive enquiry is that the mouse or mice ( I should say it must have been a company concern) must have removed the lid, tasted the cocoa and then replaced the lid as they originally found it.
My address in case any of you would care to write again is:-
Gunner W.E.Durrans 151903, 287 Siege Battery, R.G.A., B.E.F., France.
Where has Norman Gray got to, is he shy? I shall be delighted to hear from any of them.
Well, I think I must close this time with very kindest regards to all my old boys and yourself and best wishes for the future.
I remain
A true friend to all of you
W E Durrans
Cheero!
Gnr. W.E.Durrans. 151903
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Sunday Dec. 9th, 1917.
Dear Frank,
Many thanks for your little parcel, splendid letter & sketches. You know really, Frank, you should not have troubled to send cigarettes although it is very good of you & I can assure you your kindness finds due appreciation with me. I am sorry to confess that I always was a rather heavy cigarette smoker in civilian life and I am sure 'soldiering' has not tended to improve me in that direction. What I have seen of "Tommy" (and it is by no means a little bit by this time) give him his "fag" and he is quite all right.
The four sketches are quite good, quite worthy of Bairnsfather, and I can follow your train of thought, as you did them & numbered them, quite well.
Now for your letter. I was exceedingly sorry to hear that you have had such a rough time for so many months now. Be careful, boy, & take your mother's advice it's better than anybody else can give you.
Any boys who leave school (as, for instance, Douglass) just give them my very best wishes for the future.
Speaking of music lessons in your last letter reminds me of a question I want to ask you. Is your voice as musical as it was before I left you? I think you will admit that that is one to me Frank, eh?
I hope the concert is a jolly good success, I expect Mr Huss, Mr Sivie or Miss Ellis will be giving me a full account shortly.
I suppose the boys still have their little jokes, Caney in particular. I sometimes wonder though, nowadays, if ever I had any touch with them or whether I have been occupied for a lifetime on the present job.
Sorry to hear the football team has gone "crash", it's a pity.
Yes, I noticed your prod at me, perhaps I did word it rather badly. What I meant to infer was that I was unlucky in dropping right into the thick of it as soon as I arrived.
We have no traps here, Frank, we settle rats at times by fetching them out of their holes with a charge of cordite & then popping at them.
By the way here goes for a true (perhaps) story. Scene:- Pathway leading up to a dug-out. Time:- Middle of winter. A great, big, green-eyed, lanky, lean, long-haired rat seen struggling up the pathway rolling a tin of Maconnachie before it. It stops at the mouth of the dug-out and with tears in its eyes as big as gooseberries, and a pathetic look in its face it looks up at Tommy in such an appealing, pleading way as much as to say, "For heavens sake, old man, open this bally tin for me."
Well I expect Xmas will soon be upon us all now. I thank you for your cheery wishes & hope that you all have as bright a Xmas as is possible in these troublous times. Remember one thing, Frank, don't eat too much pudding, it's bad for the digestive organs.
Well, keep smiling boy. With very kindest regards to all & sincerest wishes for your future. Good health
I remain
Yours very sincerely
W. E. Durrans
Gnr. W E Durrans. 151,903.
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Wed. Dec. 18th. 1918
Dear Frank,
Many thanks for your exceedingly interesting letter which was awaiting me here when I came back from leave during the latter part of Oct. I am very sorry indeed not to have written ou before, but it is by no means an easy matter to 'get at it' nowadays. Of course, as you will no doubt guess, in these times of 'piping peace and demobilisation rumours' much of one's time is taken up indulging in sport & pleasure of other kinds which I am afraid would not interest you.
I was glad to hear of many of the old boys and to know that they are all doing well & shall be very pleased to see some of them in the flesh before long.
Your account of your work does you credit Frank, & proves to me that you have lost little, if any, of your command of language of two or three years ago. Keep it up boy, there is nothing like writing to someone fairly often, it helps to keep you in touch with the pen, as well as with the dictionary. Again, I shall always be glad to be the recipient of any letters you care to write to me.
During my fourteen days at home I managed to pay a flying visit to your district but unhappily it happened to be the Autumn Holiday so I did not see many old friends. You can judge for yourself what a short time was available when I mention that we only arrived at G. at 3p.m., had tea with Mr & Mrs Sivil and had caught the train for Redcar again at 5.40 p.m. Otherwise, if I could have managed more time I should have been only too pleased to have looked up a few of the old boys, not forgetting the "little" lad at No 37.
So you are now interested in natural history, are you? I believe it was photography last time you wrote me, was it not? There is nothing like a good hobby for maintaining interest & at the same time learning something in a pleasurable way. Don't be afraid of changing your hobby often, either. Perhaps you have heard the words of the philosopher of centuries ago, Socrates by name, he said, "It is a man's duty to know everything of something and something of everything." In explanation the words mean that we should all make an attempt to know all there is to know about some particular work or subject, and a little bit (even if only just a 'snack') about every subject. Hobbies will help you to master the latter half all right provided you keep changing your fancy.
I have had many a hobby, it may interest you to know that my present one is one which I zealously follow - taking quick glances thro' Continental editions of the Daily Mail looking for the latest demobilisation news.
Your load test certainly works in civilian life for getting rid of unwelcome visitors but I wouldn't mind watching your efforts in the same direction in the army. I think you would lose Frank, about 4 goals to nil.
Well, perhaps I had better give you a line or two about myself before I close. At the time of the signing of the armistice we were in the country of the released civilians from Le Cateau forward. Since then we have come back a considerable distance and are now in huts in a little village called Vaux situated about 10 Kilos. (8 Kilos = 5 miles) to the north of Amiens.
The life is very monotonous the one desire now on all sides being to get home as early as possible. Anyhow with a little luck I hope to be home very early in the New Year.
I am pleased to say I am in real good health & I trust that you and your family are also well & steering clear of this terrible scourge - the 'flu'.
With every good wish for a real good Xmas with as much of the old peace-time flavour about it as possible.
I remain
Ever yours sincerely
W E Durrans
P.S. My address is still the same & likely to remain so until the - finis.
Sig. W E Durrans. 151903.
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I so remember my Pop (grandad) telling me stories of the first world war.
My favourite one was when he had written to his mother (who lived in West Yorkshire and had no apparent spacial awareness of where the trenches were located) to say that he and his comrades were starving as they did not have enought rations. Some time later, a parcel arrived containing a pile of mouldy sausage sandwiches which his mother had sent, they were so hungry they ate them!
From
Avril Adams
Portsmouth
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My father was a very young soldier in the first world war. He put up his age to join the army. He used to tell the following story
He was in a trench with an older soldier. They were up to their knees in water and had not eaten for three days as the supply lines had broken down. His companion suggested that they give themselves up and my father was desperate enough to agree with him. They went 'over the top' with their hands up and dropped into the German trench. The soldiers there were taken by surprise and ran away screaming. Not knowing what to do next they sat in the German trench eating the black bread that they found there. After a while an Australian unit arrived and the officer demanded to know what they were doing there. My father, in his youthful innocence, was about to blurt out the story when his fellow soldier shouted 'What do you mean? We took this trench hours ago.'
. He was in the retreat from Mons and said that he ran for three days and nights. Even as late as 1950 he would run in his sleep if he saw a war film. He also maintained that when they knew that the German soldiers were short of food they would throw a can of 'Bully Beef' into their trench and that the Germans would throw the empty tin back with a thankyou note in it.
It became a very strange war and my father had no time for heroics although I believe that he did his best It is frightening to think that only the quick thinking of his companion saved his life as, if the story had come out, he would probably have had to face a firing squad.
Sweetcharmaine
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My grandmother, who was born in 1899, could recall seeing soldiers walking down Deptford High Street in South London caked in mud, fresh from the trenches. For some reason this caught my imagination and had a great effect on me as a young boy born in 1947.
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when i was in college in wrexham in 1976 i lodged with an elderly couple from rhostyllen near wrexham. i remember him telling me of the first pals battalions to go from the wrexham area. the soldiers marched from high town barracks to the station for the train to take them to france. all the towns people lined the streets the band played at the head of the colomn. at the station the town mayor made a speech and then they were gone.
he told me- not one of those lads returned a whole generation of young boys were lost.
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We knew nothing about Pop’s involvement in WW1 except that he enjoyed being in the Army of Occupation of the Rhine afterwards when he mentioned the exorbitant rate of inflation, impressing us kids with how much money he had “lost”. Such was our naïve credulity we believed he had possessed great wealth and had been cruelly deprived of it. This explained our relative poverty, at least for a while. Only much later did we realise the sums involved must have been quite small since Pop had retired with the rank of Sergeant. Since none of us was close to him and we all feared our very Victorian father (born in 1888) we never knew about his war service until long after his death in 1970. Since then I have found Pop was recruited in London into the 2nd Sports Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, one of two battalions paid for by a Mrs Cunliffe-Owen. The recruits were athletic and older than previous intakes. Horse-riders were particularly desired. My father did not ride but he was a successful all-round athlete, winning many trophies and awards for boxing, running, swimming and other sports.
A letter from Major Maurice French MBE says of the 23rd and 24th: 'They were raised by Mrs Cunliffe Owen. The recruits were drawn from all parts of the world. She telegraphed Lord Kitchener 'Will you accept complete Battalion of upper and middle class men, physically fit, able to shoot and ride up to the age of 45.' Ld K was delighted. Para: Amongst those in your fathers (sic) Battalion were F Selous the famous big game hunter and naturalist. Another was Warneford who later joined the RAF and won the VC for downing a Zeppelin. The Bns were Royal Fusiliers because they were raised in London, the home of the Regiment.'
His battalion went to France in November 1915 after training at Clipstone Camp in Nottinghamshire. It was a very wet winter and we all know about the mud in the trenches, the intense frosts and other hardships. Mother told us Pop suffered some gas inhalation but that is all we knew. According to books about the Great War gas was used by both sides in the early stages. Depending on the wind it sometimes blew back into the faces of the soldiers who had launched it. My father’s records show he was sent back to Blighty in February 1916 for treatment of a lump on his neck. After a successful operation Pop was sent to Scotland to train young recruits in physical education before returning to Europe in the Army of Occupation of the Rhine.
Pop left the Army and found very few jobs available. This resulted in going overseas with his young wife and family before finally settling back in Britain. He had missed the Somme and the worst events of World War One but instead of being happy he was constantly depressed for the rest of his life. Whether this was due to earlier sad events in childhood or the effects of wartime conditions, or maybe a combination of both, we shall never know.
A reference to Mrs Cunliffe-Owen and her generous gift to the nation was in Kent Archaeological Society magazine Issue No 51 2001-2002 where a commemorative medal was found in an attic. Very little appears to be known about the lady and it would be interesting to know more about her.
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My Great uncle Jake, John Gilbert McLean, enlisted in the Canadian Army in the First World War. He had emigrated from Scotland when he was fifteen and had worked on farms. He was my grandmother's only full brother.
Because he was skilled with horses he was employed driving ammunition wagons up to the front. He told me about this when he was in his seventies.
He seemed to be distressed by the destruction and maiming of horses as much as anything else, but was quite phlegmatic about his experiences generally.
He came to Britain to visit my grandmother at the end of the war. She told me he would not come into her house. He borrowed some of my grandfather's clothes, washed himself in the outhouse and burned his uniform in the yard with paraffin as he did not want to bring lice into her house.
He had a hard life farming on the plains.
I have some photographs and a copy of his enlistment papers which were available free on the Canadian Govt website.
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My grandfather, John Tarpy served as a gunner on HMS Lion (Admiral Beatty’s flagship) at the Battle of Jutland. The ship sustained considerable battle damage and my grandfather had his ear drums ‘blown out’; for the rest of his life he was totally deaf, a hearing aid being of no use as he had no eardrums. A further result of this injury was that his balance chambers were destroyed causing him to walk as if drunk; ironically he very really drank alcohol, but was often stopped by the police as he appeared under the influence. Granddad could lip read, but if he couldn’t see the person talking to him communication was very difficult, resulting in him having a reputation as a ‘cantankerous old bxxxxxd’.
The last time I saw my grandfather was in St Audrey’s Hospital, near Woodbridge in Suffolk, he died shortly afterwards; that was over 40 years ago but I haven’t forgotten that place. Nobody deserves to end their days in places like that, for this reason I support Help for Heroes’.
PS:- My Great Uncle, James (Jimmy) Tarpy died, to the best of knowledge, in the trenches. I know nothing of the circumstances of his military life. I would like to be able to visit his grave, if he has one, but am unaware of his service number or even what regiment he served in (at a guess, a South Yorkshire unit). If you are aware of a way of finding any details in cases like this I would be very interested in hearing of them.
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Like so many others my Mum's uncle, her mother's younger brother Frank Saunders, lied about his age to join the army. His family had him discharged (or bought him out, I'm not sure which). He joined up again and was discharged a second time. When he was old enough to join up legally he did so and went back to France. Sadly he died, not from injuries but from either pneumonia or influenza (so we believe; we haven't yet seen his death certificate). What we do know is that, ironically considering his three enlistments, is that he died on November 11th 1918 - the day peace was declared. My brother, a cousin and I are travelling to Lille on Monday so that we can be at his grave at 11a.m. on Tuesday, the 90th anniverasry of both The Armistice and Great Uncle Franks' death. He is buried in the small military section of St Andre community cemetery on the outskirts of Lille. One other grave there bears the same date of death: 11.11.1918.
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I have my grandfather's war diary. His name was Howard Rothwell Mallett. He grew up in Cambridge, and in 1908 he joined the newly formed TA, as well as becoming one of Cambridge's first Scoutmasters. He also started his MA in theology. For moral reasons he was not willing to fight so opted to join the RAMC. I have a flimsy slip of paper dated 4th August 1914 instructing him to join the colours. Such an insigificant looking document changed many men's lives!
Although by then he had his MA, only doctors became officers in the RAMC and he eventually became RSM at the Eastern General Hospital which was set up in the grounds of the Cambridge Colleges.
His dairy covers 1918 when he was sent to Flanders in the 88th RAMC field regiment. He mentions the reflective mood the soldiers were in during the train journey to the front and then described harrowing events during the German offensive of April 1918. The German artillery used to shell behind the lines and many of his non-combatant comrades were killed. Mercifully, he was spared.
He remarked on one incident during the retreat. A local entrepreneur was selling the latest copies of the 'Daily Mail' in the square of a small town which was under German shell fire. He noted that how could he and his comrades could resist buying the 'DM' under these conditions!
When the armistice was signed, they were ordered to march into Germany...on foot. The route took them via Brussels and they were marched across the great Waterloo Battlefield where they were given a talk by an officer about the history. He reflected in his diary that there he was, in a British Soldier's uniform, sitting on his knapsack eating bread and cheese on the Waterloo Battlefield, just over a hundred years on from the great event in 1815. I knew my grandfather well in later life and this observation brought home to me how these thoughts have spanned nearly two centuries!
He was demobbed in Thetford in March 1919 and my father born in December 1919. Clearly my grandmother must have been pleased to see him return safely!
He continued as a member of staff of the University and noted that in 1921 he lent this dairy to a colleague who did not return it. In 1962 following an article in the local paper, he had the diary given back to him!
Howard was connected with the Scouts in Cambridge for the rest of his life and as a Scoutmaster, it must have been very harrowing to deal with dying and wounded young men who would have been the kind of youngster he was involved with in the newly formed movement before the war.
His WW1 RAMC experience must have served him well, for in the late 1950's he was the chairman of the Fulbourn Hospital - an unpaid job in those days. Like many of his generation who survived the war, they took 'honour' and 'duty' seriously throughout their lives. He died in his 80's in 1971
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I've been rather haunted by the image mentioned by one subscriber earlier, who said her grandfather always insisted that she 'count his fingers...."
Counting the cost
“Count my fingers,” said the old man,
“count them slow and count them right.”
(Count the terror in the trenches:
count men screaming through the night.
Count the countless fallen comrades
lost in silent sucking mud:
count the limbless, and the graveless,
count the corpses, count the blood.
Count the scars that mark my body,
count the scars that sear my mind:
count the wounds which have not mended
and the wounds you cannot find.)
His soldier’s hands lay cradled
very gently held in mine.
But however hard I counted them,
his fingers numbered nine.
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TheGeraldine @ 124, are these your poems? I am very impressed by 'Ypres 2008', and I particularly thank you for it. I like 'Counting the cost' too, but 'Ypres 2008' is outstanding.
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Somewhere in my garage I have a piece of twisted wood painted black. It's heavy and my mother called it a 'shelalegh', belonging to my grandfather Luke Benson from his time in (and below) the trenches. Luke was a Yorkshireman, and a railwayman. Perhaps knowledge of rail communications led him to what my grandmother described as 'moling'. With his friend they would tunnel towards the opposing trenches and having set up a 'listening post' would retreat uncoiling wire back to 'our' lines. I asked why the heavy stick and not a pistol or knife? My gran explained that Luke and his pal sometimes broke through unexpectedly into German trenches, sometimes deserted, sometimes with a lone sentry. " It was quick, silent, and with luck, he didn't kill anybody" she explained. " But he did " she added, "that stick's killed a German and he never got over it". I never knew by grandad as he died before I was born, killed by an express train. There's a photo of him on my wall, with a little Hitler moustache, rather fashionable at the time, even with socialists. Not long after she told me this story, my grandmother died. Her manner of passing was marked by that generation's stoicism. "Turn the potato's off and take me hair out of curler's" she asked "I'm dying now" and promptly did.
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Hi Eddie
I was moved to contribute by a listener who described his grandfather as returning from the war displaying terrible outbursts of anger and depression. A similar thing happened to my grandfather, William Newton, who was a private soldier. His mental health was totally destroyed and he exhibited similar symptoms. As far as I could tell he didn’t suffer from depression but he did experience long periods of introspection, interspersed with violent displays of verbal anger and contorted facial grimaces. After the war my grandmother went to France to find him. It was the only time she went abroad. After some time she found him in a Displaced Person’s Camp. I don’t know if she had received some information from the army or whether she just toured the camps until she located him. Nobody in the family wished to talk about it. She did tell me, however, that before he left for the war he was the kindest and most gentlemanly man she had ever met. She looked after him at home for the rest of his life. He was over 80 when he died.
My other grandfather, Captain Thomas Wood, was a professional soldier. His job was to go around the country buying horses on behalf on the army and transport them to the western front. According to my father, Tom was something of a raconteur, although he was never one for letting the truth get in the way of a good story. One anecdote that apparently always got a good laugh was his tale about being in a camp at the front, just behind the lines, when the Germans broke though in 1918. According to Tom’s rendition the first he knew about it was when a portly senior officer on horseback, dressed only in his underwear, galloped through the camp yelling, ‘Get out, get out, the b*gg**s are coming’.
My third memory involves a private soldier in the Cheshire Regiment called Joseph Crouchley. In the late 1950’s I started work for Barclays bank in Northwich. At that time there were two sub branches, at Barnton and Weaverham. Joe was my bank guard there and during quiet moments he would sometimes tell me of his experiences at Gallipoli. Joe was a wonderful, bloke – another chap with a fund of stories. During the ill fated offensive, he contracted malaria and was invalided out. The disease plagued him for the rest of his life. Occasionally, he would get a bout at work. He would be bathed in sweat one minute and shivering with cold the next but he had no wish for sympathy merely remaking, ‘It’s all right, lad. ‘Tis the ague that saved my life. It were t’best thing that ever ‘appened to me’.
Martin Wood
Shrewsbury
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Thank you VERY much for your kind comments Chris - they are indeed both my poems and it is always pleasant to receive an encouraging word....
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When I was at school I asked my Grandad to record some of his memories from WW1 on tape as I was studying the war in history. Grandad joined up in 1915 when he was 17 and served until the end of the war, first in the Sherwood Foresters and then after his commission in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. I listened to the tape for the first time in ages after hearing the request for relative's memories on PM. One story he told is about the first casualty of his battalion not long after their arrival in France. He describes how in the trenches when it was dark all of the men stood on the firing step to keep look out as night was the time when enemy attack was most expected. One soldier still had his head above the trench as it was growing light and was warned by the others to get down. He remarked that a bullet hadn't got him yet but a moment later he was hit between the eyes and fell down dead. Grandad remarks that "he was a nice lad and a good footballer too". Grandad won the military cross towards the end of the war and then went on to serve as a trainer of troops in WW2 stationed in Belfast. He didn't talk much about his time in WW1 apart from the tape he made for me and it's wonderful to still be able to hear his voice now.
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I have a bittersweet tale to tell. My wife's engagement ring was given to me for her by my mother whenas an impecunious medical student I informed my parents of our intention to wed. The engagement ring had come from my mother's aunt who had received it from her fiance before he left for the Trenches of the Western Front. He never returned. She never married.
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My husband's maternal grandmother,who was born in 1887, lived just outside Canterbury during the first world war. I remember her telling me about market day just after the war started. As the farmers arrived at the market with their horse and carts,the horses were requisitioned and the carts left abandoned at the side of the road until the farmer could walk back to the farm and fetch either another horse or help to get the cart home.
My husband's paternal grandfather was in the blackwatch and was invalided out with trench foot. He was sent to the mines in Fife as a "softer" option. There he met his wife and later returned to Kent.
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My great uncle was Albert Saunders. He and a number of his regiment were captured early in the war and imprisoned in eastern Germany. After a while Uncle Albert and three of his comrades hatched a plan to escape. They were able to get out of the camp in the early hours of the morning and made their way into a forest where for some weeks they survived by foraging and stealing from farm barns. One day whilst hidden in undergrowth they heard English being spoken and recognised British soldiers. They surrendered to them only to learn that later on the day of their escape the Armistice had been signed and for six weeks they had been living rough after the war had finished! All his life he suffered from the effects of his imprisonment. He had trench feet and needed special boots made to fit his deformed feet.
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My maternal grandfather, Frank Oatham was gassed and never spoke about his experiences in France. We have his enlistment papers for the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, which he joined on 2 January 1914, three days before his twentieth birthday; also his 'soldier's demobilization account', informing him of his earnings of £41 10 shillings, and that £1 would be payable for the return of the military great-coat. I wonder if he returned it? His cousins, brothers Herbert Gerald and Alfred Ernest Oatham were both killed in action aged 18 and 23. His uncle, Edward Oatham also died, aged 51. Frank, after years of ill health following his exposure to gas, was killed by a drunk driver in 1951.
My father's great aunt Emily received a post card covered with embroidered flowers, inscribed with the words 'To dear Emily, to wish you a Happy Christmas and New Year 1918 from your friend Private Fred Walch', together with a small silk and lace table cover depicting 'Les Halles d'Ypres' on fire. We do not know what became of Fred - Emily never married.
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From: john bolton [Personal details removed by Moderator]
Sent: 04 November 2008 19:27
To: PM
Subject: Great War stories
My father, Arthur James Balfour Smith born 1885, told me that during
WW1, he took messages from the front line to HQ. He used a bicycle to do
this. He got this job because he could read and write, unlike many of
the other soldiers.
The then Prince of Wales visiting the front, was so appalled at the
state of the wounded that he gave up his Rolls-Royce so they could be
carried to the hospital. He then borrowed my father's bike to get back.
He also told me that he was put forward for a commission. His vicar was
written to to provide a reference, but refused, saying my father did not
attend church regularly. My father seemed a little bitter at this.
He survived, having been blown up once. He was told by doctors that 'his
heart had moved due to the explosion'. It is true that he suffered from
angina as long as I knew him. (I was born in 1941) He died in 1967 aged
82.
Ann Bolton ne Smith.
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My grandfather was sent to the front at the age of 17 in early 1915 because he had joined the Territorial Army to get free music lessons. He survived three and a half years in the trenches, only once wounded, not seriously enough to be sent home. He wrote an 8,000 word memoir which he sent to the BBC in 1969 and which they did not use. I am not posting this extract on the blog in his memory. He would have loved the internet as he wanted to share his memories and hear those of others. His memoir is both funny and shocking.
'I remembered having had a nice parcel sent from home which had taken a long time to come evidently, for there were apples and pears which were a bit rotten, also hard boiled eggs etc, so I dished the lot out among the boys and we ate them, making statements that they would require to be more rotten before we would refuse to eat them. Well that statement was recalled over and over again for through the night I think about six or seven of us were all over to the latrines, which comprised a long piece of wood to sit on and it was over the top of a trench which had been dug for the purpose of course. Six or seven men sitting on this was a bit of a strain on the plank which might have been strong enough if a shell had not burst quite near, but when shrapnel was falling, and lo and behold the plank broke and down we went, most of us making a scramble to get on to the ground to avoid falling right in; all except one man who fell backwards and in properly. He, like the rest, me also, wished we had never eaten the contents of that parcel!
The great trouble was the one man who had fallen in was in such a mess that we would have to get him fresh trousers, and nobody was rich enough to be able to give him a pair – as I was to an extent the culprit, I volunteered to go and get a pair of trousers for him, and the only place we could get them was to go to where we knew of one or two dead were lying still unburied, we cut the braces of one of them and took off the trousers then handed them to the chap who stunk, - he refused to accept them, for I think he felt suspicious of the fact that this was where we had got them, however he came to his senses after one or two had said, what does it matter where we got them, so long as you have got them instead of the ones that were filthy!
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Hello!
My grandfather was a batman in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). The officer he was serving asked him to erect his tent in a certain place. My grandfather suggested an alternative site would be preferable. Half an hour later the original location received a direct hit. Incidentally, my grandfather, in civilian life a butcher with workman’s hands, learned to do exquisite embroidery – a skill which served him for the rest of his life. I wonder if any present-day soldiers in Iraq have the opportunity to learn the same skill!
Valerie Pascual, Hove
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The Great War, 1914-18
Ike Smith was my grandfather. My dad only told me about the poison gas business a few months before he himself died, in 1980. Bill Flannery and Tommy Martin were my uncles. The stories about Ike and Bill Flannery are authenticated. The story of Tommy Martin I have pieced together, with a bit of imagination, from what he told me about his life and times.
A NEW START
Ike Smith, 3 General Street, Warrington, 1916
The poison gas made Isaac’s family fortune,
a casualty not blinded at the Front
but in some covert op behind the lines
at Warrington gasworks where he worked as foreman.
For six months he was in a fog, eyes seared.
Even the children were compelled to sign
the Official Secrets Act, and with such blunt
menace for seven decades his son told no-one.
But it was 1916. At Verdun
the Frogs had finally seen off the Hun,
Paddy was up in arms, and Ike’s lump sum
would start a hardware shop. His vision cleared.
Cheap, mass-produced, this steel-framed Raleigh bike
the trick to get men back to work, quick like.
CROSSED WIRES
Bill Flannery, b. Warrington, 1896; d. 16 General Street Warrington, 1970
Young Bill was cockahoop to fight for King
and Country. The story went that to enlist
he lied about his age. But that’s not true:
he was a grown man, all of eighteen years,
handsome in khaki, life and everything
ahead – and the Machine Gun Corps. He kissed
his mother and the girls goodbye, quite through
with all that, all their clucking female fears.
Tin soldiers toppling down in lines. Bright flares
lighting up no-man’s-land. The chlorine gas
at Wipers wiped the grin off his fresh face;
then Easter stabbed his buddies in the back,
an indiscretion he would never forgive.
Still, Friday nights, he’d toast the Queen – and Dev.
WARS AND RUMOURS
‘Uncle’ Tom Martin
Veterans, survivors, they were lifelong buddies
– Bill’s word picked up from the Canadians
he billeted beside at Somme or Ypres –
comrades, but not in arms or politics.
A continent away Tom coughed in dust
thrown up by pack mules and Australians
on his road to Damascus, via Megiddo’s
crossroads of ill-repute. After Baghdad
for many months he held down his disgust
smelling the rotting heaps of young men’s bodies.
‘Homes fit for heroes’ was a sucker’s fix.
At the Allenby Bridge, hot news from Petrograd.
He’d crossed his Jordan. Now from history’s sleep,
England arise! And then came ’26.
Allenby’s victory at Har Megiddo (Biblical Armageddon), September 1918, opened the way to Damascus and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
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Your address for new bloggers at the omment lacks a final 'l', which means clicking on it produces a not known at this address reply. When I called to your attention the fact that the address didn't work, I got a reply which made some opaque reference to an 'l' that wasn't at all clear, simply saying that whoever sent it could access the address. Please add that terminal 'l' to your address or you will discourage people from writing in. Also, make sure that answers to queries such as my own are transparently clear. It took my several degrees in english to work out what was meant.
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PS In case this wasn't in the submisison you received (of the several I attempted!), the poems about Ike Smith, Bill Flannery and Tommy Martin are (c) Stan Smith 2008, from the collection "Family Fortunes" (Shoestring Press, Nottingham)
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My grandfather was in the Royal Naval Division - a sailor serving as an infantryman on the Somme.
He was buried by a shellburst in no-man's land in February 1917 and lay underground for 11 DAYS until finally rescued. He suffered severe frostbite.
He convalesced at the Naval hospital in Liverpool and was discharged in October 1917. he died just six weeks after I was born, so I never knew him. But I keep a photo of him and his unit above my desk at home.
His war service in 1916/17 was the only time he left his native county of Somerset!
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My grandfather Arthur Lenthall, died in the military hospital at St Omer on May19th 1918. My dad then aged 7 remembered the telegram boy coming a month earlier saying Arthur was injured but in hospital. Imagine the grief when one month later the telegram boy returned, but this time with the terrible news that the hospital had been bombed.
My father often wondered about where and if his father was buried but it was only after his death that I discovered the Commonwealth War graves Association. They sent me details of his grave and other information including the fact he had held The Royal Humane Societies Certificate for saving life from drowning.
10 years ago I visited his beautifully kept grave in the Longuenesse Souvenir Cemetery St Omer.There were many others along side him who died on the same day nurses,doctors, soldiers all killed by the same bomb.
On his grave stone were the words Your loving wife Edie and children who will never forget you. Indeed he was not forgotten, but as I stood taking in the scene I realised that it had taken 80 years for one of us to visit.
Without the war graves association I would never have found him but how I wish I could have taken my father there.
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Dear Eddie,Please find enclosed a letter describing how my grandfather died at Passchendaele. He was 36 and didn't have to join up because he was in a reserve profession as a University professor at Goldsmith's College inLondon.I think it is a unique eye witness account of the horrors of that war.
Mr George Mellors
No1 Ward,
Sherwood Hospita
lHucknall Road,
Nottingham 6th
November 1962
Dear Sir,
Reading the Daily Express of the 6/11/62 I was greatly surprised to read of Lieutenant Young an officer of the Artillery ofwhich I served at the Battle of Passchendaele July 1917. I was in that Battle and saw his dead body. He was buried at the foot of Passchendaele Ridge along with many more for the time being, an Army Chaplain supervised the burying of the dead. He was Killed outright when a German shell heavy 9 point 2 hit the gun pit, killing all the gun crew. I was blown into a shell-crater (very deep one.) Passchendale was one of the bloodiest battles ever known;we lost enormous numbers of men. Th eGermans were on the high Ridge, we at the bottom of the ridge. I hadspoken to Lieutenant Young the night before the Battle as I was dispatch orderly and he signed my book that gave orders from the divisional commander; what time to reply to the enemy's fire, I believe it to be 2.30 am in the morning; we were only allowed to fire so many rounds, aswe were cr!ying out foe shells to be made at home. I last saw him laid out on thestretcher along with another gallant officer Lieutenant Holt son of theshipping liner people, and if my memory serves me well both Lieutenant Young's legs were blown off. I am sorry to have to mention this but Iwish to tell you all I know: I could say more perhaps I may see you to explain more. My address is as above. I am 66 years of age and in an exworkhouse known as Hospials Today. I am quite fit active and well but I have nowhere else to live. Like many more men here, Passchendaele wasa living hell the ground rocked with German artillery fire known as JackJohnsons to all of us, the dead appalling and arms and legs strewn all over the place. I was ordered to collect arms and legs by the army chaplain and take them for burial. Yes I will tell you more of that living death Passchendaele. The ground was strewn also with dead and dying; at the point of going mad I ran into the Pill Box for safety whi!le the German artillery pounded for hours at our gun position!s; when I came out not a living man could I see and I ran down to the cemetery among the dead for further safety. My hand trembles even now when I think of that nightmare. I could go on talking of this murderous battle none like it in British History, worse than Ypres and I was there also.Well I will end my letter hoping I may see you someday, with all my deep sympathy. He was a great and brave officer believe me. God keep him.Amen George Mellors
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My great grandmother's two youngest brothers fought in the First World War. Arthur Hubbert traveled down to Folkestone and sailed for Boulogne with his regiment, then traveled onward to Ypres, where he was blown to pieces 9 days after leaving the UK.
His brother, George Thomas Hubbert survived the trenches and eventually returned home.
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I have found the following record by my Grandmother, in which she writes of her engagement and then tearful goodbye to my Grandfather in 1916. He survived the war, including attack(s) from mustard gas, and went on to have a career as a school teacher; he died in 1954.
The log, which now follows, is entitled "1916 - THE YEAR OF TRIAL":
"George [Barton] was allowed the Easter holidays at home before joining the army, and we had a heavenly time together. On April 19th, 'Primrose Day', we were engaged and promised our lives to each other on Pexhill, our loved place of happy memories. This was on the Wednesday before Good Friday, and during Easter-tide we were supremely happy. George asked Dad on the Thursday before Good Friday, and afterwards we went to Sankey.
On April 28th, my boy enlisted and went to Liverpool for his uniform, but joy of joys he sent me a telegram to say he would come home for the weekend. I was radiantly happy, and he went away on May 1st to Bettisfield in Shropshire where he stayed for some time. He came home for the weekend about three times and was also allowed Whit Monday. On August 8th he came to me unexpectedly in the morning before I went to the office, and told me he was home on last leave and had to return on Friday morning.
I asked for three days holiday from the office .... we did have a happy time, but on the Thursday, when my boy had gone to Liverpool, his mother died quite peacefully after a long and painful illness. We had returned to Ditton Junction at 9:30 and called home when George was broken-hearted; after staying some time at Ditton, we walked gently home and I did my utmost to comfort him. My laddie obtained time from his camp to stay over here until Monday, but he had to report at Bettisfield at 10pm.
On Sunday his mother was laid to rest at Bickerstaffe, and much against my parents' wishes I consented to my love's earnest wish that I should be there. It was a long journey, but I never shall forget the kind solicitude of all the family during the drive there and home again. As usual, my boy was perfect in his attention, and I cannot but admire his loving care of me.
On Monday August 14th, my boy had to return, and I left the office at 3pm and had tea with him, and saw him depart from Liverpool Lime Street at 7:10pm. I never, never shall forget this, for to leave him with all kinds of soldiers was heart-breaking. However, one lives through these times, but certainly one is helped from above, and I arrived home at 9pm.
On Saturday August 19th, we all went to New Brighton for a week's holiday ... Before I went, I received a lovely fountain-pen from my boy. It was his birthday gift to me and I know he thought about it during his stay at home. I do wish he would just have mentioned it to me, for I understood perfectly that War makes a very big difference in giving presents and he needed the money himself. It is this lack of confidence that I worry about so much. Later, I found out he had sailed for France; he had been sent to Woolwich on the Tuesday following his return to Bettisfield. He must have bought my pen at Woolwich.
When I understood he really was so far from me and in France, and had undergone so many hardships, I really wondered if ever again I should feel I wanted to smile, for my heart felt like stone and life was so terribly hard. Only those who have said goodbye to those whom they love with all their heart and look forward to a future wherein they play the most conspicuous part, can understand what it is to have their loved one in danger and miles away from home. I hear from my boy very often, and always he is cheery and tries to comfort me, when I know he is breaking his heart for home and is terribly lonely. I pray every night and morning for our Father to guard him and bring him back, and this helps the days onward.
When at last he does come to me and the War is over, please God I will be good and help him to forget this sorrowful hard time, and pay with years of happiness for this long weary time of separation."
[Ends] 5th September 1916
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My mother is now 94 and has one memory of the First World War, when she was four years old. She was at a friend's birthday party, and was amazed when suddenly everyone ran out into the street and started cheering. She only later understood why: it was the 11th November, 1918.
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Barton Harrison (144): Thank you for sharing that with us. It is extremely moving, being a contemporary record, and mirrors, I am sure, the experiences of many of our grandparents and great grandparents.
I love, by the way, the terms of endearment which she used: 'my boy', 'my laddie', etc., which I know were much in currency at the time and which evoke that period very strongly.
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Letter to my grandmother from her husband in Bethune France 23rd April l915:
My Dear Sweetheart
I have just received your welcome letter and am sorry to learn you have caught cold but I hope it is better by this time.
Well Dear I have at last got a chance to let you know a little more news than usual, for I am allowed to seal this letter. The big engagement were were engaged in last week was at Neuve Chapelle, and when I say it was hell upon earth I wonder can you have any idea of what I mean, I hope you cannot, for God knows it was a sight that would sicken the strongest man on earth.
We had to march 11 miles to get into this particular part of the firing line, and if any of us live to be a 100 we will never forget the last two miles for we were under heavy fire the whole time, and what was almost as bad we were past our knees in wet clay which hampered us a great deal.
We arrived at the trench (which will live in history) and relieved another Batt which were almost played out, and we took our particular posts at 12.30 at night. I forgot to mention on our journey we had a fierce hail storm which soaked us through, so we had to remain in that condition for 52 hours.
When I look back and see what we went through, it is wonderful what few are in the hospital. The whole place was reeking with dead bodies. In front of our trench was about 100 of the Prussian Guards, and what fine big men they are, and to see them lying there dead with the different expressions on their faces is a thing that had burned itself on my mind.
Passing back through the village of Richeburg we got a glimpse again of the German artillery for the whole place is in ruins. A fine old church blown to pieces and the shops all laid bare and rolls of flannel and print scattered everywhere. Here a fatique party was burying the dead, for the people had been caught like rats in a trap, they did not leave a house standing. The big shells had even uprooted the peaceful dead in the cemetery. Their Jack Johnson shells are terrible things, for when they explode on the ground they leave a hole big enough to bury an electric car in. I had almost forgotten to tell you we are in a terrible state with lice, we are in holes for we didn't get a change of clothes for 3 weeks. It's a grand thing to be lousy.
Well Dear so much for that lot which is over, and now for our next experience we are to go to on Saturday but don't know where about we go to. So I hope I shall be able to sneak another letter like this if God spares me to come out of it alright. So for the present goodbye. God protect my only two cares are my constant prayers.
Your everloving Joe
Use care with this letter for I have told you more than I am supposed to.
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147 amazingannette
The writer of this letter Joe is the Joseph Bunting mentioned in the story by ourmaeve 101
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My Grandfather joined the Scottish Light horse at the out break of war. he was born in South Africa and travelled to the UK to join up. After beig injured in Gallipoli he joined the new RFC. He ended his war flying Sopwith Camels and I recall hinm saying that on armistice day he was flying over the trenches when when he saw many flares being launched. This marked the end of the Great war. He survived but it is to people like my Grandfather and all the other sevicemen and women that we owe a great debt and I am able to freely write this posting.
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My mother's father wasn't in the forces during WW1 but in the years following he had a job that I think could have accounted for his legendary short temper (stress related?). He was a stonemason and woodcarver and earned his living inscribing the countless names and dates, and carving the regimental crests, that you see on those serried ranks of Portland Stone headstones.
When you look at those I know you are thinking mainly of the person buried there - as you should - but spare a thought for the people who carved those names day in, day out, for years and think what that must have been like to be constantly reminded of those thousands of lives lost.
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My grandfather was three when war broke out but recently he spoke about his memories of his early life and he had two memories of the first war:
"I have a clear memory of seeing a Zeppilin shot down [in 1915] - it came down in North London straight down our road and people all came out to watch. It was horrible, people were cheering, but think of the men manning it. All Germans were seen as devils then.
I remember at the end of the war people had [little lamps] with different coloured glass that they lit after Armistice and put on their window-sills."
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Hello all,
My Grandad joined the Staffs Yeomanry just before the Great War; his story is that they were on parade at Ingestre Hall "One pace forward everyone who's tired of grooming horses!" so he stepped forward and found himself in the Imperial Camel Corps, fought with Lawrence of Arabia.
We never, ever, hear about the Cameliers and the Camel Corps - does anyone else have any interest in this direction?
Regards Ant
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