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Remembrance 1928

May 9, 2012 by Stephen and Susan Cocks

Pilgrimages to the Western Front began almost as soon as World War 1 ended. Michelin produced a guide to the battlefields in 1919. A man and wife joining one of our tours in order to visit the grave of a family member, had in their possession photographs taken during a previous family visit in 1928. The photograph below shows the grave of Private Henry Isaac Ellis at Delville Wood in1928 and today. Private Ellis was serving with the 8th Battalion of The Kings Royal Rifle Corps when he was killed on The Somme on 24 August 1916. The original wooden cross had already been replaced by a Portland stone headstone by 1928. Headstones were initially hand carved, but the sheer number required made this unrealistic, and by 1923 they were carved by machine.

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The trenches, tunnels and monument at Vimy are now one of the most popular sites for visitors to the battlefields.  The photograph below shows the entrance to The Grange tunnels at Vimy Ridge in 1928. The early guidebooks contain illustrations of the battlefields still strewn with the debris of war and in this photograph a large shell, Livens gas shells and a “plumb pudding” mortar bomb are clearly visible above the tunnel entrance.

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The Menin Gate was dedicated in 1927 and the daily act of remembrance, at which The Last Post was played, began in the summer of 1928. The daily ceremony ended in October 1928, but was revived in 1929 and has continued with one interruption until the present day; the only break in the ceremony being during the German occupation from May 1940 until September 1944. The photograph below shows the gate in 1928. Three Belgian soldiers are in the foreground with a large number of people around the gate itself.

For information on tours to World War  battlefields click here.

Posted in Families, Memorials | Leave a Comment »

John Vincent Holland VC

April 18, 2012 by Stephen and Susan Cocks

Fighting for the village of Guillemont began in July 1916 and it was eventually captured on 3 September by the 20th Division and a brigade of The 16th Irish Division. Two men from The Irish Division were awarded The Victoria Cross during the final attack, Private Thomas Hughes and Lieutenant  John Holland. On our tour, Recalling the Somme in April 2012, we had the privilege of taking a member of the Holland family to visit the site. During the fighting on the Somme in 1916, a number of locations gained notoriety for the bitter fighting which took place around them and Guillemont was certainly one of these. Its position made the village ideal for preventing  British progress in this sector of the battlefield. Geoffrey Malins, the famous World War 1 photographer, described the village after its eventual capture. “ _ _  the village of Guillemont did not exist , in fact it was an absolute impossibility to tell where the fields ended and the village began. The village had been turned by the Germans into a veritable fortress; trenches and strongpoints, bristling with machine guns commanded every point which gave vantage to the enemy.” 

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Captain John Vincent Holland

John Vincent Holland was from Athy  in County Kildare, the son of the local vet. Though he began veterinary studies himself, he was obviously an adventurous character and by 1914 he was working on railways in Argentina. He returned home immediately on the outbreak of war and was commissioned into The Leinster Regiment. He was wounded during the Second Battle of Ypres with The Royal Dublin Fusiliers and by September 1916 was a lieutenant  in The 7th Leinster Regiment as a bombing officer.  His action on 3 September was seen as crucial in the final capture of Guillemont. Not content with bombing dugouts in the area of his initial objectives, John Holland led a group of 26 bombers through the British artillery bombardment into the main section of the village still occupied by the Germans. He led his group in continuing to bomb dugouts, eventually taking 50 prisoners and breaking the resistance of the defenders.  For this action he was awarded The Victoria Cross. Remarkably, he was quite ill during this action and after the capture of the village was immediately admitted to hospital. Five of the group of 26 were killed in the action. Of the others, two were awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal , six were awarded The Military Medal and one was recommended for a commission.

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Michael Holland at the memorial to The 16th Irish Division in Guillemont. John Holland was the son of his grandfater’s brother. Michael and John were born in the same house.

Though he received a civic reception on his return home and was celebrated as a local hero at the end of 1916, political events in Ireland took on a dramatic change. Popular opinion turned against the British government and the British army and at the end of the war, John Holland left Ireland to live in England and in Kenya. However, this was not the end of his military career. Both he and his two sons fought during World War 2. John served as a Major in The Indian Army and his eldest son, Captain Niall Holland MC, sadly died of wounds and is buried in Burma. His youngest son served in The Royal Artillery. John Holland eventually  emigrated to Australia and died in Tasmania in 1975.

For details of our tours go to: http://www.guidedbattlefieldtours.co.uk/

Posted in Ireland, Victoria Crosses | Leave a Comment »

Driver Richard Gravatt (AIF) and the Burial of the Fallen

April 16, 2012 by Stephen and Susan Cocks

At the end of World War 1, The Imperial War Graves Commission faced the enormous task of creating a final resting place for hundreds of thousands of British Empire servicemen killed in Belgium and France. Many graves had already been created during the war, but the remains of thousands more servicemen still lay beneath the battlefields. Over 8,500 soldiers worked in “Exhumation Companies” to carry out this task between 1918 and 1921. The battlefields were systematically divided into squares of approximately 500m square and, following the examination of written records and a physical search of the area, the possible locations of fallen soldiers were marked by wooden stakes. Teams of men then dug up the remains, the details of which were carefully recorded, including any items of clothing, equipment or personal effects which might assist in identification.  The remains were then wrapped in canvas sheets soaked in creosol and removed for burial. By May 1920 Exhumation Companies had recovered over 130,000 bodies.

A client joining one of our tours had in his possession a remarkable collection of photographs, which had belonged to his grandfather, Richard Gravatt, who served in The Australian Graves Service between April 1920 and September 1921. Born in London, Richard Gravatt had worked as a chauffeur and before the war had moved to Australia with his employer. He enlisted into the Australian army in April 1916 and served as a driver in France with the 3rd Australian Motor Transport Company before transferring to the Graves Service.

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Digging for remains on Broodseinde Ridge near Ypres.

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The remains of unknown soldiers found on Brodseinde Ridge are prepared for removal.

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Richard Gravatt and his wife who joined him in France during his work with the Graves Service.

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The camp of corrugated iron huts at Villers Brettoneux, near Amiens, where Australian Graves Service personnel lived after the war. Richard has marked the hut occupied his wife and himself with a cross. Grave markers can be seen outside one of the huts.

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Richard Gravatt’s grandson on one of our tours, standing beneath the Australian memorial in Amiens Cathedral. He is holding a photograph of the memorial taken by his grandfather which states that he assisted in erecting it.

For details of tours to World War 1 sites go to: http://www.guidedbattlefieldtours.co.uk/

 

 

Posted in Memorials, Tommy's Stories | 1 Comment »

The Cavalry Charge at Monchy le Preux

February 16, 2012 by Stephen and Susan Cocks

The village of Mochy le Preux is situated on high ground overlooking The Scarpe Valley and its capture was essential to British hopes of success during The Battle of Arras. The Germans held on to the village on the opening day of the battle, 9 April 1917, and on 11 April The 37th Division was given the task of capturing the village. Observers on Orange Hill, which overlooked the village, reported back to divisional headquarters that the attack was going well; in turn the divisional commander informed corps headquarters that the time was perhaps appropriate for cavalry to be brought into action.  However, parts of the village were still in German hands and the attacking forces were still subject to heavy shellfire. The village was taken, but at great cost. We visit Monchy on our tour Battles of 1917-1918.

British Cavalry

We took a client to Monchy in 2011 whose grandfather had taken part in the cavalry charge on Monchy  as a trooper in the Northamptonshire Yeomanry. The client had with him a remarkable account of the attack, written by “a gentleman” serving in the Yeomanry and published in The Northampton Independent of 28 April 1917.

We passed behind a ridge for the night with no cover save the sky and it snowed like the deuce. We kept our saddles on all night and in the morning you couldn’t distinguish the saddle from the horse, the snow was so thick. At (the next) night we had to perch again and believe me, the snow and the cold were far harder to stick than the shells which came pretty often. At daybreak next morning we dug our saddles out of the mud and saddled up, thinking that we were going back owing to the weather being unfit for cavalry work. But we were mistaken and not a trifle disappointed. Not one of us could hold a limb still, we were so cold and we only had biscuits and bully.

Then the colonel told us that we were going to take Monchy le Preux, which the Germans were still holding.   About 10-30 the Brigadier General came up and said that the village was clear, but that the infantry were weakened by losses, the cavalry were to charge and hold it. We lined up across a huge field, with 2000 brigade cavalry on the left flank, my regiment in the centre and about 2000 cavalry on the left flank. From right to left was only half a mile.

The left flank went over first and they had such a reception. They cantered along in massed formation and before they had gone 200 yards the Bosche artillery opened fire. There were soon 200 empty saddles. Horses were hopping back over the ridge wounded, another galloping with the trooper hanging in the stirrup. We were standing on the ridge . We were getting men knocked out right and left. Then the Colonel said, “Mount!” and we were off. A Squadron leading.

As we galloped down Orange Hill to the village, the infantry in support who had dug themselves in , jumped up and cheered, shouting,  “Give em hell boys.”

I have never seen such a bombardment. As we galloped down the hill men and horses were blown up by high explosives. I should say 400 cavalrymen and horses lay dead or dying on that field. There was not a piece of ground 10 feet square without a shell hole.  When we entered the village, what a sight met our eyes. All the way up the main street were dead horses and men, fellows groaning, horses whinnying and kicking, one licking his dead master’s face; and infantry galore all dead. We had to ride over our own dead to get through and when we were there we were subjected to a heavier shelling than before and had to stand in Monchy  for an hour and a half and hold the village until the division came up.

Dead horses at Monchy- the scene after the attack

For details of our tours, click here.

Posted in Cavalry, Tommy's Stories | Leave a Comment »

Horses and World War 1

February 16, 2012 by Stephen and Susan Cocks

The film Warhorse has aroused a considerable amount of interest in the use of horses during World War 1. All armies were massively dependent on horses for transport. The lack of horses in the German army was a significant factor in its defeat in 1918.  To give some impression of transport requirements, by 1918 the British army in France and Belgium needed 32.25 million pounds of forage, 67.5 million pounds of meat, 90 million pounds of breadstuffs and 13 million gallons of fuel each month, in addition to the demand for ammunition, construction materials, the movement of guns and all of the other supplies and equipment required by a modern army (1). By the end of the war the British army had over 33,000 lorries on The Western Front, but still also relied on over 470,000 horses.

Horses carrying shells

Much of what has been written about the use of horses during World War 1, however, has focussed on the cavalry. A popular image has taken hold of  generals clinging to an antiquated belief in cavalry, sending men and horses into futile charges against machine guns and barbed wire and this image is certainly reinforced by the scene of a cavalry charge in Warhorse. The reality was rather different and on our tours we visit the sites of two cavalry charges, at High Wood on 14 July 1916 and at Monchy le Preux on 11 April 1917. In the former case the cavalry entered the wood with little loss, though could not hold it, and in the latter case entered the village with heavy loss and held it until infantry relieved it.

 

The scene of the cavalry charge at High Wood

 

Cavalry played a key role at particular phases of the war, particularly in allowing the BEF to carry out its legendary retreat from Mons in August 1914 and in the fighting against Turkey in Palestine. Though three cavalry divisions remained on The Western Front during most of the war, fighting conditions never allowed them an opportunity to exploit a breakthrough into open country, which was their envisaged role. Cavalrymen saw a considerable amount of action, but this was overwhelmingly dismounted and fighting alongside the infantry. By the end of the war, cavalry made up 3% of the British army on The Western Front.

The reality of the war, was that only the cavalry could move at speed and gave the only hope of taking objectives of opportunity, which might present themselves during the fighting. High Wood was a good example of a situation where the Germans had been taken by surprise, their front line captured and a key objective lay beckoning, temporarily undefended or defended very weakly. This is how cavalry were used on a number of occasions up to 1918, not to charge at machine guns, though the outcome was mixed and depended on the local situation at the time. For details of our tours click here.

(1)    D. Stevenson in With Our Backs to the Wall.

 

Posted in Cavalry, Film and the theatre | Leave a Comment »

Wilfred Owen, Serre and the Redan Ridge, January 1917

February 1, 2012 by Stephen and Susan Cocks

Wilfred Owen enlisted on 21st October 1915.  He was commissioned into the Manchester Regiment as a 2nd Lieutenent on 4th June 1916 and arrived in France at the end of that year.  He was posted to Serre on 12.1.17.  The place had a fearsome reputation following the deaths of so many men from the pals battalions on the 1st July 1916 and he would have wondered what danger he would face.  The unit arrived at 10pm after a gruelling march to the front and relieved the HLI from their dugouts.  In the dark, Owen took charge and posted sentries in the water filled dugouts that had previously been held by the Germans.  It was Owen’s  first action and the Royal Scots diary records that the Germans were ‘firing blind’.  The shelling that took place was terrifiying because the entrances to the German dugouts were naturally facing  German fire.  It was a horrendous situation where the strongest of men shook with terror standing knee deep in filthy mud and water.  He told his sentries to shelter halfway down the steps of the dugout when shelling was heavy and, as a result, none of them were killed.  However, when a shell landed near the entrance where a sentry stood on duty, the man was thrown off his feet and fell down the stairs.  Owen ran to him thinking he must be dead but, regaining consciousness, he cried out that he could not see.    This incident  inspired his poem ‘The Sentry’.   The following lines explain the incident clearly:

                There we herded from the blast
Of whizz-bangs, but one found our door at last.
Buffeting eyes and breath, snuffing the candles.
And thud! flump! thud! down the steep steps came thumping
And splashing in the flood, deluging muck –
The sentry’s body; then his rifle, handles
Of old Boche bombs, and mud in ruck on ruck.
We dredged him up, for killed, until he whined
“O sir, my eyes — I’m blind — I’m blind, I’m blind!”

His company held the dugouts until just before midnight on 15th January when they were relieved by the Highland Light Infantry.  This was certainly a ‘baptism by fire’ for a young,inexperienced officer. 

By 23rd January Owen was at Beaumont Hamel and marched up Wagon Road with his men.  Where the road flattened out on the Eastern spur of Redan Ridge, he and his men had to crawl in the snow to avoid German marksmen. 

The Redan Ridge today looking towards Serre from near Beaumont Hamel.  White crosses mark the line of British cemeteries rising up onto the ridge, indicating clearly the front line from The Somme attack on 1 July 1916.

Surrounded by frozen corpes,  they remained there without shelter for two days and nights facing enemy guns and shells before returning to their dugouts.    They lay in the snow with an icy wind blowing and could not drink their water for it was frozen.   He wrote to his mother,  ‘The marvel is that we did not all die of cold.  As a matter of fact, only one of my party actually froze to death before he could be got back, but I am not able to tell how many have ended in hospital.  I had no real casualties from shelling, though for 10 minutes every hour whizz-bangs fell a few yards short of us.  …………..  I was kept warm by the ardour of Life within me.  The intensity of your Love reached me and kept me living.’   Over a year later, Owen struggled to explain the endurance of the troops in such conditions in his poem Exposure.

We see Serre and the Redan Ridge on our tours to the Somme. Fot details of these tours, go to: www.guidedbattlefieldtours.co.uk   We are introducing a World War 1 poetry tour in 2013.

To read the two poems, click on the links below:

 http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Wilfred_Owen/wilfred_owen_the_sentry.htm

 http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/Wilfred_Owen/wilfred_owen_exposure.htm

Posted in The poets | Leave a Comment »

The Louverval Memorial and Charles Segeant Jagger

January 31, 2012 by Stephen and Susan Cocks

The Louverval Memorial commemorates over 7000 who were men killed in The Battle of Cambrai in 1917 and have no known grave. One of the most striking features of the memorial are two sculptured panels by Charles Segeant Jagger. Both are cross sections of a trench. In the first the bottom of the trench is littered with equipment and a soldier kneels, looking over the parapet through a periscope. Men are running above him, striding over the trench carrying rifles with fixed bayonets and it is obvious that an attack is taking place, though only their  legs can be seen.  One has been hit and, as he falls into the trench beneath him, Lewis gun magazines fall from his grasp and a revolver drops from his hand.  Lewis gunners carried a revolver as opposed to a rifle and this kind of detail is typical of Jagger’s work.

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The second panel depicts stretcher bearers struggling to remove a casualty from a trench. Again the detail of the sculpture is typical of Jagger: the petrol cans on the trench floor, the men’s webbing, the sole of a boot. The portrayal of the injured man is, though, the most striking feature of the sculpture. He has a fractured leg and a rifle has been used as a splint. A stretcher bearer’s hands express the care with which the injured man is being moved, yet the observer is in no doubt as to the man’s agony as his hand grips the side of the stretcher.

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Jagger was born near Rotherham in Yorkshire and was the son of a colliery manager. He attended The Sheffield Royal Grammar school and at 14 was apprenticed as a metal engraver, before going on to attend The Sheffield College of Art and The Royal College of Art in London. In September 1914 he enlisted in The County of London Artists Rifles, and in May 1915 was gazetted 2nd Lieutenant , serving in The Worcestershire Regiment. He was wounded at Gallipoli and, after convalescence in England, served from 1917 to 1918 on the Western front with the 2nd Worcesters. He was wounded again in April 1917 and was awarded the Military Cross.

Jagger was greatly influenced by The New Sculpture Movement of the late 19th century, which emphasised naturalistic representation of the human body. His war memorial sculptures are in contrast to the great majority which were created after the war, in their realism and in depicting the suffering of the men and the cost of victory. Perhaps the most well known of these is the Royal Artillery memorial at Hyde Park corner. As with many of the leading poets,  Jagger was certainly not anti war, but believed that large numbers of those at home did not appreciate the suffering of the troops at the front. When Jagger received the printed order of service for the dedication of his memorial on Padington Station, which put the initials R.B.S. (Royal British Society of Sculptors) after his name,  he wrote to The Great Western Railway and asked that the initials M.C. be added.  He wrote, “I value the Military Cross more than any Art Decoration it is possible to gain”.

 

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We visit The Louverval Memorial on our tour, The Battles of 1917-1918. For further details click here.

Posted in Memorials | Leave a Comment »

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