The Great War 1914 – My time and service as a Sapper,
Royal Engineers.
Historical notes extracted from the
War Diaries at Kew.
My name is not important. I was born in North Devon, by the time I was twenty three I had moved away from my family some 240 miles away to Bedford. There I continued my work as a French polisher and later joined the Territorial Royal Engineers. The Royal engineers were quite active in the town and particularly so as tensions grew in Europe.
Tuesday August the 4th 1914 and the country awaits the outcome of our Government's ultimatum for Germany to respect Belgian neutrality. Shopkeepers are imposing limits on quantities to ensure the poor as well as the rich can fill their larders, petrol is available but there are no cans as they are being filled and hoarded. It seems that there are people excited by war, in a patriotic sense, the English, French and Russian anthems are played by the bands and a crowd gathered outside the offices of the Beds Times newspaper eagerly awaiting a declaration of war. The street lamps were put out at the usual time, the only light now coming from a suspended lamp over the office door. At 11.30 they announced that Reuters understood that a state of war exists between England and Germany. Still the crowd waited until just before midnight it was announced that war was declared at 7.00 pm. (As reported in the paper, but it may have been later than that.) There was lots of cheering, for the king, the government and the Navy. 'Rule Brittania' and 'God save the King' were sung with sincerity by all present. The following day was full of activity and great excitement, soldiers preparing to leave in a couple of days were cheerful and joked with members of the Public, there was no shortage of reservists turning up for duty, the whole country was a hive of activity.
The army is short of engineers and an additional local field company is set up in September, we train hard through one of the wettest winters I've seen for a while. A Field Company is always attached to fighting units within the division, we know we will be on the front line and will also be expected to fight and so are armed as infantrymen. Company strength is 217 of which 138 are Sappers. We hold the skills needed by an army in the field, 15 Blacksmiths, 20 Bricklayers, 40 Carpenters of which I am one, 5 Clerks, 12 Masons, 6 Painters, 8 Plumbers, surveyors, draughtsmen, wheelwrights, engine drivers and others; there’s not much we cannot build, fix or demolish. Amongst the many tools of our trades we carry guncotton charges too. We rely on horses for transport and have 17 riding horses for the officers and NCOs of the Mounted Branch, plus 50 draught heavy horses with five as reserve. We also have four pack horses, all of which must be transported, fed and watered. We’re not to know as we set out that sixty of our horses will be killed in action as the war progresses.
I am a quiet peaceful man who seems to be liked by most I meet. I will wear my country's uniform and do my duty, I will do my best and serve the cause, but with no relish for a fight. Ours is not to reason why, ours is to serve our King and Country. I have neither wife nor children to grieve for me; I shall write letters to my mother and father in Devon. I later discover that my younger brother has signed up for the Devonshires and sailed for Mesopotamia; I wish him safe journey home.
It's the 23rd of December 1914 and we begin our journey to Southampton from Bury St Edmunds. It has been raining yet again but colder weather seems to be on the horizon. It took about 6 hours to complete loading and we sailed about 6.30 pm, overnight to Havre and disembarked to very frosty weather about dawn on Christmas Day; there were a few men that were mighty glad to be ashore – any shore! Within a day it was raining again, we travelled by train and road through various places, sometimes staying a while, though we were young and fit we are tired and mostly wet; there is little comfort to be had and we have yet to reach the front lines. The names of places I discovered afterwards, only the officers had maps and knew our orders.
By the 10th of January we were working on the front line and suffered our first casualty, luckily only wounded but it gave us a taste of what was yet to come. When the company is only 215 men strong you get to know most of them, we have a strong sense of camaraderie and with the intense training as well as the hardships of our road it creates a bond. We stand together in the face of the enemy, any enemy.
On the 17th while working with civilians on an intermediate line we still ended up with another colleague wounded. By the end of January we'd lost two sappers, killed along with 2nd Lieutenant Munby. A few days into February and the cold weather we had has turned back to rain, we're up to the eyeballs in mud in the Givenchy area, even the higher ground is full of natural springs. We do our best to repair and drain the trenches, it is not easy work and winter nights are long.
On the 20th two officers and 32 sappers and NCOs joined with parties from the Royal Berks, the South Staffs and Glasgow Highlanders and an attack was made on the German trench. Our job was to find out if the enemy was mining towards our own trenches; they weren't. Our attack was successful but at a cost, out of our 34 that went out, two were killed, two were missing and eight wounded, plus 2nd Lieutenant Humphreys was also wounded. Promotion through the ranks is not on my list of priorities as they don't seem to live that long.
The month of March 1915 is much the same, as is the continuing wet weather which is making our work so much more difficult and so much more uncomfortable.
Our army made an attack on the German lines at Neuve Chapelle, despite a heavy artillery bombardment the German wire remained intact and so no ground was gained. It was a misty day and our second attack later in the day met with the same result. Rain later fell to lay with our own fallen. We're engineers for God's sake yet five more comrades are dead and eighteen are wounded, so too is our Lieutenant Berry. Some good news cheered us when we learned that two in our own Company were honoured with medals; 2nd Lt Humphreys picked up the Military Cross and good old corporal Bryan got the Distinguished Conduct Medal; truly well deserved. Corporal Bryan was from Bedford like me, unfortunately he wasn't destined to see the war out.
Still in March and we get 30 new sappers to replace our losses; we're at Le Quesnoy and just as replacements arrive we take another hit and two more sappers are wounded. The field hospitals are not so far away but there are more graves than beds in such a place. We are thankful for an improvement in weather conditions; we certainly need a break from the rain.
Near the middle of April we are to receive more sappers as reinforcements. Coincidently, we seem to lose a few at the same time; five wounded this time. As I look around me, so early into this conflict, I see new faces that replace the familiar ones of my lost dead and wounded friends, for friends they do become. We share everything about our lives; the willingness to help each other is steadfast. We are the 1st/1st east Anglian Field Company Royal Engineers.
April and we get a break from the line, we return to Le Quesnoy for a few days rest and are joined by a thunderstorm and heavy rain, still, while here at least nobody is shooting at us. In mid April some advances are made by 6th Brigade and the Irish Guards, we work in the captured trenches to reverse the firing positions and dig communications trenches to our own lines. Often the sections of our company are split up on various tasks; we know our own section much better, many of us together from training days. Another sapper killed and one wounded, and the rain keeps falling, when will it end, how many of us will ever see home and loved ones again?
Towards the end of the month it does cheer up and we see that experiments are going on to use rockets to deliver lines to the forward trenches so they can haul ammunition across open ground. It looked like it was a success. At the end of the month we were with 6th Infantry Brigade and taking over an area from the French.
It's June and I've been here six months now, we're at a place called Les Brebis, we can't pronounce any of the French names so we call them how they look. I said it was unlucky for officers, didn't I? 2nd Lieutenant Braddell was wounded in a bomb throwing accident during a demonstration . . . I don't suppose anyone wanted to throw one after that !
On the 10th two sections marched to Vermelles to billet there.
We continue our trench work on the front line, we are never that far from danger, we know it but we have confidence in our own ability. We don't make a fuss, when we write home to someone we care about, we simply say, “we are well and hope they are too.” Sometimes the horses are sent back to be kept well behind the lines, as happened just the other day. Lucky Lieutenant Kent has been returned to England to help at a fuse works. We're at a place called Cuinchy, perhaps you can find these places on a map. We're not there long and we move to Gorre and build defences at a place they call Windy Corner, we do the same on the houses of the Cambrin road, lots of heavy work with deep dugouts, concrete roofs, sand bagging etc. We construct a monorail too for transport, all great engineering.
Nearly the whole month of July we're on this work.
August and the Sun shines as we continue on the 'village line' and the monorail, we get four new sappers as one of our comrades is killed at Cuinchy. We are committed to what we do now; it seems there is no turning back.
Early September and we are very busy on a trench trolley railway, a pontoon bridge over the LaBassee canal as well as dug outs. We are joined by a Search light section .... suicidal job that, as soon as they turn them on they become targets for anything the Germans can hit them with, we try not to be too close !
On the 25th the British attack the German trenches from Givenchy to Bully Grenay; our company is split with half going forward to help consolidate any defences should we be successful. Another three comrades are wounded. How many will be left of us that started out that Christmas day? I often wonder in the quiet moments; each time one dies a little of my own soul dies with them, it is not possible to remain unaffected.
We move forward a bit, digging communication trenches to captured German lines east of Vermelles; we lose another to wounds. But all is not too bad. . . we now have the luxury of an electric light at the billets at Beuvry.
November and December 1915, we're at Le Preol and spend our time building a third line. We're close to La Bassee canal, about 600 yards I'd say. It is nearly a full year we've been in this awful situation, on the 23rd December another comrade was killed at Cambrin, young Percy Smith from Bedford, you’ll find him still waiting there at the Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner. He’d enlisted at Bedford before I had; he looked much older than his twenty one years. None of us look or feel our age anymore.
After Boxing Day, we prepared to move and the next day we marched from Le Preol through Bethune, Choques and Lilliers to billets at La Miquellerie, a tiny hamlet, we marched for 6 hours; we are in reserve with 2nd Division. Some relief at last or so we thought, but it was not to be. It was training time, training with infantry drill, smoke helmets, engineering subjects and of course overhaul all equipment. This would be where we ‘enjoyed’ our Christmas and saw in the New Year for 1916.
By January 17th we were back at the front, Le Touret, and some work on the Village line, we knew it well from our time before, nothing much had changed.
As a Sapper I am paid a better daily rate than the infantry soldier, they have only a shilling a day and we have five shillings; the infantry call us the ‘five bobbers’. It means I can afford to buy these beautifully silk embroidered cards to send home to the love of my life.
We met while coming out of St Peter’s Church in Bedford, a popular church close to her home in Park Road and not so far from the Great Ouse and its pleasant riverside walk that so many enjoy on a warm Sunday afternoon; outside the Saxon towered church stood a fine statue of John Bunyan. My own mother was a Baptist as indeed was her own mother, a strict school teacher she was as I recall. I remember meeting the love of my life with great fondness and excitement; writing to her and better still receiving letters or parcels make life a little more tolerable and give me a reason to stay safe and go home one day. She was engaged to another, a soldier of the Great War, but our mutual love changed all that. I am grateful and thank God for this joyous blessing.
Every two years of service allows you three sets of leave, one of four days and two of ten days each. Four days is hardly enough to make our way back home on the crowded trains they put on but ten days is useful and I can make it back to Bedford. There is little use in planning leave as it can be changed in an instant; we almost fear being called back as the train leaves for England. It is such a relief to be away from the front, the lice, the rats and the stench. I often wonder who will still be left when I return. Sometimes it is best not to think and just get on with each day or even hour as it comes, for the next could be your last.
I come back from my day dreams of home to the sound of Sappers hard at work. We are fortifying a mining village known as Cite Calonne, the work is varied, with machine gun emplacements, concreting, brick observation posts and continuing the tunnels started by the French all part of our labours. The village houses are fortified as part of a reserve line, we are so busy with work, revetting and fire stepping trenches, constructing timber overhead covers for lateral trenches, deepening communication trenches and laying of floor boards. . . exhaustion at least helps us sleep. The 2nd Division goes into reserve but this time we don’t go with them, we stay in the Calonne sector. March 25th some reinforcements arrive and as seems to be the case each time, not long after, two more sappers are wounded. It’s like the devil is playing games with the numbers. We have no idea that we’re going to meet the Devil later, in his own wood, Devil’s Wood. (Delville)
July 27th 1916 and it’s been some time since I wrote, we are facing great difficulties and the infantry around us have suffered great losses. The South Africans have taken a severe beating but did not fail in their task to take Devil’s Wood.
The Berkshires had subsequently consolidated the line about fifty yards from the eastern edge of the wood; their right flank was very exposed. This would have been July 27th 1916.
Delville Wood
Our Company was involved trying to secure trenches by building machine gun posts, strong points and even a new communication trench with our front line. We asked for working parties from the infantry units involved, they had none to spare, in fact they needed help to carry out their own consolidation; our officer sent word for fifty extra men to assist. We worked like the Devil himself was on our backs, hour after hour and as evening came the enemy appeared to be launching a counter attack on the eastern edge. We were called to man the parapet, after a considerable amount of rifle fire and bombing the attack was repulsed. The infantry commander asked for a section of our company to man the line all night as he didn’t think his position was tenable; ten sappers were wounded in this fight. At dawn another section relieved the men on the line. We tried to move back into the wood later but due to heavy shelling the Infantry commanding officer ordered us back to our billets at Carnoy.
Remember our good Corporal Bryan? Horace Bryan DSM of Dane Street Bedford, he made sergeant, a brave man. . . now he’s dead in Devil’s Wood, this day the 28th.
There is a convenience to burying our dead near the field hospitals, though this can be of no cheer to the wounded and sick that are carried there. On the 8th of August we left Carnoy for Happy Valley; some sense of humour they have that name these places.
It wasn’t long before we moved to assist at Longueval wood where the infantry we were supporting suffered much sniper fire from the village itself until it was silenced. In the next two days we lost two dead and five wounded. Sometimes the enemy is so active with artillery and gas shell barrages that we cannot reach our work points, so the work remains undone, better that than us being undone, I think.
It’s the last day of July and another sapper is wounded, Major Wilson DSO was shell shocked and Lieutenant Humphreys was gassed poor devil.
August, September and October we move about a lot but the months pass without great incident, however, November hits us hard on the Beaussart to Mailly road; by the 15th November 1916 we have lost two sappers to shell shock, two wounded as well as Lieutenant Moon and three killed. We are all exhausted and under heavy shell fire. . . we cannot complete the trench we are constructing. At last some sense and we get a rest on the 20th.
Not too much severity in December either and once again Christmas sees us not resting but training. There is no end to the training, but there are always things to improve and learn. I am blessed with a great deal of patience; I suppose my work back home as a French Polisher had taught me that. We’re well away from the front line, about 30 miles or more, at Bernatre.
1917 and more of the same, February is grim as we lose two sappers who succumbed to their terrible wounds, two others survive their wounds and Lieutenant Franklin dies. It’s not very often we see our wounded comrades again; we can only hope that where ever they are they are safe and recover. The dead and dying are commonplace sights over these past months, months that seem like a lifetime, it’s as though we cannot remember what we were before; and I doubt we’ll ever forget what we are now and what we must do to survive.
By April 19th we’re only 300 yards from the German held Oppy line. It is clear to us that we intend to take it. On the 21st yet another five of my comrades are wounded; I often think I am lucky not to be one of them, sometimes being dead seems the kinder option but I have plans for later this year; I hope to marry. The infantry have made some gains and we take the opportunity to collect some of their rusty wire from Bailleul, then we move back to near Arras at a place called Ecurie.
May 26th, a Saturday and while we are still sleeping enemy aircraft drop four bombs on the company camp, five are wounded by this but only two need hospital, the others must carry on as best they can. Thirty three of our horses are killed, a terrible, terrible sight. We must recover as quickly as possible; it is sad, dire and miserable work, which we cannot avoid. . . we must keep on.
In August our company, now renamed the 483rd hands over the Cambrin sector to another unit. In August my love and I are granted a special licence to marry; it cost ten shillings and is valid for three months. I have more leave owed me in November, God willing I will make it home safe for our marriage.
While my unit is travelling to Poperinge, near Ypres, I shall be arriving in Bedford. Our company has moved so far north with the view to going overseas, however, the plans are changed and we end up going back to our old familiar territory.
We marry at St Martins, our local parish church on Saturday 3rd November 1917, her father John and brother-in-law Stanley are our witnesses. We hope to find a home in the village of Clapham.
I am not long on leave and we plan to use the short time to visit Devon and my parents in Barnstaple. A telegram arrives first, recalling me to my unit. Is a man not entitled to some joy after nearly three years of being soaked, tired, gassed and shot at? We ignored it and went to Devon. My younger brother was there too, we pose for a photograph in our uniforms, you’ll not find it, it is long lost now, but I remember.
I wear the Royal Engineers badge on my lapel; it is a proud and life changing day for me. It gives me something that I had begun to think could never be mine.
When we returned home the police were waiting for me on the grounds of desertion or some such thing. We told them that we never received the said telegram; it must have gone to someone else by mistake. Luckily they believed us . . . or at least said they did and I was soon returning to the front.
As yet another Christmas loomed so did death; while at Beaumetz we suffered two dead and two wounded. We know this place well, it’s on the Bapaume to Cambrai road, a part of the world now home to our dead and missing comrades. . . and it’s not over yet, by a long way.
From the end of January into March 1918 we stay at Metz. On the 11th, the enemy shell us. Afterwards we find one of our own dead and thirteen horses dead too. One section is sent to Etricourt to work on a disinfection chamber, the rest of us move out of the village and into tents. The enemy is very active, our lines are gassed and five poor devils from our company are affected badly enough for hospital. . . if they can help them at all. Next day sickness takes two more and the following day five more are gassed. The enemy begins to use Phosgene gas on us, a deadly and insidious gas that waits a while before it kills you. Even when we moved to billets at Royaulcourt we were shelled and took two more casualties. . . we retreated again to Beaulencourt, but all hell was breaking loose on the front line, on the 24th we were told to dig and hold a line of posts at La Boiselle, which is yet another mad rush back towards Albert. Three craters are blown in the Bapaume road to slow the enemy’s advance; we stand to with rifles ready. At one point our entire Company is at work in Aveluy Wood. Sometimes we have to move so quickly that a scribbled note is all that is left in a tent to let stragglers know where we have gone. We try to maintain order in the chaos that is about us, it is not so easy. May sees us pushed back even further and by July there is much sickness; that awful sickness is back among us.
Back in England, my wife has moved into our new home in Clapham, I have been registered on the absent voters list at that address in Mans Row. Times are hard for those back home too, she had a special half sovereign to keep but desperate for money she has had to spend it. There are those back home that will become quite rich through this war, we will not be among them.
August sees an unending list of the sick by Flu. On September the sixth there is an explosion in our camp; luckily no one is hurt; a booby trap is suspected. On the 28th September we are billeted in captured German gun pits having recovered much ground after the enemy’s desperate counter attack was beaten back.
Every thing I write is censored but when I am on leave at home and thank goodness we do get home from time to time, we know the truth of the matter. When we go west to the coast we travel through untouched French farmland where people are living normal lives as though there is no war. What is normal anymore, what is?
The beginning of October 1918 and we’re working on maintenance of bridges over the canal and River Escault. We must strengthen and repair them to carry our 60 pounder artillery across; they weigh 4 tons and need twelve horses to pull. We’re also reinstating the water supply to Flesquieres. We’re in the middle of a flu epidemic and losing men to that as well as wounds, today, one killed, one wounded and one sick; eight new sappers join us from our base depot. As we build pontoon bridges over the Escault canal we encounter a problem, the water is draining out and flooding the fields; our pontoon bridges begin to ground. We must find and fix the leak. We find and fix the leak using concrete under three feet of water.
By the 16th October we have moved on to Seranvillers and most of the company works on the road from Wambaix to Estourmel; by the 19th, five more sappers are sent to hospital. One in five will die; and all strong fit young men too.
We’re deeply into useful engineering work now, building bridges over the Selle, fixing roads, removing demolition charges. . . there is a feeling of optimism that the war is going our way. Despite this three more sappers are wounded and another four sick sent to hospital.
Good news too though, four of our number are awarded the Military Medal.
By Christmas Day 1918 the war is over, but not yet for us, Christmas Day finds us in Germany in a place called Ellen, where we rest, train and celebrate; we move about a lot, west of Cologne, the last day of 1918 is spent in a place called Vanikum. Some sappers return from hospital just as others are sent there sick. A few are demobilised and return to England. Our unit is one of those chosen to enter Germany to assist in repairs and support our infantry in whatever they may need. We gave them our best effort and in turn they stood between us and the enemy. December 11th 1918 we are in Bernister, Germany.
1919
It is hard to believe but despite being shelled, shot at, gassed, starved and near drowned, I have survived this awful war, mostly in body at least and now as we do repair works I have an accident with a colleague. He strikes my hand with a sledge hammer, the pain is excruciating but somehow we have learned to endure hardships. Unfortunately the wound is infected and it puts me in hospital, luckily I’m returned to England for this, the hospital sounded something like Bassingborn, but I can no longer be sure of this. I recover but have lost a small piece of finger; not as big a price as others have paid. . . though we’ve all paid dearly for this war, whether we survived it or not. The smell of death and gas will never leave me and I do not know how my mind will cope with the memories of those about me that died most obscene deaths. Once, two men died, one each side of me. Of the original sappers that landed in France on Christmas day 1914, I am near enough the last one left. Some would say that’s lucky. What do you think?
I shall do my best to have a good life, return to my work as a French polisher and raise a family with my new wife.
On the 3rd April 1919 I was demobilised and put on Z Reserve. At last I could go home.
Of my dear 216 colleagues 111 were wounded and 23 killed, 2 more, their bodies never found; 23 had the flu and some of them we never heard of again.
(Class Z Reserve was authorised by an Army Order of 3 December 1918. There were fears that Germany would not accept the terms of any peace treaty, and therefore the British Government decided it would be wise to be able to quickly recall trained men in the eventuality of the resumption of hostilities. Soldiers who were being demobilised, particularly those who had agreed to serve "for the duration", were at first posted to Class Z. They returned to civilian life but with an obligation to return if called upon. The Z Reserve was abolished on 31 March 1920.)
For a good man, who never forgot.
Royal Engineers.
Historical notes extracted from the
War Diaries at Kew.
My name is not important. I was born in North Devon, by the time I was twenty three I had moved away from my family some 240 miles away to Bedford. There I continued my work as a French polisher and later joined the Territorial Royal Engineers. The Royal engineers were quite active in the town and particularly so as tensions grew in Europe.
Tuesday August the 4th 1914 and the country awaits the outcome of our Government's ultimatum for Germany to respect Belgian neutrality. Shopkeepers are imposing limits on quantities to ensure the poor as well as the rich can fill their larders, petrol is available but there are no cans as they are being filled and hoarded. It seems that there are people excited by war, in a patriotic sense, the English, French and Russian anthems are played by the bands and a crowd gathered outside the offices of the Beds Times newspaper eagerly awaiting a declaration of war. The street lamps were put out at the usual time, the only light now coming from a suspended lamp over the office door. At 11.30 they announced that Reuters understood that a state of war exists between England and Germany. Still the crowd waited until just before midnight it was announced that war was declared at 7.00 pm. (As reported in the paper, but it may have been later than that.) There was lots of cheering, for the king, the government and the Navy. 'Rule Brittania' and 'God save the King' were sung with sincerity by all present. The following day was full of activity and great excitement, soldiers preparing to leave in a couple of days were cheerful and joked with members of the Public, there was no shortage of reservists turning up for duty, the whole country was a hive of activity.
The army is short of engineers and an additional local field company is set up in September, we train hard through one of the wettest winters I've seen for a while. A Field Company is always attached to fighting units within the division, we know we will be on the front line and will also be expected to fight and so are armed as infantrymen. Company strength is 217 of which 138 are Sappers. We hold the skills needed by an army in the field, 15 Blacksmiths, 20 Bricklayers, 40 Carpenters of which I am one, 5 Clerks, 12 Masons, 6 Painters, 8 Plumbers, surveyors, draughtsmen, wheelwrights, engine drivers and others; there’s not much we cannot build, fix or demolish. Amongst the many tools of our trades we carry guncotton charges too. We rely on horses for transport and have 17 riding horses for the officers and NCOs of the Mounted Branch, plus 50 draught heavy horses with five as reserve. We also have four pack horses, all of which must be transported, fed and watered. We’re not to know as we set out that sixty of our horses will be killed in action as the war progresses.
I am a quiet peaceful man who seems to be liked by most I meet. I will wear my country's uniform and do my duty, I will do my best and serve the cause, but with no relish for a fight. Ours is not to reason why, ours is to serve our King and Country. I have neither wife nor children to grieve for me; I shall write letters to my mother and father in Devon. I later discover that my younger brother has signed up for the Devonshires and sailed for Mesopotamia; I wish him safe journey home.
It's the 23rd of December 1914 and we begin our journey to Southampton from Bury St Edmunds. It has been raining yet again but colder weather seems to be on the horizon. It took about 6 hours to complete loading and we sailed about 6.30 pm, overnight to Havre and disembarked to very frosty weather about dawn on Christmas Day; there were a few men that were mighty glad to be ashore – any shore! Within a day it was raining again, we travelled by train and road through various places, sometimes staying a while, though we were young and fit we are tired and mostly wet; there is little comfort to be had and we have yet to reach the front lines. The names of places I discovered afterwards, only the officers had maps and knew our orders.
By the 10th of January we were working on the front line and suffered our first casualty, luckily only wounded but it gave us a taste of what was yet to come. When the company is only 215 men strong you get to know most of them, we have a strong sense of camaraderie and with the intense training as well as the hardships of our road it creates a bond. We stand together in the face of the enemy, any enemy.
On the 17th while working with civilians on an intermediate line we still ended up with another colleague wounded. By the end of January we'd lost two sappers, killed along with 2nd Lieutenant Munby. A few days into February and the cold weather we had has turned back to rain, we're up to the eyeballs in mud in the Givenchy area, even the higher ground is full of natural springs. We do our best to repair and drain the trenches, it is not easy work and winter nights are long.
On the 20th two officers and 32 sappers and NCOs joined with parties from the Royal Berks, the South Staffs and Glasgow Highlanders and an attack was made on the German trench. Our job was to find out if the enemy was mining towards our own trenches; they weren't. Our attack was successful but at a cost, out of our 34 that went out, two were killed, two were missing and eight wounded, plus 2nd Lieutenant Humphreys was also wounded. Promotion through the ranks is not on my list of priorities as they don't seem to live that long.
The month of March 1915 is much the same, as is the continuing wet weather which is making our work so much more difficult and so much more uncomfortable.
Our army made an attack on the German lines at Neuve Chapelle, despite a heavy artillery bombardment the German wire remained intact and so no ground was gained. It was a misty day and our second attack later in the day met with the same result. Rain later fell to lay with our own fallen. We're engineers for God's sake yet five more comrades are dead and eighteen are wounded, so too is our Lieutenant Berry. Some good news cheered us when we learned that two in our own Company were honoured with medals; 2nd Lt Humphreys picked up the Military Cross and good old corporal Bryan got the Distinguished Conduct Medal; truly well deserved. Corporal Bryan was from Bedford like me, unfortunately he wasn't destined to see the war out.
Still in March and we get 30 new sappers to replace our losses; we're at Le Quesnoy and just as replacements arrive we take another hit and two more sappers are wounded. The field hospitals are not so far away but there are more graves than beds in such a place. We are thankful for an improvement in weather conditions; we certainly need a break from the rain.
Near the middle of April we are to receive more sappers as reinforcements. Coincidently, we seem to lose a few at the same time; five wounded this time. As I look around me, so early into this conflict, I see new faces that replace the familiar ones of my lost dead and wounded friends, for friends they do become. We share everything about our lives; the willingness to help each other is steadfast. We are the 1st/1st east Anglian Field Company Royal Engineers.
April and we get a break from the line, we return to Le Quesnoy for a few days rest and are joined by a thunderstorm and heavy rain, still, while here at least nobody is shooting at us. In mid April some advances are made by 6th Brigade and the Irish Guards, we work in the captured trenches to reverse the firing positions and dig communications trenches to our own lines. Often the sections of our company are split up on various tasks; we know our own section much better, many of us together from training days. Another sapper killed and one wounded, and the rain keeps falling, when will it end, how many of us will ever see home and loved ones again?
Towards the end of the month it does cheer up and we see that experiments are going on to use rockets to deliver lines to the forward trenches so they can haul ammunition across open ground. It looked like it was a success. At the end of the month we were with 6th Infantry Brigade and taking over an area from the French.
It's June and I've been here six months now, we're at a place called Les Brebis, we can't pronounce any of the French names so we call them how they look. I said it was unlucky for officers, didn't I? 2nd Lieutenant Braddell was wounded in a bomb throwing accident during a demonstration . . . I don't suppose anyone wanted to throw one after that !
On the 10th two sections marched to Vermelles to billet there.
We continue our trench work on the front line, we are never that far from danger, we know it but we have confidence in our own ability. We don't make a fuss, when we write home to someone we care about, we simply say, “we are well and hope they are too.” Sometimes the horses are sent back to be kept well behind the lines, as happened just the other day. Lucky Lieutenant Kent has been returned to England to help at a fuse works. We're at a place called Cuinchy, perhaps you can find these places on a map. We're not there long and we move to Gorre and build defences at a place they call Windy Corner, we do the same on the houses of the Cambrin road, lots of heavy work with deep dugouts, concrete roofs, sand bagging etc. We construct a monorail too for transport, all great engineering.
Nearly the whole month of July we're on this work.
August and the Sun shines as we continue on the 'village line' and the monorail, we get four new sappers as one of our comrades is killed at Cuinchy. We are committed to what we do now; it seems there is no turning back.
Early September and we are very busy on a trench trolley railway, a pontoon bridge over the LaBassee canal as well as dug outs. We are joined by a Search light section .... suicidal job that, as soon as they turn them on they become targets for anything the Germans can hit them with, we try not to be too close !
On the 25th the British attack the German trenches from Givenchy to Bully Grenay; our company is split with half going forward to help consolidate any defences should we be successful. Another three comrades are wounded. How many will be left of us that started out that Christmas day? I often wonder in the quiet moments; each time one dies a little of my own soul dies with them, it is not possible to remain unaffected.
We move forward a bit, digging communication trenches to captured German lines east of Vermelles; we lose another to wounds. But all is not too bad. . . we now have the luxury of an electric light at the billets at Beuvry.
November and December 1915, we're at Le Preol and spend our time building a third line. We're close to La Bassee canal, about 600 yards I'd say. It is nearly a full year we've been in this awful situation, on the 23rd December another comrade was killed at Cambrin, young Percy Smith from Bedford, you’ll find him still waiting there at the Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner. He’d enlisted at Bedford before I had; he looked much older than his twenty one years. None of us look or feel our age anymore.
After Boxing Day, we prepared to move and the next day we marched from Le Preol through Bethune, Choques and Lilliers to billets at La Miquellerie, a tiny hamlet, we marched for 6 hours; we are in reserve with 2nd Division. Some relief at last or so we thought, but it was not to be. It was training time, training with infantry drill, smoke helmets, engineering subjects and of course overhaul all equipment. This would be where we ‘enjoyed’ our Christmas and saw in the New Year for 1916.
By January 17th we were back at the front, Le Touret, and some work on the Village line, we knew it well from our time before, nothing much had changed.
As a Sapper I am paid a better daily rate than the infantry soldier, they have only a shilling a day and we have five shillings; the infantry call us the ‘five bobbers’. It means I can afford to buy these beautifully silk embroidered cards to send home to the love of my life.
We met while coming out of St Peter’s Church in Bedford, a popular church close to her home in Park Road and not so far from the Great Ouse and its pleasant riverside walk that so many enjoy on a warm Sunday afternoon; outside the Saxon towered church stood a fine statue of John Bunyan. My own mother was a Baptist as indeed was her own mother, a strict school teacher she was as I recall. I remember meeting the love of my life with great fondness and excitement; writing to her and better still receiving letters or parcels make life a little more tolerable and give me a reason to stay safe and go home one day. She was engaged to another, a soldier of the Great War, but our mutual love changed all that. I am grateful and thank God for this joyous blessing.
Every two years of service allows you three sets of leave, one of four days and two of ten days each. Four days is hardly enough to make our way back home on the crowded trains they put on but ten days is useful and I can make it back to Bedford. There is little use in planning leave as it can be changed in an instant; we almost fear being called back as the train leaves for England. It is such a relief to be away from the front, the lice, the rats and the stench. I often wonder who will still be left when I return. Sometimes it is best not to think and just get on with each day or even hour as it comes, for the next could be your last.
I come back from my day dreams of home to the sound of Sappers hard at work. We are fortifying a mining village known as Cite Calonne, the work is varied, with machine gun emplacements, concreting, brick observation posts and continuing the tunnels started by the French all part of our labours. The village houses are fortified as part of a reserve line, we are so busy with work, revetting and fire stepping trenches, constructing timber overhead covers for lateral trenches, deepening communication trenches and laying of floor boards. . . exhaustion at least helps us sleep. The 2nd Division goes into reserve but this time we don’t go with them, we stay in the Calonne sector. March 25th some reinforcements arrive and as seems to be the case each time, not long after, two more sappers are wounded. It’s like the devil is playing games with the numbers. We have no idea that we’re going to meet the Devil later, in his own wood, Devil’s Wood. (Delville)
July 27th 1916 and it’s been some time since I wrote, we are facing great difficulties and the infantry around us have suffered great losses. The South Africans have taken a severe beating but did not fail in their task to take Devil’s Wood.
The Berkshires had subsequently consolidated the line about fifty yards from the eastern edge of the wood; their right flank was very exposed. This would have been July 27th 1916.
Delville Wood
Our Company was involved trying to secure trenches by building machine gun posts, strong points and even a new communication trench with our front line. We asked for working parties from the infantry units involved, they had none to spare, in fact they needed help to carry out their own consolidation; our officer sent word for fifty extra men to assist. We worked like the Devil himself was on our backs, hour after hour and as evening came the enemy appeared to be launching a counter attack on the eastern edge. We were called to man the parapet, after a considerable amount of rifle fire and bombing the attack was repulsed. The infantry commander asked for a section of our company to man the line all night as he didn’t think his position was tenable; ten sappers were wounded in this fight. At dawn another section relieved the men on the line. We tried to move back into the wood later but due to heavy shelling the Infantry commanding officer ordered us back to our billets at Carnoy.
Remember our good Corporal Bryan? Horace Bryan DSM of Dane Street Bedford, he made sergeant, a brave man. . . now he’s dead in Devil’s Wood, this day the 28th.
There is a convenience to burying our dead near the field hospitals, though this can be of no cheer to the wounded and sick that are carried there. On the 8th of August we left Carnoy for Happy Valley; some sense of humour they have that name these places.
It wasn’t long before we moved to assist at Longueval wood where the infantry we were supporting suffered much sniper fire from the village itself until it was silenced. In the next two days we lost two dead and five wounded. Sometimes the enemy is so active with artillery and gas shell barrages that we cannot reach our work points, so the work remains undone, better that than us being undone, I think.
It’s the last day of July and another sapper is wounded, Major Wilson DSO was shell shocked and Lieutenant Humphreys was gassed poor devil.
August, September and October we move about a lot but the months pass without great incident, however, November hits us hard on the Beaussart to Mailly road; by the 15th November 1916 we have lost two sappers to shell shock, two wounded as well as Lieutenant Moon and three killed. We are all exhausted and under heavy shell fire. . . we cannot complete the trench we are constructing. At last some sense and we get a rest on the 20th.
Not too much severity in December either and once again Christmas sees us not resting but training. There is no end to the training, but there are always things to improve and learn. I am blessed with a great deal of patience; I suppose my work back home as a French Polisher had taught me that. We’re well away from the front line, about 30 miles or more, at Bernatre.
1917 and more of the same, February is grim as we lose two sappers who succumbed to their terrible wounds, two others survive their wounds and Lieutenant Franklin dies. It’s not very often we see our wounded comrades again; we can only hope that where ever they are they are safe and recover. The dead and dying are commonplace sights over these past months, months that seem like a lifetime, it’s as though we cannot remember what we were before; and I doubt we’ll ever forget what we are now and what we must do to survive.
By April 19th we’re only 300 yards from the German held Oppy line. It is clear to us that we intend to take it. On the 21st yet another five of my comrades are wounded; I often think I am lucky not to be one of them, sometimes being dead seems the kinder option but I have plans for later this year; I hope to marry. The infantry have made some gains and we take the opportunity to collect some of their rusty wire from Bailleul, then we move back to near Arras at a place called Ecurie.
May 26th, a Saturday and while we are still sleeping enemy aircraft drop four bombs on the company camp, five are wounded by this but only two need hospital, the others must carry on as best they can. Thirty three of our horses are killed, a terrible, terrible sight. We must recover as quickly as possible; it is sad, dire and miserable work, which we cannot avoid. . . we must keep on.
In August our company, now renamed the 483rd hands over the Cambrin sector to another unit. In August my love and I are granted a special licence to marry; it cost ten shillings and is valid for three months. I have more leave owed me in November, God willing I will make it home safe for our marriage.
While my unit is travelling to Poperinge, near Ypres, I shall be arriving in Bedford. Our company has moved so far north with the view to going overseas, however, the plans are changed and we end up going back to our old familiar territory.
We marry at St Martins, our local parish church on Saturday 3rd November 1917, her father John and brother-in-law Stanley are our witnesses. We hope to find a home in the village of Clapham.
I am not long on leave and we plan to use the short time to visit Devon and my parents in Barnstaple. A telegram arrives first, recalling me to my unit. Is a man not entitled to some joy after nearly three years of being soaked, tired, gassed and shot at? We ignored it and went to Devon. My younger brother was there too, we pose for a photograph in our uniforms, you’ll not find it, it is long lost now, but I remember.
I wear the Royal Engineers badge on my lapel; it is a proud and life changing day for me. It gives me something that I had begun to think could never be mine.
When we returned home the police were waiting for me on the grounds of desertion or some such thing. We told them that we never received the said telegram; it must have gone to someone else by mistake. Luckily they believed us . . . or at least said they did and I was soon returning to the front.
As yet another Christmas loomed so did death; while at Beaumetz we suffered two dead and two wounded. We know this place well, it’s on the Bapaume to Cambrai road, a part of the world now home to our dead and missing comrades. . . and it’s not over yet, by a long way.
From the end of January into March 1918 we stay at Metz. On the 11th, the enemy shell us. Afterwards we find one of our own dead and thirteen horses dead too. One section is sent to Etricourt to work on a disinfection chamber, the rest of us move out of the village and into tents. The enemy is very active, our lines are gassed and five poor devils from our company are affected badly enough for hospital. . . if they can help them at all. Next day sickness takes two more and the following day five more are gassed. The enemy begins to use Phosgene gas on us, a deadly and insidious gas that waits a while before it kills you. Even when we moved to billets at Royaulcourt we were shelled and took two more casualties. . . we retreated again to Beaulencourt, but all hell was breaking loose on the front line, on the 24th we were told to dig and hold a line of posts at La Boiselle, which is yet another mad rush back towards Albert. Three craters are blown in the Bapaume road to slow the enemy’s advance; we stand to with rifles ready. At one point our entire Company is at work in Aveluy Wood. Sometimes we have to move so quickly that a scribbled note is all that is left in a tent to let stragglers know where we have gone. We try to maintain order in the chaos that is about us, it is not so easy. May sees us pushed back even further and by July there is much sickness; that awful sickness is back among us.
Back in England, my wife has moved into our new home in Clapham, I have been registered on the absent voters list at that address in Mans Row. Times are hard for those back home too, she had a special half sovereign to keep but desperate for money she has had to spend it. There are those back home that will become quite rich through this war, we will not be among them.
August sees an unending list of the sick by Flu. On September the sixth there is an explosion in our camp; luckily no one is hurt; a booby trap is suspected. On the 28th September we are billeted in captured German gun pits having recovered much ground after the enemy’s desperate counter attack was beaten back.
Every thing I write is censored but when I am on leave at home and thank goodness we do get home from time to time, we know the truth of the matter. When we go west to the coast we travel through untouched French farmland where people are living normal lives as though there is no war. What is normal anymore, what is?
The beginning of October 1918 and we’re working on maintenance of bridges over the canal and River Escault. We must strengthen and repair them to carry our 60 pounder artillery across; they weigh 4 tons and need twelve horses to pull. We’re also reinstating the water supply to Flesquieres. We’re in the middle of a flu epidemic and losing men to that as well as wounds, today, one killed, one wounded and one sick; eight new sappers join us from our base depot. As we build pontoon bridges over the Escault canal we encounter a problem, the water is draining out and flooding the fields; our pontoon bridges begin to ground. We must find and fix the leak. We find and fix the leak using concrete under three feet of water.
By the 16th October we have moved on to Seranvillers and most of the company works on the road from Wambaix to Estourmel; by the 19th, five more sappers are sent to hospital. One in five will die; and all strong fit young men too.
We’re deeply into useful engineering work now, building bridges over the Selle, fixing roads, removing demolition charges. . . there is a feeling of optimism that the war is going our way. Despite this three more sappers are wounded and another four sick sent to hospital.
Good news too though, four of our number are awarded the Military Medal.
By Christmas Day 1918 the war is over, but not yet for us, Christmas Day finds us in Germany in a place called Ellen, where we rest, train and celebrate; we move about a lot, west of Cologne, the last day of 1918 is spent in a place called Vanikum. Some sappers return from hospital just as others are sent there sick. A few are demobilised and return to England. Our unit is one of those chosen to enter Germany to assist in repairs and support our infantry in whatever they may need. We gave them our best effort and in turn they stood between us and the enemy. December 11th 1918 we are in Bernister, Germany.
1919
It is hard to believe but despite being shelled, shot at, gassed, starved and near drowned, I have survived this awful war, mostly in body at least and now as we do repair works I have an accident with a colleague. He strikes my hand with a sledge hammer, the pain is excruciating but somehow we have learned to endure hardships. Unfortunately the wound is infected and it puts me in hospital, luckily I’m returned to England for this, the hospital sounded something like Bassingborn, but I can no longer be sure of this. I recover but have lost a small piece of finger; not as big a price as others have paid. . . though we’ve all paid dearly for this war, whether we survived it or not. The smell of death and gas will never leave me and I do not know how my mind will cope with the memories of those about me that died most obscene deaths. Once, two men died, one each side of me. Of the original sappers that landed in France on Christmas day 1914, I am near enough the last one left. Some would say that’s lucky. What do you think?
I shall do my best to have a good life, return to my work as a French polisher and raise a family with my new wife.
On the 3rd April 1919 I was demobilised and put on Z Reserve. At last I could go home.
Of my dear 216 colleagues 111 were wounded and 23 killed, 2 more, their bodies never found; 23 had the flu and some of them we never heard of again.
(Class Z Reserve was authorised by an Army Order of 3 December 1918. There were fears that Germany would not accept the terms of any peace treaty, and therefore the British Government decided it would be wise to be able to quickly recall trained men in the eventuality of the resumption of hostilities. Soldiers who were being demobilised, particularly those who had agreed to serve "for the duration", were at first posted to Class Z. They returned to civilian life but with an obligation to return if called upon. The Z Reserve was abolished on 31 March 1920.)
For a good man, who never forgot.
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