Frank and George went to war

 

My family was fortunate in terms of war losses in that no close relative of either of my parents was lost in any 20^th century war. That is not to say that nobody was involved in war service, but they all survived to tell their stories.

My father was too young for World War I and his eyesight was not good enough for World War II. His wartime activity consisted of nights on the roof of his place of work, a branch of Lloyds Bank in Bournemouth, where he stood ready with buckets of sand and water just in case an incendiary bomb should land nearby. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Luftwaffe had more pressing targets than Bournemouth and his services were never called upon.

However, his two older brothers, Frank and George, were very much involved in both World Wars. Frank kept a detailed diary of all his activities during both wars, and also made notes about what George was up to. I have his summary of the diaries in front of me now.

The United Kingdom declared war on Germany on 4^th August 1914, which was only shortly after the family had moved from Poole to Frome – the head of the family was a Primitive Methodist Minister who made many moves during his lifetime. Frank recorded that on that day he had watched a water polo match at Frome baths – the score was Frome 6, Gloucester City 2, and he described it as “very exciting, the standard was very high”. He also noted that he had no idea that the war would involve him in any way.

Frank’s call-up came in July 1916, when he was assigned to the Royal Garrison Artillery and began his military training, most of it taking place on Plymouth Hoe. After spending some time on Spike Island in Cork Harbour – he described it as “wasted a month as library and post orderly” - he undertook further training at Prees Heath in Shropshire and Lydd in Kent, before joining a siege battery and being posted to Belgium.

He began his active service as “Battery Commander’s Assistant” at Ypres in April 1917, but on 2^nd June was wounded in the leg by shell fragments and was sent back to England. It was not until April 1918 that he returned to France, this time to Arras, where his function, based near the Officer’s Mess well behind the front line, was to calculate the range and direction of the guns. As he wrote, “my fighting was done with maps, range tables, slide rules, etc”.

He then advanced with the battery as the front moved forward, until he was laid low with a skin infection caused by lice, leading to a spell in a field hospital. He had just about recovered from this when the Armistice was declared on 11^th November.

So that was Frank’s war – as he said later, the first German person he ever saw in his life was five years after the war had ended!

George’s war was a very different affair. He had joined the Royal Fusiliers in September 1915 and was wounded, albeit not seriously, early in 1916 and again in the summer of 1917. However, in April 1918 he took a machine gun bullet in the chest and was not found for several hours. He was unconscious for two weeks and only recovered shortly before the Armistice.

Both brothers served in the Second World War. Frank was in the Home Guard at Weymouth, but George – once again – was much more directly involved in the action.

As a reservist, and despite being 42 at the time, he was called up in August 1939, having been promised “home duties only”. That promise lasted until March 1941, when, shortly after getting married, he was sent to Egypt and taken by submarine to Malta. When the Siege of Malta ended, early in 1943, he was posted to GHQ in Cairo where he stayed until June 1945 when he eventually left for home and was able to see his 4-year-old daughter for the first time.

So what was George actually doing in Malta and Cairo? He never said much about it, which suggests that he was involved in some sort of undercover work that swore him to secrecy.

And, in the meantime, his younger brother Gordon, my father, was doing his bit on the roof of the Charminster Road, Bournemouth, branch of Lloyds Bank. He did not have a lot to say about it either – probably because there was not much to tell.

© John Welford

The sinking of the Lusitania

The sinking of RMS Lusitania on 7^th May 1915 – the victim of a torpedo fired from a German U-boat - has long been regarded as a major war crime and a prime cause of the United States entering World War I. However, there are questions that are still unanswered.

Lusitania was launched on 7^th June 1906 at John Brown’s shipyard on the Clyde, Glasgow. She was a massive ocean liner, 790 feet long with four enormous funnels. At the time she was the fastest and most luxurious liner afloat and was expected to make huge profits for the Cunard Line as she plied her trade on the Atlantic between the United States and Europe.

Lusitania entered service in 1907 and soon fulfilled the promises made for her. Her maiden voyage won the coveted Blue Riband for the fastest Atlantic crossing, at an average speed of 23.99 knots, and she bettered that record in 1909 with a speed of 25.85 knots.

She was clearly a more fortunate ship than the Titanic, in that she crossed the Atlantic more than 200 times.

However, her luck ran out after the start of World War I, when Germany declared that they regarded all the seas around the British Isles as a war zone. Any ship, military or civilian, would be seen as a legitimate target.

The sinking

On 1^st May 1915 Lusitania left New York with 1,201 passengers and 702 crew members. Most of the passengers were British but 188 of them were American. At the time, the United States was in a state of neutrality in what it regarded as a purely European war. It was generally thought that a ship that had nothing to do with the war, and which was carrying a substantial number of Americans, would have been protected from attack on the grounds of this neutrality.

However, the German view, as mentioned above, was different. A U-boat, captained by Walter Schwieger, was waiting in the waters off the coast of Ireland. When Lusitania, moving slowly because of fog, came into range in the early afternoon of 7^th May she was hit by a single torpedo. To everyone’s further surprise the ship was immediately rocked by a second huge explosion.

Panic ensued on board as the passengers rushed for the 48 lifeboats, many of which could not be launched due to the listing of the ship to one side. Other boats tipped their passengers into the sea as Lusitania lurched downwards. Only six lifeboats were launched successfully.

Captain Turner of the Lusitania only abandoned ship when the water reached the bridge. He clung to a floating chair and was eventually rescued. However, the sinking claimed a total of 1,198 lives, including 63 children and 128 Americans.

The fact that there were more than 700 survivors, despite the rapid sinking of the ship in 18 minutes and the chaos involving the lifeboats, was due in large part to the relative closeness of the ship to the Irish coast, so that rescue vessels were able to reach the scene in time to pull many people from the water before they drowned or froze to death. This situation was somewhat different to the plight of the victims of Titanic in the ice-strewn open ocean three years previously.

Explosives on board?

The German government sought to justify the attack by claiming that Lusitania was a legitimate target because she was carrying a large quantity of explosives destined for the British Army. This, they said, was the cause of the second explosion that followed that resulting from the torpedo impact. Had this been true, it would of course have called into question the supposed neutrality of the United States.

However, there were other possible causes of the second explosion, including the ship’s boilers blowing up and the ignition of coal dust in the fuel hold.

The wreck of Lusitania lies in relatively shallow water at a depth of around 300 feet. This has allowed the wreck to be explored, and large quantities of rifle ammunition have been discovered. It is also believed that the ship was carrying material that would have contributed to the manufacture of explosives, even if ready-made explosive items were not on board. These discoveries lend some weight to the original German claim, even if the second blast was not due to the direct explosion of war material.

The aftermath

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter, public opinion was swayed on both sides of the Atlantic and it cannot be doubted that the sinking of the Lusitania played a role in changing American minds. That said, another two years would pass before the United States entered the war.

There were even suggestions that the British government had engineered the tragedy as a means of getting America to enter the war on the side of the Allies. Knowing that German U-boats were in the area, why was such a large target as the Lusitania not offered any protection from the Royal Navy?

It is hardly to be wondered at that conspiracy theories abound on this incident as on so many others. Whether the whole truth will ever be known is another matter altogether.

© John Welford

The Battle of Loos, 1915

Many battles are exercises in futility that cost the lives of thousands of men due to the incompetence of their commanders. This was certainly true of the Battle of Loos, fought in September 1915 during the First World War.

The battle was fought as part of the British Army’s support of France against Germany in a mining district of north-eastern France (the Loos in question is Loos-en-Gohelle, near Lens). The men in charge of the British troops were Field Marshal John French and General Douglas Haig, who did not always see eye to eye (Haig often complained about French’s character and tactics). In turn, the two commanders distrusted the Commander-in-Chief of the French Army, General Joffre.

Lack of artillery governed the decision to begin the offensive by releasing poisonous chlorine gas towards the German positions, but this tactic failed due to the lack of wind. The cloud of gas therefore hovered over no-man’s-land and the British advance, when it happened, was hampered by lack of visibility caused by this self-inflicted hazard.

As the first day of the battle continued, General Haig became convinced that he would need to call up reserve troops, and he therefore asked Field Marshal French to release the recently-formed XI Corps, which was under the command of General Richard Haking. This corps included two divisions, the 21^st and 24^th, which comprised recent recruits from England who therefore had no experience of service in the field. French thought that using these troops was a mistake, but Haig made the extraordinary claim that “with the enthusiasm of ignorance they would tear their way through the German line”. He also assured Haking that the troops would not be used unless and until German morale had already been crushed and they were in retreat.

The two divisions were force-marched to the front during the day and into the night, in the pouring rain and without food. The march took 18 hours to complete, after which the men were assembled in the positions from which they would be ordered to mount their attack. After only a few hours rest they advanced “over the top” the next morning in close formation – ten ranks of up a thousand men in breadth. Their officers had no maps and very little idea of the terrain they had to cross. They did not know that the Germans were far from being crushed or in retreat, and that they were in fact protected by barbed wire barricades and armed with heavy machine guns fired from parapets that gave them an excellent view of their targets.

The result was utter carnage as the Germans simply mowed down the British troops as they advanced towards the barbed wire, which was 19 feet thick and four feet high. The surviving British troops could do nothing when they reached the wire because they only had clippers that were little better than what they might have used back home to prune roses.

The final tally of British casualties that day was 385 officers and 7,861 men, whereas the German losses were absolutely zero. The battle continued for a few days more with fresh assaults, but the damage had already been done and there was no way by which the British could make any advance.

The callousness and cynicism of the British commanders, particularly General Haig, is difficult to comprehend. Unfortunately he seems to have learned little from the debacle at Loos and would only continue to apply reckless tactics in future battles, notably the Somme and Passchendaele.

© John Welford

The toothless soldiers of World War I

When the British Expeditionary Force - composed of regular Army men and volunteers before conscription was introduced - set off for France in August 1914, most of the men would have had all or most of their teeth extracted and been fitted with dentures.

This was because the Army sent medical men to deal with injuries and illnesses, and vets to look after the many horses that went to the Front, but not a single dentist. It was only when the commander in the field, Sir John French, got a dose of toothache that anyone thought to remedy this oversight, with 12 dentists being sent in November 1914 to cover the entire Army.

Many soldiers therefore opted to have all their teeth removed before they embarked. This was one way of delaying their arrival, because their gums had to heal before dentures could be fitted.

However, it does sound like a drastic precaution to take, simply because the Army had not thought that soldiers without aching teeth would be more likely to concentrate on the job in hand.

© John Welford

The United States enters World War I, 1917

Early in the morning of 23^rd October 1917 the first shot was fired by an American in World War I. The United States had done its best to keep out of what was primarily a European war (much less “world” than “World War II”) for the best part of three years, but the Allies finally persuaded President Woodrow Wilson to join the war on their side in April 1917. However, it would be another six months before the promise turned to reality.

By the time the war ended the following year, the Americans had mobilised just under two million men, under the overall command of General John Pershing (pictured). They fought in thirteen battles with the loss of 116,000 dead and 200,000 wounded.

Before the United States entered the war it had been in a state of stalemate. After their arrival the tide started to turn in the Allies’ favour. This was probably due less to any particular expertise or fresh ideas that the Americans introduced than to the sheer numbers of extra troops. Despite the widening scope of Army conscription in Britain in 1916-17, the numbers reaching the front were always far less than were needed. Throwing those two million Americans into the fray made all the difference.

© John Welford

The Battle of Verdun, 1916

At 7.00am on 21^st February 1916 German artillery began a barrage that signalled the beginning of the most protracted, and one of the bloodiest, encounters of World War I, namely the battle of Verdun.

The aim of the Germans was to “bleed the French to death” by pummelling their defensive positions north of the historic city of Verdun. On each day of the battle a massive bombardment, from more than a thousand artillery pieces, was followed by an infantry advance to which the French were forced to respond.

This went on for day after day until the French defences began to give way. On 25^th February they lost control of Fort Douaumont, which had been thought to be impregnable, after which the French supply lines came under severe threat.

The tide began to turn when Major-General Philippe Petain was put in charge of defending Verdun. He reorganised the supply route, as well as the French artillery, and rotated his troops so that nobody spent too long in the front line. This latter move had a massive impact on morale.

By the 23^rd of June German resources were beginning to ebb as French counter-attacks took effect. Fort Douaumont was retaken on 24^th October and by December the battle had fizzled out into the stalemate of continuous trench warfare.

The Battle of Verdun lasted for ten months and caused some 700,000 casualties (killed, missing and wounded). Nobody won, although some reputations were enhanced and others diminished. An early casualty of the battle, in that he was taken prisoner, was a young infantry captain named Charles de Gaulle. He spent the rest of the war in a German POW camp and was therefore saved for much more important roles later in the century. Petain, the hero of Verdun, was to take a much less heroic part in World War II when he led “Vichy France” as a puppet state of the Nazis.

© John Welford

The final morning of World War I

At the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month, World War I finally came to an end in 1918, four years, three months and nine days after it had started. The photograph is of the train carriage in which the Armistice was signed.

The result of the war had not been in doubt for some time, with Germany’s allies having been defeated or deserting the cause, the fleet having mutinied, and revolution hanging in the air in the streets of Berlin.

However, that did not stop the fighting from continuing literally to the last minute. The armistice was signed at 5.00 am, with the six-hour gap to 11.00 am being intentional so that the news could be sent to all parts of the front in time for it to take effect. On that last morning some 11,000 men died, some of them ordered to fight by generals who knew that the armistice had already been signed. This number of casualties was greater than the allied forces would suffer on the Normandy beaches on D-Day in 1944.

The senseless fighting on that final day led the French authorities to backdate their memorials to those who died, so that they read “10-11-18”. This was done out of shame that men were being forced to fight for no reason on that morning.

The very last soldier to be killed in action was Private Henry Gunther, an American, who was shot dead at 10.59 am by Germans who were taken by surprise as they waited for the clock to tick over that last minute.

Of course, none of these horrors were known about on the home front, where celebrations began on the stroke of 11.00 am. In central London, the streets filled with cheering crowds between the first and last strokes of Big Ben as it chimed the hour. In New York a million people thronged Broadway.

And at a house in Oswestry, on the English-Welsh border, a telegram arrived to announce that Mr and Mrs Owen’s son, the poet Wilfred Owen, had been killed just a week previously when leading a charge across a canal in northern France.

© John Welford

The Gallipoli Campaign, 1915-16

On 9^th January 1916 the Gallipoli Campaign of World War I came to an end when the final batch of 200 British troops was withdrawn from a venture that had promised much but delivered nothing other than the loss of more than 100,000 lives.

The idea had sounded good enough at the outset in April 1915. The aim was to take Turkey, Germany’s ally, out of the war and force a passage through the Dardanelles Straits into the Black Sea. This would have supplied a means of getting supplies to Russia and also opened a front in eastern Europe from which to attack Austria-Hungary along the Danube valley.

Had the campaign succeeded it could have shortened the war by three years. Instead, there was no alternative to the stalemate of trench warfare on the western front with all the misery and carnage that that involved.

The Gallipoli peninsula is part of European Turkey, stretching as a narrow finger of land for more than 50 miles and forming the northern coast of the Dardanelles. The peninsula was heavily fortified and the campaign therefore involved action from land and sea to capture the forts and open the Dardanelles to allied shipping.

However, the task proved to be much harder than anticipated, despite the concerted efforts of troops from several parts of the Empire, most notably the “Anzacs” from Australia and New Zealand. After ten months of intense and bloody fighting very little progress had been made and the decision was made in London to admit defeat and withdraw.

The person who took most of the blame was Winston Churchill, the First Lord of the Admiralty, who had been particularly keen on the enterprise and was involved in its planning. He later rejoined the army to lead a battalion on the western front, with a view to repairing his reputation by being seen to take personal risks – his personal courage was never in doubt at any stage of his life.

Churchill always maintained that the Gallipoli Campaign could have succeeded had it been given sufficient support. He was quoted as saying:

“The ill-supported armies struggling on the Gallipoli peninsula, whose efforts are now viewed with so much prejudice and repugnance, were in fact within an ace of succeeding in an enterprise which would have abridged the miseries of the World”.

© John Welford