Born on 14 February 1894, his life was touched by tragedy from its beginnings. His father died of a heart attack before he was even born, and his mother had to support the family single handed. She had a shop on Saltwell Road and was proud of her achievements.
He didn’t volunteer at the beginning of the war, but was conscripted in 1917. He arrived in Bologne on October 9, in pouring rain. His war diaries record that they had to sleep in tents which were flooded out. On October 2 he was given 150 rounds of ammunition and made to set out on a five kilometre march to Etaps station, at 3am, carrying a full pack. Although his regiment set off for the front line, they had a few days respite as the high number of casualties at Ypres meant they had to wait for reinforcements.
By November 10 he was ‘wading through mud and water up the Menin road….. Jerry starts to shell. Men and mules drowned in the shell holes.’ On November 18 he describes how their guide got lost at Devil’s Elbow. A Lieut. Jones ‘brings him to his senses by putting a revolver to his head and telling him he will blow his brains out if he doesn’t go on.’
My grandfather’s war diaries lived in a corner of the book case brought from my grandmother’s house after her death. It had glass doors, and was much smaller than modern bookcases. My grandparents didn’t own many books, but they were regarded as precious. There were gilt edged volumes of poetry, a bible, encyclopaedia, a Black’s Illustrated dictionary and books of household advice. Perhaps his war diaries always lived here. There are two small notebooks, written in perfect prose, with immaculate handwriting. They are army issue, but couldn’t have been written in the field. Any papers were taken from him when he became a P.O.W. They were probably written in Switzerland, where he spent the final months of the war. Such traumatic experiences must have been seared in his soul, just as his body never fully recovered from exposure to mustard gas. He records what he sees in an objective way, without commentating on its absurdity, futility and horror, yet everything is conveyed with such immediacy that they are painful to read.
I hope that recording the details of each day helped my grandfather to cope with the horror and confusion of this devastating war. According to Britannica.com, some 8,500,000 soldiers died as a result of wounds or disease. Estimates of the number of both military and civilian casualties vary; some are as high as 17,000,000. A monument at Verdun commemorates the ‘50,000 unlocated dead who are assumed to be buried in the vicinity’[i].
After Christmas, he was sent to the Somme. The diary entries become longer. He describes a day of heavy bombardment, March 21, in fog so dense they can barely see, when ‘a large number of gas shells come over with the others and the gas gets very thick and hangs in the air.’ After a horrendous night manning a gun, which they try to repair with plasticene after it gets hit, they return to the dug out for a much needed breakfast only to hear ‘Jerry over’ and find they are completely surrounded. They are taken prisoner by Germans, and shot at by both British infantry and a German machine gun. The British prisoners try to escape, aided by the fog and the fact they have nothing to carry, but soon run into a full battalion of German machine gunners, who hand them over to the Prussians.
Life as a prisoner of war was even worse than the trenches. The ‘Jerrys’ took or stole anything of value, including overcoats and jackets. They were given very little food, forced to sleep out in the open or in derelict stables full of old manure, rats and lice. There are petty cruelties as well as the major ones. He writes …’we have not had a wash for 15 days. The water is given us but at night the German Officer stops our soup for it, so we get nothing to eat for 24 hours. ‘
He’s marched back to the front line, where his job is to collect and bury the dead. His descriptions are the stuff of nightmares. Some of the bodies had been blown to pieces. ‘Several times we come across odd legs, hands, etc, and have to hunt around for the rest of the bodies.’ Other bodies were reduced to skeletons, having been eaten by rats. A brief stint as a butcher is equally horrendous. He has to drag the corpses of horses that have been dead for weeks back to camp, then proves incapable of skinning them.
On June 28 1918 he contracted blood poisoning in his right hand. By July 2 this had spread up the whole right arm and shoulder. He receives treatment from a Prussian Corporal of the German Medical Corps ‘who cuts open the place in the armpit with a pair of scissors and applies some liquid to draw off the poison…. The rough treatment causes agony.’ His condition worsens and he is sent to Avesnes Hospital, where he’s treated by a captured English doctor, a captain in the R.A.M.C. There was no chloroform to spare for prisoners. ‘The shrieks in the operating room are so bad that I dread going in as I have to do every morning.’
When his arm began to heal he was transported to Germany, a 74 hour journey on trains. (Aug 2) Here he’s put into a camp which is so infested with ‘vermin of every description’ that they ‘take turns at sleeping on the long trestle tables’ and often spend the night parading up and down the small prison yard, trying to keep warm. Although his arm has healed he becomes seriously ill and is put in isolation. He’s sent to a hospital where there is only one other Englishman. At the foot of his bed is a small blackboard with the diagnosis of Pneumonia, Bronchitis and Catarrh chalked on. Surviving on barley water he seems to be recovering when he contracts Pleurisy. (Sept 1)
Ironically, this may have saved his life as he’s shifted to a ward with more English and Australians. Two men share some of their food parcels. After further medical examinations it’s recognised that he’s ‘ill enough to merit exchange with Switzerland.’ (Sept 11) He’s transported to Mannheim, where conditions are better, but it’s not until October 19, at 11pm, that he finally boards the train for Switzerland.
The train stops in Zurich and Berne. At each station they are greeted by ‘English ladies and gentlemen’, offering ‘fags, chocolates, flowers, English papers etc.’ Arriving in Berne at 2am, they are given a grand reception, with supper, speeches by a general and the British Consul. Small silk flags are handed out, along with a printed message from the king. He sees out the final weeks of war in the Hotel Belvedere in Interlaken. Here he shares a big room with two other men. After months of deprivation, they have comfortable beds and arm chairs, plus a beautiful view of the mountains. He volunteers as a ‘sick waiter’ carrying trays of food to those too ill or injured to get to the dining room. Freedom of movement is restricted due to the epidemic of Spanish flu. But he survives this too and finally leaves Interlaken on December 4, 1918, arriving back at Blighty, Waterloo Station at 5pm on December 7. His final entry ‘Dec 10 Leave London at midnight for home.’
The diaries are even more precious as he never spoke of the war. In later life he entered competitions, composing humorous ‘couplets’ and often winning. Prizes were £1 for first , 10 shillings for second and 5 shillings for third. During WW2 he got a job in printing, eventually becoming sub editor of the Cooperative News.
I’m glad the diaries, along with the printed message and a letter from the king, two medals and the little silk flags are now going to the Tyne & Wear archive.
[i]https://www.britannica.com/event/World-War-I/Killed-wounded-and-missing