Boy Soldiers of the Great War (32 page)

When I’d recovered a little, I thought I’d better get it seen to, so I rolled over no-man’s-land and over to our trench on the edge of John Copse. There was the head of a sap there and I went in and had a smoke with another bloke, he was wounded. They dropped some shells into the copse and one hit his arm and a bit of the hot shell burnt a little hole in my leg.

I carried on. All the communication trenches were full of dead and on the way down I passed our headquarters, an old German dugout, and they were patrolling up and down, the colonel and his retinue, looking across, and they had faces like chalk.

The Accrington Pals had been annihilated, too. They had advanced from the neighbouring copse, and the same machine guns had ripped through their ranks. The first two waves had left
the trench before zero hour and had lain out in no-man’s-land, suffering numerous killed and injured before they even set off. The following two waves had been able to move into the front line in order to advance at precisely 7.30 a.m., but in the event none of the attacking companies had met with success. Reginald Battersby had done as well as anybody and had managed to advance up a slight depression in the ground with the survivors of his platoon. As they approached the German line, they came under attack from the right by a machine-gun post at close range. Swinging his platoon round, Reginald went to engage the German crew but was shot once in his forearm, the bullet passing straight through, and once in the right leg. The platoon faced the prospect of being wiped out when the German machine gun suddenly jammed, giving the Pals the chance to attack and destroy the position.

For the rest of the day, the dead and wounded lay out in no-man’s-land. In some places the Germans allowed the wounded to be rescued, in others they sniped at the survivors, making rescue impossible. In the heat, thirst became intolerable. Cyril José realized that while the battle raged, his best option was to stay put.

I couldn’t get back to our own lines until next morning. I didn’t eat anything, but lived on pulling off dead men’s water bottles. I was as thirsty as anything at first, but I got a few water bottles.

That night German patrols ventured out into no-man’s-land looking for prisoners. Cyril had been lapsing in and out of consciousness all day, remaining calm. Now with Germans about, he was once again on his metal. ‘I lay doggo clutching a Mills bomb ready to pull the pin with my teeth. Rather than be taken prisoner I would take the patrol with me. They passed me by.’

It was clear that no one was going to come for him; Cyril would have to be the architect of his own rescue.

Even well behind the lines, the gunners on Len Thomas’s battery knew things had gone badly wrong. When the attack was launched in the morning the guns’ elevation had been increased to shell the rear areas but by the afternoon the range had been shortened and they were back shelling the line around Thiepval. Len wrote:

Late that evening a group of infantry were passing, and one of our chaps shouted, ‘What’s it like up there?’ And a Sergeant replied, ‘It’s bloody murder, we 28 are all that’s left of the Battalion.’ They were Inniskillings. We kept hearing of massacres that day. All we could do to help the walking wounded was to leave buckets of water at the side of the road.

Hope of moving anywhere that day, let alone seven miles up the Bapaume Road, was dashed. Len’s battery did not advance an inch for another four weeks. Cyril José was no longer interested in any advance, only a retreat to safety.

About 6 a.m. 2 July, I began crawling back to our line – the grass was fortunately long. It seemed that I was alone in a field of dead men. The wounded had either made their way back or had been killed in their tracks Then, about halfway, I encountered Private Lamacraft – a hardened regular soldier thirty years old. He was wounded in back and legs. We struggled along together with my right arm under his body whilst he tried to walk on his hands wheelbarrow-race style.

In an hour we had made very little progress. We were both too weak from loss of blood and we had made ourselves conspicuous – Jerry had started firing at us. Luckily, his shooting was very erratic – he too was beginning to feel the strain.

I dragged Lammy into a large shell crater and we rested while we took stock. We decided that it was impossible to reach our lines. Lammy had to be carried. There was still a faint chance that
I could make it alone. I gathered some water bottles from nearby corpses and stacked them around Lamacraft. Then I set off again snaking my way through the grass.

The Germans continued to snipe at Cyril all the way back to the British front line.

I offered up a prayer of thanks when I dropped in our trench right by a chap on periscope who had been watching me come in. I soon got rushed back then, so now here I am in England. I heard after, that out of our battalion twenty-seven answered roll call after the battle. So you can imagine what it’s like. Twenty-seven out of about 900 or 1,000 men.

Once he reached the trench, Cyril had been quickly attended to. His jacket, cardigan and shirt were caked with blood and had to be cut off before he could be properly bandaged and sent down the line. Cyril was lucky that none of the major arteries had been severed, otherwise he would have bled to death. In a letter written in a hospital bed, Cyril gave more detail of the events that day and his subsequent feelings. The letter is dated 16 July.

My dearest Mother

Thanks awfully for [the] letter yesterday & Ive’s today. I was awfully pleased to get them. You want to know if the bullet is out? Yes, it went clean through. So I didn’t have a chance to keep it as a souvenir, did I? Now, to answer your questions. Yes, some of the Battalion got to Ovillers. I think, at least I heard, that they got to the third line & Ovillers is only about 2nd line. In fact part of it is just behind the first. But Johnny must have had some powerful defences there, for our people had to retire to the 1st line again. However, they hung on to that. Yes, there were several dead around me but I saw some wounded a bit too far off to speak to them. They were all the result of the few minutes going across.
That’s where we lost most of our men. Of course, some ‘big bug’ thought it a great idea to go over in broad daylight instead of crawling up as near to their parapet in the night under cover of the bombardment as [possible], so that we could then dive in their trench with hardly any losses in going across. Of course Johnny wouldn’t expect us then so much. I suppose they thought that as he wouldn’t expect us, he wouldn’t see us. Certainly not! Result – Johnny spots us coming over the parapet and we have to go about 600 yards. What brains old Douglas [Haig] must have. Made me laugh when I read his Dispatch yesterday. ‘
I
attacked.’ Old women in England picturing Sir Doug in front of British waves brandishing his sword & living in trenches. I’ll get a job like that in the next war. Attack Johnny from 100 miles back!! Still, we can’t all lead, can we?

God bless you all.

Best love from

Cyril

Cyril had not forgotten Private Lamacraft and he described his friend’s location while two officers of the Royal Berkshire Regiment tried to ply him with some rum. Cyril had hoped a stretcher party would be sent but the officers had declined to send anyone as the task was simply too dangerous. Lamacraft remained in no-man’s-land for a further three days until he was rescued.

Philip Lister’s battalion, the 10th KOYLIs, were badly cut up. On 1 July the battalion had lost nine officers killed and sixteen wounded, perhaps all of the officers who went over the top that morning. The number killed included at least one officer who had arrived with Philip’s draft in June, and an unknown number of wounded. It is not known if Philip took part in the assault that day or was held back in reserve. On the following day, as one of the few surviving officers, he was made acting captain and given command of a company until 11 August, when he returned to
his substantive rank. Of those who took part, at least 157 were killed and around 300 wounded. Frank Lindley’s battalion had lost 119 officers and men dead. The neighbouring battalion of the Accrington Pals had fared even worse. Some 235 of their number had died at Serre and another 360 were wounded, while the Leeds Pals had also suffered heavily, losing every single officer and at least 504 other ranks killed or wounded.

One of the battalions that did meet with success that day was Vic Cole’s. On 1 July, Vic was resting in a convalescent camp when casualties from the day’s fighting began to pour in by the hundred, and Vic, along with other lightly wounded, was quickly removed from his tent to make way for serious cases. Among the wounded there were few, if any, from the 7th Battalion. On the southern sector of the attack, close to Montauban, the British divisions had stormed the enemy line and held all the ground captured that day. The casualties had been relatively light: the 7th Royal West Kents had fewer than thirty killed, an achievement given the destruction elsewhere, although Vic could never quite agree with the sentiment, for among the dead was his old pal George Pulley, killed at the age of eighteen.

Such was the pressure on casualty clearing stations and the base hospitals that even lightly wounded men found themselves rapidly sent down the medical chain, on to boats and back to Britain. Reginald Battersby was back in England by 3 July and in hospital. Cyril José was not far behind – he was sent to No. 16 General Hospital, Le Tréport, and kept for a few days until his wound was cleaned, and then sent on 9 July to Southampton and eventually to Barnstaple. His friend Norton Hedge had been slightly wounded, a relief for Cyril, although he was killed later that summer.

War Office ‘official’ lists of the killed and wounded might take a month or more to hit the newspapers; however, with the wounded
being sent home, news of the disaster reached families far earlier. Within days the press began publishing pictures of heroes, dead, wounded and missing, so that by the middle of July no one was left with any other impression than that the first day of the Battle of the Somme had been cruel in terms of lives lost.

The gunshot wound to Cyril’s shoulder took a long time to heal and he remained in hospital for six months. While there, he had an unexpected visitor.

Today a gentleman, evidently a founder or something of this Hospital, was coming round. ‘What’s your name, sonny?’ ‘José, sir.’ ‘Oh, so you’re the Devons’ chap.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ Asked me where I had got hit. Told him, ‘Ovillers’. Asked me if I knew Lieutenant Gould. ‘Yes, sir, he was killed in front of me.’ ‘Ah, you’re the man I want. He was my son!’ I nearly fainted … I fancy it had broken him. Poor chap. I didn’t half feel sorry for him. I told him he was the best officer a chap could have etc etc, he said that he had written home saying what a fine lot of men he had under him. Queer coincidence, wasn’t it? He looked properly broken hearted.

The statistics from 1 July are often quoted, but remain staggering. In short, some 20,000 dead, 40,000 wounded. From the CWGC records it is possible to identify 118 boys aged seventeen or under who died that day, but this figure is misleading. They are a small proportion of those under age who were actually killed or wounded. The ages of many others who died can be identified from other sources both published and unpublished. Thomas Hartness of the 11th Borders had enlisted aged fifteen when the war broke out and was killed on 1 July, as was Thomas Norman who died at seventeen with the same battalion. In the 15th Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment, Horace Iles’s battalion, Richard Matthews had enlisted just after his fifteenth birthday, and died aged sixteen. James Clarke of the 12th Royal Irish Rifles was killed on 1 July. Born in June 1899, he had also
enlisted at fifteen and had only just celebrated his seventeenth birthday when he was killed. Another was Private John Metcalf. He was killed aged seventeen serving with his battalion, the 11th East Lancashire Regiment. They are a handful of the many other boys killed that day who remain unidentified as under age by the CWGC.

The reports of such huge casualties sent shock waves across the country and nowhere more so than among families of underage boy soldiers. For many of the Kitchener’s New Army battalions this had been their first time over the top, and the first time, too, that they had suffered heavy casualties. As after the Battle of Loos, families were galvanized into writing to the War Office to get their boys out.

Florrie Iles, sister of Horace, was appalled by the reports and decided she must write direct to her brother and persuade him to own up to his age and come home. On 9 July she composed the following:

My Dear Horace …

I am so glad you are alright so far but I need not tell you what an anxious time I am having on your account, you
have
dropped in for the thick of it and no mistake. I only hope you have the good luck to come back safely like your father did [a professional soldier who had served in Afghanistan] and my dear boy
I
don’t care how soon. I should be more than pleased to see you, I can tell you. You have no need to feel ashamed that you joined the ‘Pals’ now for by all accounts they have rendered a good account of themselves, no one can call them ‘Feather-bed Soldiers’ now …

We did hear that they were fetching all back from France under 19. For goodness sake Horace tell them how old you are. I am sure they will send you back if they know you are only 16, you have seen quite enough now, just chuck it up and try to get back you won’t fare no worse for it. If you don’t do it now you will come back in bits and we want the whole of you. I don’t suppose you
can do any letter writing now but just remember that I am always thinking of you and hoping for your safe return …

Your loving sister

Florrie xxxxxxxxx

The letter was sent but soon returned. On the envelope was stamped ‘Killed in action’. Horace Iles had not survived the attack on Serre, and his body had been lying for over a week somewhere in no-man’s-land as his sister began to write her letter.