The Forgotten Spy (7 page)

The regiment was perhaps a natural option for him. It had formerly been the unit of choice for volunteers from the artistic community who wished to join a territorial force – men such as Paul Nash and Wilfred Owen passed through its ranks – but by the time Oldham enlisted it was primarily set up as an officer training corps, attracting professional classes from public school and university backgrounds such as lawyers and architects. This was the sort of social grouping that Oldham now considered himself part of. It was an environment in which a civil servant from the Foreign Office would not feel out of place, even as a humble private.

Oldham was attached to B Company and, like Wilfred Owen before him, was sent to the Hare Hall camp in the grounds of Gidea Park near Romford. His new accommodation was hut 35, which may actually have been slightly more spacious than his small bedroom at home in Edmonton. The building
was part of a complex of purpose-built dormitory huts catering for the growing number of cadets.

The camp was close enough to Squirrel Heath and Gidea Park station to catch a train to Romford and back into London for a trip home but many of the young men chose to stay locally, frequenting the Unicorn or Ship pubs in Hare Street, joining the bustling crowds in Romford market or strolling through Raphael Park, where many a dashing young officer cadet caught the eye of one of the local girls who congregated there. Oldham would have been given his cadet’s uniform, had his hair cropped short and issued with a swagger cane.

The training regime was tough, especially for those used to the more sedate pace of life in an office environment. Drill and marching would often take place from early in the morning to late at night in order to whip the new recruits into shape. Marches often took place through the local streets, much to the excitement of local school children who never failed to cheer as the cadets went past. Other activities, such as bayonet practice, took place in the grounds. Food and refreshments were issued in the large and spacious refectory hut – a far more civilised place than anywhere they would encounter on the front.

On 24 February, Oldham formally applied to join an officer cadet battalion with a view to a temporary commission in the regular army for the period of the war. He had initially selected the option of joining a territorial force but crossed this through on his application form in favour of ‘regular army’, knowing full well that this would almost certainly mean a posting abroad. His preferred choice of regiment was the King’s Liverpool Regiment, for which there was no obvious family or geographical connection.

As part of the application process he was required to provide evidence of his background, standing and education – as well as confirm that he was ‘of pure European descent’. The certificate of his moral character during the previous four years was meant to be provided by the head of his school but was signed on 26 February by Thomas Henry Skinner, ‘clerk in Holy Orders’ at St Michael’s Church, Edmonton – the longstanding family friend who had known Oldham since he was a boy. Skinner also stepped in to sign the
certificate that proved the candidate had attained a standard of education suitable for commissioned rank – a leaving certificate from the Royal Military College, passing an army entrance examination or passing the matriculation examination of a university. Oldham had none of these and should at least have passed the certificate to the headmaster of his secondary school to sign. However, these were desperate times and Skinner’s recommendation that ‘I certify from personal knowledge that Ernest Holloway Oldham has attained a standard of education suitable for commissioned rank’
³⁹
was deemed sufficient.

Finally, permission was granted from his employer on 27 February and any doubts over Oldham’s education history were brushed aside when no less a man than the Chief Clerk himself, Sir John Tilley, stated, ‘Mr EH Oldham, who has been employed in this Office since 1 April 1914, having been passed for general service, is hereby given permission to make application for admission to an Officer Cadet Unit’.
⁴⁰

Next up was Oldham’s medical, which took place on 29 March at the camp. An officer of the Royal Army Medical Corps examined him, taking further measurements of his height, weight and chest – all of which, incidentally, were larger than in early February and suggested that the physical training had paid off.

Finally, Oldham was assessed by an officer and was found to be suitable on 9 May. He was instructed to join No 19 Officer Cadet Battalion based at Pirbright, a small village in Surrey, not far from Guildford, on 5 July 1917. Here, up to 600 officers at a time were trained on courses lasting between three and four months. This was nowhere near the recommended full training offered at facilities such as Sandhurst for cadets who would become regular commissioned officers, but it was long enough to learn basic officer skills such as tactics (both Allied and enemy), drilling and training of one’s men and, of course, to undergo plenty of physical exercise.

Given the changing nature of warfare, important briefing sessions were provided on the latest techniques in trench warfare, sniping and bayonetting, weapons’ maintenance, field engineering, musketry (including the new Lewis machine guns) and – a topic that would have brought home the grim reality of the Western Front – how to enable a junior officer to ‘come with confidence through the frequent gas attacks he will meet overseas’.
⁴¹
Added to these field
skills were background lectures on the geography of the theatre of war, military law and administration – of which there was also plenty.

At the end of his training, Oldham successfully completed a final examination and attended a passing out inspection. On 30 October 1917, he was granted a temporary commission as a second lieutenant and posted to the 5th Battalion of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry, part of the 42nd Infantry Brigade, 14nd Division – ironically one of Kitchener’s ‘New Army’ divisions, then embroiled in the Third Battle of Ypres. Oldham had a month to say his farewells to friends, colleagues and family.

Oldham set out on 29 November to join his regiment in France, a note being published in the
London Gazette
. He met up with his new charges the following day at Eecke, after they had departed from Ypres, and was assigned to D Company. Once rifles and equipment were inspected, Oldham underwent another medical plus training with the box respirators, serving to remind him of the constant threat of a gas attack.
⁴²

On 3 December, D Company marched across the border into Belgium, billeting in huts far smaller than Hare Hall, in the small hamlet of Brandhoek. Over the next week or so, Oldham oversaw working parties that repaired roads and transport lines to the front, under the constant menace of hostile aeroplane activity. His first experience of the trenches came on 12 December 1917, when the unit was ordered to relieve the 10th Battalion of the Durham Light Infantry in the front line north of Passchendaele. They took up a position on the left of the line and remained there for three days. Although enemy artillery was fairly quiet during this period, when the time came for the battalion to be relieved the bombardment increased, leading to several casualties. The muddy terrain also added to the difficulty of the relief operation.

A steady routine was set for the remainder of the month. They witnessed occasional aeroplane battles – the first time many of the new men had seen such technology in action. One dogfight led to the crash of a British observer plane near Capricorn camp where they were based. Both pilot and observer were killed – the fate of so many young aviators on the front. Oldham’s first encounter with gas shells came on 22 December during a particularly heavy bombardment, but no casualties were incurred. The following night
several bombs were dropped by hostile aeroplanes, resulting in repair works on Christmas Eve. Oldham spent Christmas Day 1917 on duty, dodging shells, before his unit was relieved and marched back to St Jean station. The unit boarded a train for Wizernes, where they were given hot cocoa and biscuits. Then, at 9.00 pm, it was time for a one-hour march to cover the 1.8 miles to their new billets at Longuenesse. The rest of the month was spent conducting parades, doing physical training and practising bayonet technique, before the men were moved on New Year’s Day 1918 to St Omer station. They caught the 7.20 pm train to Edgehill, arriving at 9.20 am the next morning. Cocoa and biscuits were served once again to bolster strength before a gruelling 18-kilometre march to Suzanne. It was a source of great pride to the commanding officer that no men fell out during the march.

Most of January 1918 was spent training, although on several occasions severe snow interrupted the various drills and practice. The seasoned soldiers would have known what was coming – an imminent spell in the line. Sure enough, a warning order was received on 20 January about a move and, two days later, the battalion covered the 12 miles from Suzanne to Rosières-en-Santerre in five hours, followed by a further 8-mile march the next day to Guerbigny, where they stayed for a couple of days.

On 25 January, they marched out for a couple of miles and were doubtless glad to be met by motorised transport that took them to Berlancourt, at which point they marched to overnight billets at Beine. The next day they tramped to Montescourt, not far from Jussy, near the banks of the Somme, where they were warned to prepare for the trenches. All through 27 January they waited in nervous anticipation before the order came through at 5.20 pm to proceed to the front at St Quentin, relieving the French 413e Infantry Regiment on the left sector. D Company, including Oldham, and C Company were in the trenches, with A and B companies in reserve. It was an uneventful duty and they remained in position until 2 February when the surprise orders were received that the battalion was to be disbanded as part of a reorganisation. Troops would be reallocated to other regiments of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry in order of company. Oldham and his comrades in D Company were sent to join the 1st Battalion and the promise of more front line duty.

Before the men dispersed to their new postings, commanding officer Lieutenant Colonel Smith was moved to say a few words about the farewell order and the gallantry his charges had shown during the previous years:

Stirring stuff, and with these words ringing in his ears, Oldham marched off to join the 1st Battalion, part of the 16th Infantry Brigade, 6th Division, stationed in the Lagnicourt sector, where he and 30 other ranks arrived on 12 February.
⁴⁴
Unfortunately, this was exactly where the Germans had planned to launch Operation Michael as part of the so-called spring offensive, made possible following the withdrawal of the Russians from the war under the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on 3 March.

The Russian withdrawal was a direct result of domestic turmoil throughout 1917. Tsar Nicholas II had been forced to abdicate at the end of the February Revolution and was replaced by a provisional government that in turn failed to repress the anti-war, radical Bolsheviks. This ultimately led to the October Revolution that saw Vladimir Lenin sweep to power and establish rule by local soviets – councils run by the workers – in the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Almost immediately, the ‘White’ Army of monarchists and
liberal reformers confronted the Bolshevik ‘Red’ Army, sparking the Russian civil war that engulfed the country in 1918 and dragged on until 1922.

Recognising the catastrophic effect that the war was having on the Russian economy, the Bolshevik government secured an armistice with the Central Powers in December 1917. However, peace negotiations collapsed and after German forces made rapid gains along the Eastern Front, the Russians were forced to accept considerably less favourable terms and the peace treaty was signed on 3 March. As a result, Russia abandoned the Triple Entente and made large territorial concessions, while Germany was free to move nearly 50 divisions to the Western Front.

For almost a week, since unusual enemy activity was reported on 14 March and Oldham’s battalion stood to at battle positions in the early hours, there was an uneasiness amongst the troops holding the line ‘as to the enemy’s intention to attack’, according to the official unit war diary.
⁴⁵
Then, on 21 March, the German assault began. Operation Michael was the main attack of four planned offensives that day, the plan being to punch through Allied lines with the overwhelming numerical advantage gained by the move of the divisions from the Eastern Front. The first objective would be to pour as many men through a breach as possible and outflank the British troops who held the line that ran along the Somme to the Channel. The aim was to cut off supply lines in a repeat of the original 1914 strategy. In theory this would render the British forces inoperative and hasten the French to the negotiating table.

A summary of the action in the unit war diary records the events as they unfolded from the perspective of Oldham and his men based just outside St Quentin.