The boy soldiers who served at the Front

Photo of a  young German soldier
(Copyright: John Sherwood)

IT'S WELL known that many recruiting officers during the First World War were happy to turn a blind eye to volunteers who were under-age. 'Why don't you go for a walk round the block and come back a couple of years older, sonny?' they would say.

The legal age at which British men could enlist was 18, and they could serve abroad once they were 19. However, large numbers slipped under the net. My own great-uncle enlisted in Bristol at the age of 17, was serving in France with the Somerset Light Infantry at 18, and shortly after his 19th birthday was killed in the Battle of the Somme. His body was never found.

It was no different on the other side - if anything the German soldiers often seemed even younger. Take a look at the photograph above that was picked up on No Man's Land by Yorkshire artilleryman Arthur Youell and kept as a souvenir of war. The German lad pictured looks as if he should still be at school and is reminiscent of the opening scenes of All Quiet on the Western Front, in which a fiercely patriotic German school teacher urges his class of boys to join the army and fight for the fatherland, which they do.

At 22, Corporal Youell was rather older when he enlisted and happily he survived the war. His family kept the letters, photos and other memorabilia he sent home from the Front and the collection has recently been lent to me by Youell's nephew. It has proved absolutely fascinating.



Tractor pulling a siege Howitzer

One of the most interesting items is Youell's field notebook in which he recorded, among other things, details of targets and ranges he used while serving with the 126th Siege Battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery.


Siege units were equipped with enormous 15-ton howitzers which were used to bombard the enemy with high-explosive shells in high-trajectory, plunging fire, and were so heavy they needed caterpillar-tracked vehicles to move them. Youell wrote: 'We get into queer places with our old gun especially when we are moving, we have been stuck many a time...they take some moving on bad ground.'

While serving in France between 1916 and 1918, Youell wrote regularly to his mother and letters like this one in June 1917 reveal that there was rarely much time for rest:

'I have been in some rough places but I've managed to get out alright so far, so we must pray for God to keep me out of harm's way in the future. I saw nearly all the fighting on the Somme offensives, then the battle of Arras when we took "Vimy Ridge" [in April 1917]. You will see from the papers at home that we are givng the Germans a shock in another place.'

This was at Hill 60, a strategically important area of high ground which the Allies blew up using underground mines at the beginning of the Battle of Messines in June 1917. 'I shall never forget the night Hill 60 was blown up,' wrote Youell. 'I had gone to bed, the ground rocked and trembled. I though I was in a cradle then our artillery opened with a roar. It must have been awfull [sic] in the German lines they would be a mass of bursting shell.'

You can read more of Corporal Youell's experiences in my book 'Letters From The Trenches' which is due out at the end of 2014.

 

Keeping romance alive with a rhyme

 

MANY romances fell by the wayside when men enlisted for war, but Nellie Jones was determined to keep hers going when her sweetheart Harry Poole, right, joined the Army Veterinary Corps.

 

Nellie sent him picture postcards which came with rhyming messages that were lighthearted - but still serious enough to get the point across.

 

'It seems a thousand years ago, the day you went away. I'm lonesome and I'd like to know, how long you're going to stay,' was the message on one of the first cards she sent Harry in March 1916 when he was stationed at the Army Veterinary Hospital at Round Green, Luton.

 

The following month another followed in similar vein: 'I'm truly glad that you have had this chance to be a rover. A trip is nice, but I'll be twice as glad when it's over.'

 

Harry's work involved looking after army horses and he was moved to bases all over southern England including Pitt Corner Camp at Winchester, the veterinary hospital at Bulford, Wiltshire, and the Remount Depot at Shirehampton, near Bristol. This is where 'war horses' that were shipped to Avonmouth from abroad recovered before being put to work.

 

As the months passed by Nellie appears to have grown used to separation although she still sent Harry the odd nudge if letters became infrequent: 'Here's a picture of a penny I will very gladly lend, if you'll promise to invest it in a postcard for your friend.'

 

And by the end of 1916 it was Nellie who was doing the apologising:'Oh, what's the use of an excuse, to send along to you! I owe a letter, I should do better, and send it when it's due!'

Harry remained at Shirehampton until demobilisation in1919 and then went to work in Staffordshire as a gamekeeper for Sir Geoffrey Congreve. He and Nellie were finally married in 1923.

CAN YOU HELP?

The postcards have been passed down to the couple's grandaughter, Helen Frost, who also has some lovely informal photographs of Harry's friends in the Army Veterinary Corps, like the picture on the left.

However, she is puzzled by one piece of information which has recently come to light, that at some point in his career Harry was invalided out of  'the Blues' (the Royal Horse Guards) under a 'Sergeant Norman'. It's a shot in the dark, but if anyone knows how Helen could shed more light on Harry Poole's service in the Guards, do contact me at jacwadsworth@hotmail.com and I'll put you in touch.

A taste of things to come in my book ...

This month you can take a sneak preview of my book 'Letters from the Trenches' in the latest issue of Discover Your History magazine.

Among the articles is one in which I examine some of the themes most often found in letters written home by First World War soldiers - and surprisingly, perhaps, they're rather mundane.

The weather, the post and toothache were among the most common talking points, which just goes to show that for much of the time Tommies weren't living lives that could be described as exciting. On the contrary, they were often tedious, boring, dirty and cold, with few of the comforts we take for granted

Discover Your History is a new magazine - this is only the second edition - which is packed with fascinating features and colourful illustrations which will inspire anyone with an interest in social history.

This month you can read about the English secretary who became a French Resistance leader in the Second World War, the man who worked as a film set carpenter at the famous London Film Studios in the 1930s, and Henry Poole & Co, the company which founded Savile Row - the bespoke tailor patronised by royalty, statesmen and the aristocracy.

Discover Your History is on sale now, but you'll have to wait a little longer for Letters from the Trenches which will be out next year.

Look out, the Americans are here!

Sky's the limit: an American WW1 airman

The British are famous for their chippy complaint about American servicemen during the Second World War: 'Overpaid, oversexed and over here!' But from what I've seen in my research, the same was true a generation earlier when Americans arrived in Britain during the First World War.

Many passed through on their way to France in 1917 and 1918 and some were stationed in the UK. Among them were airmen of the 822nd (Repair) Squadron who spent two months at a Royal Flying Corps base at Yate, north of Bristol, receiving instruction in aircraft repair.

One of them, Corporal Ned Steel, later wrote a history of the squadron which reveals just how exasperatingly full of themselves the Americans could be. Greeted by cheering crowds on their arrival, he wrote: 'Talk about appreciation! Those Englishmen saw in us the reserve strength of the Allies come to deliver the knockout blow to Fritz.'

During their sea crossing to Liverpool, the Americans had already amused themselves by poking fun at the British, especially the way every second word seemed to be 'bloody'...

'The bloody ship had been in hospital service beween the bloody Dardanelles and England. This was the first bloody voyage as a bloody troop ship,' was how Steel summed up one sergeant's potted history of the ship they were sailing in. 

The food couldn't be taken seriously either: 'My Gosh! fish for breakfast?'

When the airmen boarded their train to Bristol there were more smirks. 'A squad to each compartment on our funnny looking coaches, we started across 'Merry Old England', the dinky little engine quite surprising us with its speed.'

But as the carriages trundled through the countryside, Steel was taken aback what he saw: 'What a beautiful country...green green grasses covering every inch of untilled ground...stone walls...ivyclad farm houses...red-tile roofs...everything clean and tidy...for once even the Californians were mum [silent].'

Once settled in at Yate, the visitors had to get used to the famous British Army disipline - polished boots and buttons, rigid respect for superiors, and the purposeful way all men walked whether they were on or off duty. At drill each morning, the NCO's indecipherable barked instructions caused high amusement. 'The Tommies understood, however, and executed every movement with a snap, and unison was nothing short of perfection,' wrote Steel.

Local girls swarmed around the Americans

There was also reluctant admiration for the British way of working. 'Swinging the lead' (taking it easy) was quite universal in the workshops when the flight sergeants and officers weren't around. When it came to turning out first class products, however, Tommy was there.'

Local girls swarmed around the Americans, who loved the attention - especially when it put the Tommies' noses out of joint. Steel still couldn't resist a sly dig though: 'The girls complimented us on our fine teeth, and we could not return the compliment.'

But however patronising the Americans could be, Steet made it clear that he, at least was aware of their shortcomings. How did the Tommies view a typical Yank? 'As tho' he owned the world' he admitted!

• You can read more about the Americans in Britain during WW1 in both my books: 'Bristol In the Great War' is being published in July 2014, and Letters From The Trenches' is due out at Christmas 2014.

The man whose memories spanned 100 years

Father and daughter: William Cole and Wendy

 

ONE OF the pleasures of research has the been the friendships I've made with people who have shared their letters and stories with me. In particular, William Cole whom I first met one bitterly cold afternoon in January when I visited him at home in St George, Bristol.

 

His daughter Wendy had already shown me the postcards his father had sent him from the Western Front when he was a boy. And that should give a clue as to one of the reasons William was so special. He was 103 years old.

 

Not that you would have known it. His quick mind, excellent memory and ready laugh made him charming and entertaining company. I visited again in the spring and he chatted about what it was like to grow up in in the early 1900s, recalling stories in wonderful detail.

 

Most recently I visited William - better known as 'Sid' to his friends - on July 4th for a wonderful party to celebrate his 104th birthday. Sadly, he died in his sleep a couple of weeks later.

 

I feel privileged that he and I were friends, and as a tribute to his long life and wonderful memory, here is a lovely account of his early working life in the retail trade...

 

***

WILLIAM Sidney Cole grew up in Salisbury and left school at the age of 14. 'I wasn't ambitious, I just took the first job that came along which was as an errand boy for a shop that sold groceries and provisions,' he said. 'My first job in the morning was to go into a little room at the back and put a pot of water on to boil, then I would have to scrub the shop floor and dry it before the customers came in. I remember the floor was tiled black and white.'

 

Can we help? A branch of the Home and Colonial Stores

Later in the day came the grocery deliveries which William made on a tricycle with a box attached to the front, rather like an ice cream seller. One particular trip was five miles. 'It was hard work!' he smiled. Next door was Boots the Chemist, where William's sister Ivy worked, and the pair used to run a mile or so home for sandwiches each day during their half-hour lunch break. Their sister Rosie worked nearby at the Penny Bazaar, which was later bought out by Marks and Spencer.

The business William worked for was the Home and Colonial Stores, one of Britain's earliest retail chains with branches all over the country. 'Everything we sold was produced either at home in Britain or in our countries around the world like Australia and New Zealand.'

At the age of 20 William's loyalty and hard work were rewarded and he was sent to stores around the country as a relief manager or assistant during holidays. One part of the job involved window dressing: 'Every Monday there had to be a new shop window and headquarters in London would tell you exactly what to put on display.' This often involved some rather delicate balancing of tins and packets, and every item had to have a price card.

Those prices still tripped easily off William's tongue: 'Twopence farthing for 1lb of sugar, twopence and three farthings for sugar cubes, 4d for a 1/4 lb of tea, and 7d for best tea.'

• More of William's wonderful memories - and Great War postcards - will be included in my book 'Letters From The Trenches', to be published next year.

A bird's eye view of the First World War

The cover: A Round Of Robins

A fascinating acount of the way the First World War affected a family of brothers who were scattered all over the world has just been published as an eBook. A Round of Robins is a collection of 'round-robin' letters which the brothers began writing to each other in 1904 and which continued for 40 years.

The correspondence was sent in notebooks by Nix, Frank, Ed, Charles, Herbert and Fred Kendall, who originally came from Blackheath in South London. They worked, respectively, as a doctor, architect, wool broker, civil servant, P&O manager and banker in England, South Africa, Australia, India and the Orient. 'The bird' (as it was referred to by the brothers) travelled roughly eastwards around the globe.

This first volume of letters covers the years 1904 to 1918 and particularly interesting are the accounts of the Great War written from different countries.

Initially, none of the brothers knew quite what to make of the conflict, except that it posed a threat to their communication: 'It seems an unnecessary shame to risk birdie on the billows with German ships – aye, and Zeppelins – dogging its wing flaps. But I will risk it soon, I think,' wrote Frank from Cape Town in September 1914.


The six Kendall brothers in 1886 with parents and sister

It didn't take long for more adventurous comments to take shape, as when Ed in Sidney made clear his opinion about soldiers Downunder:

'Australians as a race make excellent fighting men but lack disipline to a horrible degree and one can never be sure what they will do if left to themselves,' he declared.

The youngest brothers, Fred and Herbert, were twins and both worked in the Far East, one for the P&O shipping company, the other for the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. Both were also eager to join the fighting, but only Herbert was 'lucky' enough to be released by his employer.

After a period of training in England, he was sent to the Western Front and wrote back some graphic accounts of life in the trenches. It all came to a dramatic end when he was sent home with shell shock. Charles, who had returned from India to work for the Admiralty, documented his brother's recovery: 'Herbert is going up for another Board today, so I shall probably be able to record the result in this bird. He is better, and as the electric treatment seems to be doing him good we hope he will be given another month of it.'

The oldest brother, Nix, had remained in England where he worked as a GP in Surrey, and his letters reflect Britain's stoical attitude during the Great War: 'We have distinctly heard the guns in Flanders lately when the wind and atmosphere are suitable. Rations are irksome but most people are getting used to doing without eating meat more than two days weekly, etc. We are lucky in being well off for veg and eggs. Cheese we get about once a week.'

'Rations are irksome'
Nicholas Kendall

This volume is a wonderfully entertaining account of the Great War from a kaleidoscope of  perspectives, it also describes exactly what life was like in Edwardian Britain and in the far-flung corners of the Empire. I have been lucky enough to use a lively extract in my own book Letters from the Trenches.

• A Round of Robins is published by Eden Diaries and is available as an eBook from from www.edendiaries.co.uk. The price is £8.75 which includes daily extracts by email.

'The sky behind us lit up with a sheet of flame'

 

Artillery firing from behind
Canadian lines, over Vimy Ridge

The explosive power of warfare on the Western Front was often nothing short of spectacular, and some soldiers could not help but be amazed by what they saw, despite the slaughter and devastation that resulted.

'A most wonderful sight never to be forgotten,' wrote one Bristol infantryman. 'Bombardment started four o'clock in the morning...Terrific noise. Guns take us off our feet.' His diary entry was made in the spring of 1917 during the Battle of Arras, a major British offensive that provided plenty of pyrotechnic brilliance.
 
It began on April 9 with a battle to win control of the strategically important high ground at Vimy Ridge. The attack was preceded at 5.30am by an artillery barrage of high explosives and gas. Then, as the day broke, 30,000 Canadian troops climbed 'over the top' and advanced across No Man's Land. The fighting cost a huge number of lives, but they secured a famous victory.
 
The action was vividly described by a Canadian medical officer in a letter to his sweetheart: 'We had some breakfast at 4.30am and afterwards waited for zero hour which was 5.30am. It began to drizzle rain just before the fateful hour. Promptly on the minute the whole sky behind us lit up with a sheet of flame from hundreds of guns and our barrage opened with a noise like a terrible peal of thunder. There was a wonderful display of fireworks for miles along the German trenches caused by the bursting of our shells and Fritz's frantic SOS signals. It looked as though the sky were raining fire.'

Adrenalin was still high when he wrote to his cousin: 'It was a wonderful battle, the best show I have been in...For miles we could see the artillery barrage sweeping like a blizzard across the German position and the whole country behind seemingly covered with our advancing troops. The sight must have struck a chill into the German hearts.'

The offensive continued until May, and afterwards the devastation was clear to see. 'Came through Arras, what was once a beautiful town is now a mass of ruins,' wrote the Bristol infantryman in his diary. 'Piano's mirrors etc smashed up and nothing but debris in roadway.'

You can read plenty more from soldiers at the battlefront in my book 'Letters From The Trenches', which is being published next year.


The city of Arras in ruins