For details of how to buy Sam’s full Memoir in paperback or e-book & new excerpted Gallipoli episode mini-e-book & reader reviews & info re upcoming readings see right-hand
column
All proceeds to British Red Cross
Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… the
enormous Russian Army, so battered for so long, had a successful week on the
Eastern Front, driving the German Army back on the Styr river (Nov 9),
Chartorysk (10, Ukraine) and Riga (14th, Latvia)… but also much further
south-east pushing towards Teheran, Persia (12th), and defeating Turkish and
German opposition en route.
As
the Western Front subsided into winter, the French repelled a German attack in
Artois (14, a battle supposed to have been over on the 4th), but further south
the 4th Battle Of The Isonzo began (Nov 10-Dec 2) with the Italian Army
advancing on the Austro-Hungarian near Gorizia and the invasion of Serbia
proceeded with the Bulgarian/German Kosovo Offensive driving the Serb Army
towards Albania, while French and British troops assisted the retreat and held
the line around the Greek border in Salonika.
Meanwhile,
rather significantly, at Gallipoli, Lord Kitchener arrived (Nov 10), met C-in-C
Monro and the commanders at Helles, Suvla Bay and Anzac, and as a result
recommended evacuation to the British Cabinet, who agreed it should start in
December.
However,
about six weeks into their stint at Suvla and entirely unaware of these
developments, the thousand men of the 2/1st
City Of London Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, including my father, Lance Corporal
Signaller Sam Sutcliffe from Edmonton, north London (still
under-age at 17) and a couple of his pals, continued their by then attritional struggle
with the Turks… but also fatigue induced by poor food, water shortage, disease,
lack of sleep, and the emotional wear and tear of fear and the constant effort
to keep it in check…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, in the Signallers’ hole up on the
hilltop overlooking the Turkish front line, young Sam executed his cunning plan
to end his near-blind comrade, family man Bill Jackson’s participation in the
campaign by “accidentally” kneeling on his glasses while he slept. Then his
hilltop neighbours, the Essex Regiment machine-gun team, relieved the
increasing gloom emanating from his moany new companion Harry Green by
scrounging a whole leg of beer, whereon they feasted for some days – nicely
easing the hungry ache the poor provisions usually left them with.
Now
Sam decides to break the monotony of relentless 24-hour 7-days-a-week duty the
two Signallers shared by going off on a small trans-battlefield expedition
(sorry, the non-date-tied rhythm of may father’s writing threw the “100 years
ago” measure a little out synch and he’s still in late October here):
‘One quite
pleasant day around the end of October, I had planned to walk some distance
across country to make a request to the Quartermaster of our Battalion. But,
that morning, the Turks commenced a huge bombardment.
While all the
familiar field guns flung their shrapnel at us, additional bigger reports high
up in the hills were followed by large explosions among our positions. This
provoked the general belief that a great enemy attack would follow – the
attempt to drive us into the sea would take place that day. The bombardment
continued for hours… eventually to our puzzlement. We had expected it would
stop suddenly, signalling the start of the Turk infantry advance.
Eventually, I
decided to set off on my errand and safely reached one end of Essex Ravine,
where our Headquarters sheltered, and dropped down into a communication trench
which would take me in the right direction. But just before I reached the end
of the trench, a huge shell exploded above me. It baffled me because, although
it exploded in the air, it produced black smoke and all the shrapnel shells I’d
so far seen gave white smoke.
I never did learn
what the difference signified, but I wondered and waited, feeling another of
these big, black bangers must be on its way – and, while I paused, I thought
with some dread about how shells of many shapes and sizes were booming and
crashing over the whole countryside, and about the large number of casualties
our Army and the Anzac boys must be suffering… Getting them all down to the
beaches, on to lighters, and then transferring them all to hospital ships,
would be almost as difficult as the original landings…
The next black
shell exploded above and I commenced counting. When I reached 60 I almost
decided to stop, but then a third one went off and I started running, counting
still, and, well before 60, I had jumped out of that trench, turned sharp left
and joined our chaps in the shelter of Essex Ravine.
This being our
Battalion HQ, the lucky people there had covers over their holes. I had come to
ask the Quartermaster if we two, stationed on
the hill with the machine gunners, could be attached to the men of the Second
Essex Regiment for rations, to save men having to bring the stuff up to us two
Royal Fusiliers separately. But, while we talked, an unusual thing happened.
High above us,
shells exploded and I saw that, near the white puffs of smoke, were two flying
machines, their wings somewhat swept backwards like a large bird’s. Although I
had never seen a warplane in action before, I was able to recognise them as
German Taubes*
Only a year or two
earlier, I had seen my first aeroplanes taking part in a race from London to
Manchester and back – now the things had already been adapted to combat uses.
Moments later, various oddments from the shells buzzed down among us and went
phut as they hit the ground. I told a man nearby that I’d recently heard a nose
cap from one of those high shells had struck a man in the back of his chest and
come out through his belly, but this cheery piece of information only provoked
a disbelieving laugh.’
There follows one of
those moments where my feeling, as editor but also son, comes down to something
slack-jawed and simple like, “My Dad!? He did that!?”. But I guess soldiers were and are doing these things all
the time – I mean running across battlefields in plain sight of the enemy, sort
of terrified, sort of confident they’ll get away with it…
‘My little bit of business at HQ being finished
satisfactorily, I paid attention once more to the near end of the communication
trench into which I must run and jump. Sure enough, the black devil was still
bursting above that point periodically, but my counting again enabled me to get
in and away without injury. I did my open-country run, using whatever shelter I
could find along the way, then slipped back into the long communication trench
which led, eventually, to our hilltop with the machine gunners.
This time that
communication trench yielded a strange experience; on my right, at a spot I
hadn’t previously noticed, an opening caught my eye. I peered in and it
revealed a sight almost unbelievable to me: a rather wide, roofed trench, with
a long, narrow table, on each side of it a plank seat occupied by men who
looked remarkably clean and spruce; on the table, their enamel mugs and plates,
knives and forks, symbols of civilisation and decency. They did not appear to
see me, perhaps because the light from the candles placed at intervals
restricted vision to things close by. I recall standing there, tears, for some
emotional reason, streaming down my face… although I was now 17 years old. The
difference in the way of life of those trained, experienced soldiers, and that
of myself and most of my Territorial comrades was never so apparent to me as at
that moment.
Of course, it all
started at the top. Their officers were all career military men, capable of
assessing the usefulness of every single thing, place or circumstance within
their purview. The very disciplines to which the best of them submitted and
which they practised in peacetime too made them admirable leaders when war
surrounded their lives with discomforts and dangers. The amateur officer would
try to carry out basic standing orders to the very letter, regardless of the
health and comfort of his men and the fact that wounds and sickness were daily
reducing the numbers of those he commanded; so his surviving men would have to
do longer and harder stints and themselves become gradually reduced to
mindless, humourless automatons.
Much of the
routine stuff wasted energy at a time when all signs indicated a position of
stalemate, be it only temporary. The good officer would use such periods by
allowing – or ordering – men otherwise unoccupied to give attention to personal
hygiene, improvement of habitation, sanitation and the procurement of maximum
rations.
Memory may play me
false here, but I seem to remember that those fine men I glimpsed in that
side-trench, who conspicuously insisted on preserving some of the decencies
amid conditions which defeated less efficient soldiers, were members of the
Royal Scots Regiment** I learned that the small number seated in their
improvised dining hall were all that remained of a full Battalion who did
marvellous work in the earliest landing on that Turkish peninsula.
I left the long
communication trench when it neared the earlier-mentioned Borderers’ Gully and
took the opportunity to search the hole I had shared some time back in hope of
finding my sadly missed flageolet***. But no luck.
Moving up the gully
there, you had to pass through two points exposed to snipers on a higher hill
ahead. But that day they appeared to be looking elsewhere, perhaps watching the
shell bursts going off all over our area. I rejoined my unsmiling assistant on
the hill among our Brigade’s machine gunners. No casualties there, but much
speculation as to the reason for the massive bombardment…
At dusk, the
hideous noise suddenly ceased.
On duty that
evening, I received a message directed to all units by Army Command HQ. It stated
that every available piece of Turkish artillery fired continuously during that
day and that our casualties resulting from it were not too heavy; in fact, it
said, only one man was injured and he damaged an ankle when jumping into a
trench for shelter. All that firing, that huge waste of ammunition, had been in
celebration of the last day of the Feast of Ramadan****
* Taube: monoplane
fighter/bomber/surveillance aircraft, manufactured from 1910 onwards; apparently
Germany’s first mass-produced military plane.
** Several Battalions of
Royal Scots did fight at Gallipoli; from the reference to them being involved
in the earliest landings, it seems the men who impressed my father may have
been members of 1/5th Battalion (Queen’s Edinburgh Rifles), part of the Royal
Scots (Lothian Regiment), see http://www.1914-1918.net/royalscots.htm
*** See Blog 67 October
18, 2015.
**** All sources I’ve
checked suggest HQ was misinformed; Ramadan 1915 ran from July 13 or 14 to
August 12.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: The terrible
Gallipoli blizzard – Sam goes begging for food, Harry goes delirious with
frostbite.
No comments:
Post a Comment