For details of how to buy Sam’s full Memoir* in
paperback or e-book & excerpted Gallipoli
& Somme episode mini-e-books & reader
reviews see right-hand column
All proceeds to the British Red Cross
Dear all
A hundred years ago this week… Winter,
the great pacifier, brought a degree of relief to Eastern and Western Fronts
despite the frostbite hazards. The Battle Of The Somme “officially” concluded
on November 18 having proceeded slaughterously since its “official” start date
of July 1 – inverted commas because neither could be taken too literally – and
the Battle of Verdun (opening salvos February 21) had bedded down bar one
pre-Christmas flare-up, while the Russian Army’s Brusilov Offensive’s fizzling
after major successes combined with the mid-continental chill to freeze action
in that theatre.
So
the timeline notes mainly record events at sea: a German Naval raid on
Lowestoft (November 26) and the sinking of French battleship Suffren (November 26, by U-boat in the
Bay Of Biscay), and of British hospital ship the Brittanic (21, by mine, off the Greek island of Kea, heading for
Gallipoli so no wounded on board, all but 30 of more than 1,000 crew and medics
survived).
However,
fierce fighting continued in southern Europe. The Battle Of Transylvania, begun
by the Romanians on August 27 as an attempt to take historically disputed
territory from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, had turned around into an arduous invasion
of Romania by German and Austrian forces. They took Craiova (November 21),
regained Orsova (22, scene of a Romanian victory on September 8), and advanced
on Bucharest via Rymnik, to the northeast (25), although the still defiant
Romanian Army repulsed the Germans in the Aluta Valley at Slatina (24), due
west of the capital.
Down
in Macedonia, the Allies’ Monastir Offensive proceeded steadily – if that was
still the right name for it, given they’d just captured their objective – with
Serbian and French troops pushing the Bulgarians northwards. Also, the provisional
Greek Government declared war on Germany and Bulgaria, giving perhaps rather shaky
political support to the Salonika-based Allied forces (other contingents there
included British, Russian and Italian troops).
Meanwhile, my father, under-age volunteer – and already a Gallipoli
veteran – Corporal Sam Sutcliffe from
Edmonton, north London, 18 on July 6, 1916, had fought with the Kensingtons
Battalion from mid-May to September, at Hébuterne/Gommecourt on the north end
of the Somme Front, then around Leuze Wood and Morval to the south (FootSoldierSam’s Blogs dated May
15 to September 25, 2016).
About
September 30 he was told his age had been officially noticed, he was still legally
too young for the battlefield and he could take a break until his 19th birthday
if he wished. He wished all right – though not without a sense of guilt. He
left the Front for the British base camp at Harfleur and a surprise, temporary
move into (unofficial) catering…
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
For the last two weeks FootSoldierSam’s blog
has been marking the Remembrance period with extended excerpts from my father’s
accounts of the first two WW1 campaigns he fought in: Gallipoli and The Somme.
Now
I’m returning to the 100-years-ago-this-week (give or take) approach FSS is
based on. So back to Harfleur and Le Havre where, for a couple of months after
the Army’s discovery that, after all he’d been through, he was still under-age
for combat freed him from the Front, he worked with a rather Arthur Daleyish
character called Archie Barker.
This
ducker-and-diver of a comrade from his original Battalion, the 2/1st Royal
Fusiliers, ran a sort of unofficial caff at Harfleur camp, augmenting the
Tommies’ diet with little luxuries such as tinned salmon sandwiches, apple
turnovers and fresh fruit (all profits to the Captain Quartermaster, of
course.) Sam’s job involved taking a horse and cart into nearby Le Havre every
day and buying these tasty extras in the town’s market and grocery shops.
Despite his total lack of experience in the
field, he quickly grew to love this new role – as well as developing a teenaged
crush on his kind local mentor, shopkeeper and fluent English speaker
Marie-Louise Bodlet (platonic: she was married to a French soldier, Sam both
honourable and still an innocent abroad in romantic matters). Here we find him
just enjoying the oddities he observes around him, as he had done since
childhood – and remembering them in fine detail:
‘It was around that time I had the interesting experience of
watching a Frenchman buy a monocle. Barker had asked me, while in town, to call
at an optician’s shop in the Rue Tière**. I merely had to collect some
spectacles he had left there for repair.
While waiting, I
noticed a French civilian searching through a box on the counter. It contained
wire frames, mostly gold wire, and not for pairs of spectacles, but for single
lenses. He selected one and as he tried it in his left eye, I observed that the
bottom of it was distinguished by double wiring. He stood in front of the
mirror. Down went the jaw as he stretched the skin on that side of his face to
its limit. Into the orbit went the frame, the jaw relaxed, and the double wire
gripped in a fold of flesh.
This went on for
some time until he’d selected the one that suited him and handed it to the
optician for the lens to be inserted. The fascination to me was this man’s
concentration on the job in hand, the careful selection, the serious, searching
glance he gave to the reflection in the mirror — his appearance in wearing the
thing obviously of the greatest importance, though perhaps it would be of aid
to him in reading too. Until then, I had thought only a certain kind of
Englishman wore a monocle. But the quantity of frames in that box proved the
custom must have been quite common in France or, at least, in Le Havre.
Another time, back
at Harfleur camp, I saw something happen to an Army wagon, which I was glad not
to be a part of. Drawn by two mules, it climbed a fairly steep hill. Nearing
the top, the mules apparently decided the task was too much for them, so they
stopped and the weight of the wagon and its load began to pull them backwards.
They either could not or would not regain control. The last I saw of them, they
were gradually being dragged down the hill, swinging from one side of the road
to the other. Sometimes they and the wagon got crosswise and there would be a
pause. But the driver never managed to get them to resume pulling uphill. I
guess finally he must have swung them round and gone back down. Knowing the
obstinacy of mules, I wondered if they ever did reach the top of that hill.’
Next, the arrival of a
newcomer in camp gave him the chance to seek information about his older
brother – and hero really – Ted, by then 20. They’d joined the Royal Fusiliers
together in September, 1914, but often been separated and Sam hadn’t seen him
since May, 1916, when that Battalion, broken down from a thousand to about 250
by Gallipoli was disbanded – to their great chagrin because they had bonded as
comrades and trained like madmen to persuade the Army to bring them back up to
strength with new recruits.
When Sam was sent to the Kensingtons on the Somme Front, the
brothers had lost touch again:
‘I recognised [the newcomer] as a Fusilier by his badge, and
I knew that, after the break-up of our old Battalion at Rouen, my brother had
been sent to the original first-line Regiment, so there was just a chance that
this newcomer had known or heard of him, even though thousands of men wore that
badge. So I asked him about life up front, who was he with, and the long shot
came off. He had belonged to the same Company as Ted.
I eagerly asked
for news and he told me how, in a pretty sharp action, one of our Sergeants
from the original Battalion, Billy Wale, had been severely wounded in a very
much damaged advanced trench well ahead of the front line***. This soldier had
heard my brother say, “We can’t leave old Billy Wale out there. I’m going to
get him.” But this soldier didn’t know what happened after that, because he was
already wounded himself and stretcher-bearers carried him away.
So I still didn’t
know what had happened to dear old Ted in that very dangerous situation… How I
wished I’d been there to help him. Knowing how tough and self-reliant he was, I
had good reason to hope that he and the wounded Sergeant eventually came out of
it alive. Probably, a letter from home would give me my next news of my
brother, so I wrote to my parents telling them the details I had heard and
trusted they had more recent – and positive – information.’
** This doesn’t appear on a current list of Le
Havre streets – closest is Place Thiers, so maybe that’s It, or maybe the Rue
Tière has disappeared in the meantime.
*** On the Somme, that is, but I don’t know
where – if these scant details give anyone a clue then please let me know.
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: Sam’s catering
career comes to sour end – but no worries, his still-underage break from the
front continues as the Army sends him back to Blighty, an interlude of home
life… and good news of brother Ted!
* In his 70s, Sam
Sutcliffe wrote Nobody Of Any Importance,
a Memoir of his life from childhood
through Gallipoli, the Somme, Arras 1918 and eight months as a POW to the 1919
Peace parade.
No comments:
Post a Comment