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… German
submarines sank two British hospital ships en route from Le Havre to
Southampton, SS Lanfranc and SS Donegal
(April 17; the combined loss of 81 people included 18 wounded German
POWs on the Lanfranc).
On
the Western Front, the major action initiated by the Allies the previous week
continued, though inauspiciously. Under a plan devised by the French Général Robert Nivelle, British and
Canadian troops had attacked throughout the previous week and taken high ground
at Vimy, Monchy and Croisailles. Then, while they concentrated on holding their
gains, the French, supported by Russians and Moroccans, launched the Second
Battle Of The Aisne (April 16-May 9) and The Battle Of The Hills (17-20; in
Champagne). At first, this went well enough, but German artillery and
machine-gun power soon proved intractable – for instance, destroying many
French tanks before they’d advanced beyond their own lines.
Down
in Serbia, winter skirmishing turned to full-throttle conflict with the Second
Battle Of Doiran (April 22-May 8) beginning with a massive artillery exchange
between British and Bulgarian forces.
The
First Battle Of Gaza in March having proved a near miss for the Egyptian
Expeditionary Force – British, Indian and Anzac troops – after three weeks they
decided to have another go at defeating what turned out to be a much reinforced
Ottoman garrison. The Second Battle (April 17-19) involved complicated attacks
with infantry, cavalry, tanks and naval bombardment, but never looked like
succeeding (Allied casualties 6,444, Ottoman 2,000). The Ottoman Army held the
line at Gaza more or less unchallenged for six months thereafter.
Still,
over in Mesopotamia, the Samarrah Offensive continued to press the Ottoman Army
northwards from Baghdad with remarkable steadiness, barely interrupted by minor
flare-ups including the night the British Army crossed the Shatt-al-Adaim
(April 17-18) and the Action Of Istabulat (22; 12 miles southeast of Samarah) –
which seems ill-named given the Ottomans actually evacuated before they were
attacked.
[Memoir background: my father, under-age 2/1st Royal Fusiliers volunteer
and Gallipoli veteran (FootSoldierSam’s Blogs dated September 20, 2015, to
January 3, 2016) Lance Corporal Sam Sutcliffe from Edmonton, north London, had fought on the Somme Front with his
second outfit the Kensingtons (Blogs
dated May 15 to September 25, 2016)… until
officialdom spotted his age – 18 on July 6, legally too young for the
battlefield – and told him he could take a break from the fighting until his
19th birthday. He did so, not without an enduring sense of guilt. By December,
1916, he ended up posted to Harrogate, Yorkshire, and re-allocated again, this
time to the Essex Regiment 2/7th Battalion, along with a bunch of other under-age
Tommies training/marking time until they severally became eligible for the trenches
once more…]
FOOTSOLDIERSAM SPEAKS
Last week, on a sojourn up in Cramlington,
Northumberland, studying to become an instructor in the workings of the Army’s
new super-rifle, to his great surprise Sam finds his pal Mac McIntyre turning
on him. Mac, an apprentice phrenologist pre-war, entertains their hut-mates
with an evening’s bump-reading then finishes with Sam and tells him what a
selfish swine he is – for going out with a girl he fancied as his true love
back in Harrogate Sam later discovers.
Now,
though it’s back to rifle business and a move further south to conclude their
training – “they” being the quintet who’d travelled up from Harrogate, Sam, Mac
and the three newly enlisted Cambridge students, Metriam, Naylor and Rutven:
‘Our training completed, we moved down to Clipstone
Ranges**, near Mansfield. There we commenced firing practice with the new
rifle. I found it easy to handle and received a certificate stating I had
qualified as a first-class shot and instructor in its use.
However, I did
note the omission from the course of the usual 15-rounds-per-minute firing test***.
Later, I was to learn the reason why.
Mansfield, a
small, friendly town, still welcomed soldiers, and a few pleasant evenings at a
cinema and at concerts gave relaxation from the drabness of Army routine and
living quarters. Always present in my thoughts was the knowledge that great
good fortune had lately spared me from all those dangers and discomforts I
endured earlier in the war and which millions of soldiers were still coping
with. I was inwardly grateful for this respite, but sometimes a feeling of
guilt caused passing worry about the men I had left behind to face the risks
and wearing strain. Again, at such moments, I found some consolation in the
probability that not one of them had noticed my absence…
A memorable
experience arose from attending a Saturday afternoon garden party at
Sutton-in-Ashfield, a few miles west of Mansfield. It was not obvious to me why
such an event should be held so early in the year – I could recall church fetes
in July which had been heavily rained on. But brisk, sunny weather favoured
this occasion.
As usual, ladies
did most valuable work; their enjoyment came from giving pleasure to others and
it was contagious. War restrictions must have made provision of food and drink
most difficult, but they offered delicacies at low prices, organised
competitions and mild gambles, all accompanied by smiles, friendly persuasion,
and good will. Here, though briefly, the terrors of war, the agonies and
deaths, could be relegated to the back of the mind; and who should be punished
for trying to forget those things briefly, or for helping others to do so?
For me, the air I
breathed smelt sweeter, ordinary people seemed to have become more attractive,
their kind thoughts and unselfish actions had created a temporary heaven on
Earth in a small field. The affair, a modest event really, left a life-lasting
impression on my memory, an inexplicable sense of temporary, very close
communion with fellow humans – strangers, but real friends during the two or three
hours I spent with them.’
** Clipstone: in north
Nottinghamshire, east of Mansfield, near Sherwood Forest, it was then a massive
encampment of huts housing 20-30,000 men – 20 Battalions – created in 1915 on
Clipstone Heath, its first occupants Royal Fusiliers. It later gained a certain
notoriety because in 1918 soldiers of the Queens Royal West Surrey 4th/5th
Reserve Battalion and the Yorks and Lincs Regiment rioted there over delays in
their demobilisation. After the camp’s closure in 1920, the village of New
Clipstone established itself on part of the site, around a new coal mine.
*** My father is
referring to his original training with the old Lee Enfield in Malta, spring to
summer, 1915, before Gallipoli, whereof he wrote: ‘The trickiest lesson of all demanded
that we try to emulate the renowned 15 rounds a minute fired by the soldiers of
our standing Army… Each shot must still be carefully aimed, our instructors
insisted. Normally you loaded five bullets in the magazine, but for rapid fire
you inserted 10… and fired them, then dealt with five more, all in the space of
60 seconds… I failed time after time, as did many others…’ But, by the time of
their final test, he did get there: ‘… surprisingly, when the instructor totted
up the figures, they showed I was a “first-class” shot, only a few points below
the top level of marksmen qualified to work as snipers when on active service.’
All
the best –
FSS
Next week: The super
rifle exposed! Another Great British Army cock-up! Still, Sam enjoys some
high-life highbrow socialising with his Cambridge student comrades – and helps
them get a feel for the terrible frontline officer responsibilities which await
them…
* 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