The Battle of Cambrai - World War One (from the book "Neath a Foreign Sky" by Paul Allen)
R.I.P.
- Second Lieutenant George Russell Hutchinson
- Private John Wright [Lancaster]
- Private Clarence Fleming
- Lance Corporal Thomas Craven Coverley
- Flying Officer William Hugh Coverley
- Private John Henry Clark
- Lance Corporal Douglas Horton
Unlike the battle scarred Arras sector to the north, the Cambrai sector of Northern France had seen very little of the war until November 1917 and had consisted of downland and open fields interspersed with woods and copses, and more importantly, firm and dry ground. Securely ensconced behind the Hindenburg Line, by November 1917 the German held city of Cambrai, [renowned for the manufacture of a fine linen known as ‘Cambric’], had become one of the most important railheads and headquarters towns in the north.
In front of the town had lain the immensely strong fortifications of the Hindenburg Line. Some five miles deep and comprising of six lines [including the as yet unfinished workings of the Canal Du Nord], of deep anti tank trenches, each protected by its own forest of heavy gauge barbed wire tens of yards thick and concrete machine gun posts, along with a multitude of underground bunkers, the fortifications in the sector of the so called ‘Siegfried Stellung’, or Hindenburg Line, guarding Cambrai had been considered the strongest of the whole eighteen mile line. Not for nothing had the Germans christened the area ‘the Flanders Sanatorium’, the place where they had sent their infantry exhausted by the fighting at Third Wipers to recuperate.
The seeds of the operation at Cambrai had been sown by Lieutenant Colonel John Fuller the Chief of Staff of the infant Tank Corps during June 1917. Dismayed by the Tank Corps thus far dismal performance Fuller had devised an ingenious plan to show once and for all what his beloved tanks could really do given the right circumstances such as surprise, and more importantly dry ground. Fuller’s original plan had merely been on the scale of a raid, and had suggested that the terrain between Cambrai and St Quentin had been ideal for a sudden but brief attack by tanks, which could crush the German wire, allow the infantry through to widen the breach, and then let the cavalry exploit eastwards into open country. Fuller had discussed his scheme with the Tank Corps Commander, Brigadier General Hugh Elles who had eventually approved and submitted the plan to Haig’s Headquarters, where the idea had been mooted around for a while before it had been shelved, the top brass electing to concentrate all their efforts in the forthcoming Third Wipers.
Fuller had revised his plan during August 1917. By this time his simple lightening raid had developed into a larger scale operation whereby a mass of tanks would make a ‘raid on Cambrai to spread ‘alarm and despondency’ after smashing their way through the Hindenburg Line before making a rapid return to base, the overall operation taking no longer than eight hours.
The Cambrai sector of the Western Front at this time had been held by the British Third Army. Commanded by Lieutenant General Sir Julian ‘Bungo’ Byng, Third Army had been responsible for the defence oaf some forty miles of the front and had consisted of five Army Corps. Byng had also been looking at the chances of an offensive in the area of Cambrai, and liking the idea of the involvement of a large force of tanks in his envisaged operation, had found favour with Fuller’s plan, and had submitted his own battle plan to G.H.Q. during August, proposing his attack could begin somewhere in September. These plans had also initially been shelved on the grounds that the British Armies could not cope with two operations at the same time. However, by September it had become blatantly obvious that the operations at Ypres had begun to literally flounder due to the continuous bad weather and impossible conditions. Haig, by this time badly needing a successful operation elsewhere in order to draw off the German reserves in Flanders, and also raise the spirits of a British Government and nation sickened by the dreadful losses in Flanders had begun to reconsider the possibilities of the Cambrai operation. despite a preference for more limited objectives, and fears regarding the lack of troops available for the assault had finally, on the 13TH of October, authorised Byng to start planning his attack, albeit with Haig reserving the right to close the operation down after 48 hours if it had shown no signs of success. ‘Z Day’ had been fixed for Dawn on Tuesday the 20TH of November. By this time Fuller’s ‘limited’ plan of operations had gone out of the window, the assault was no longer to be merely a tank raid, it was now to be a full-scale attack aimed at securing a breakthrough.
Basically Byng had planned for an initial breakthrough by seven divisions of infantry and three brigades of tanks towards, and around the town of Cambrai on a frontage of around 10,000 yards between the Canals De l’Escaut and Du Nord. The first objective had been the capture of the village of Flesquieres and the ridge bearing the same name, which overlooks the Hindenburg Line to the south west of Cambrai. From there the attack would swing to the north across the Bapaume - Cambrai road, to take Bourlon Ridge. Once all these objectives had been achieved the Cavalry Corps were to sweep through the newly created gap to the south and east of Cambrai, in effect to surround the city, whilst a combined force of infantry, tanks, and cavalry had rounded up the Germans trapped in the so called Cambrai ‘pocket’, before advancing north and eastwards towards the town of Valenciennes.
Byng’s plan for battle had been audacious and highly innovative. Not only for the use of massed tank and aircraft formations, but also for the lack of a preliminary bombardment, which in the past had inevitably alerted the enemy to a forthcoming assault. At Cambrai the one thousand or so supporting artillery pieces would not open fire until Zero Hour when they would concentrate their fire on the enemy’s positions and destroy them with a newly adopted ‘jumping barrage’, whereby the guns would move in a series of fairly big ‘lifts’, each of a few hundred yards onto the next German position, and counter battery firing against enemy artillery would only begin once the tanks and infantry had started to move forward. In addition to the six divisions of infantry [another two would be in support and a further three held in reserve], over four hundred of the new Mark 1V tanks, and 1,000 artillery pieces to be used in the Cambrai operation, no less than fourteen Squadrons of aircraft from the Royal Flying Corps 1ST Brigade would take part for observation and ground attack.
By the beginning of November preparations for the forthcoming operation had been far advanced. The main difficulty that had been encountered had been the accumulation of over four hundred tanks. In a Corps barely a year old, at the time of the initial planning the Tank Corps had not possessed this number of machines, the largest concentration of tanks ever to be seen. However, The number required had eventually been scraped together from numerous workshops, army supply depots, and docks. Some had come direct from the manufacturers in England, whilst others had been sent to the front from the Tank Corps Training Depot at Bovington, Dorset. A few of the tanks used at Cambrai had already been blooded in the ill fated tank operations of the Somme and Third Wipers, their scars hastily patched up and raring to at last show their mettle.
Another logistical nightmare had been the amount of stores that had had to be transported to the front. The tanks alone had needed over 165,000 gallons of petrol and 75,000 pounds of grease, 500,000 rounds of ammunition for their six pounder [57mm] guns together with over five million rounds of machine gun ammunition. In addition the artillery had been supplied with over five thousand tons of shells, ranging from the 4.5 inch required by the howitzers, to the 18pounders of the field guns [a trifling amount compared to Third Wipers, where the British artillery had expended over 465,000 tons of ammunition costing a staggering £84,000,000 pounds].
The final approval for the operation had been issued by General Headquarters on the 13TH of November, two days later the tanks had begun to clank their way to the front under the cover of darkness. With their commanders walking in front the tanks drivers had steered their extremely noisy petrol fume filled monsters between the two strips of white tape laid on the ground towards various ‘laying up point’s behind the front, the noise of their engines being drowned by machine gun fire. Of these nocturnal, and often dangerous operations one of the tank commanders [F.R.J. Jefford M.B.E.] had later recorded…
‘The tank commanders went out on foot under cover of darkness and laid white tapes through the maze of trenches to the points behind the front line. The tanks reduced speed so that the engines were just ticking over by the time the starting point was reached. It was a dangerous operation for the commanders, who had to walk in front of their tanks to guide the drivers. The greatest hazard was barbed wire; for if the commander got caught in this the chances were that he would be crushed down by his own tank. In fact, we lost several officers in this way before the battle started’…
By the night of the eighteenth the tanks had been hidden, under trees and in the ruins of houses. When they had all been in their positions and covered in camouflage netting their crews had been sent out with brooms and shovels to obliterate any trace of tank tracks. The whole operation had been considered as a complete success, the tanks and various petrol dumps had been so well concealed that many units in the vicinity had never known they were there.
The tanks had remained concealed until the fall of darkness the following evening, when, at 5pm, the tankmen had started up their machines to drive out of their hiding places to begin their four miles approach march to the front line. Once again the commanders had led the way on foot, many opting to guide their drivers with the glow from a lit cigarette. The drive had taken seven agonising hours at an average speed of around half a mile per hour. By midnight the tanks had reached their various start points for the morrow, where, after greasing the rollers of their steeds many of the tank crews had ‘turned in’ to in an attempt to catch a few hours of sleep before the off.
Facing the British had been the German Second Army under General Georg von der Marwitz. This army had been part of the Army Group commanded by Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria, and had consisted of six divisions of infantry divided into two corps, or groups, the Arras and Caudry Groups. Second Army had been aware for some time of the impending British operation and had reinforced a number of units, especially those around the village of Havrincourt, with men brought directly from Flanders. However, the thought of masses of tanks, or anything else fort that matter, being able to ford the wide anti tank trenches of the Hindenburg Line had been thought of as utterly preposterous, and had disregarded the warnings.
By 5am everyone and everything had been in their allotted positions. At this time the British infantry had begun to cut through the British wire in readiness for the off, this had been seen by the Germans who had responded with the launching of numerous rockets and Very lights together with a fusillade of rifle and mortar fire. This had soon been taken up by the artillery, which had opened a terrific bombardment on the British positions. For a while it had seemed that the game was up, however, thirty minutes after it had begun, the firing had stopped as sharply as it had begun.
Tuesday the twentieth of November had dawned very slowly, grey and overcast. The attackers would later recall how the shapes of woods and trees had begun to emerge out of the fine ground mist together with the view of a rolling expanse of matted grass broken with patches of browned thistles and cow parsley, turning to a brownish green in colour. Partridges had spluttered into flight, whilst crows, intermixed with skylarks had begun to wheel noisily overhead. Of the enemy there had been no sign, in fact, there had only been the sight of the dense expanses of rusting barded wire to spoil an otherwise peaceful scene.
At 6am the tank crews had begun to get into their machines. By this time the gunners and drivers had been wearing various items of body armour, including armour plated face masks with slotted eye holes and chain mail veils hanging down to cover their mouths and lower faces. These had been their only protection against the tiny particles of red hot metal and paint that would fly around inside the tank once heavy machine gun fire had begun to pepper the outside walls of the vehicle. Once inside the men had been in a world of their own…
’Nothing could be seen outside, nothing could be heard, while inside one half shaded lamp gave an eerie, murky glimmer in the stygian gloom. The walls represented the limits of one’s world and the crew of eight—and the three carrier pigeons—the population. One was completely isolated. Existence depended on the driving skill of the driver and the wits of the officer. Tanks on the left and tanks on the right might be seen through the tiny peepholes in the armour plate, but they existed merely as other worlds. Once we started there was no co-operation between the tanks, no tactics, no external command—only the objectives we had been given and the method of attack we had been taught during training’…[1]
By ten past six the front row of tanks, most carrying on their noses huge tightly bound bundles of brushwood known as ‘fascines’ which would be dropped into the deep enemy trenches to make a bridge, had begun to move forward to the start line. In the centre of the formation had been ‘H’ Battalion. Amongst it’s machines had been one named ‘Hilda’ and it had been in this tank that the Commander of the Tank Corps, Brigadier General Hugh Elles himself, had taken the unprecedented step of taking up residence to advance into no mans land at the head of his force carrying the distinctive brown, red, and green pendant of the fledgling Tank Corps [designed by Elles and Fuller, the colours of the Tank Corps symbolise mud, fighting spirit, and fields for good going].
At precisely twenty minuets past six the engines of the tanks, until the merely purring, had broken into a loud roar as they had approached the British front line. A witness to their advance had later testified.
‘We heard the sound of tank engines warming up. The first glimpse of dawn was beginning as we stood waiting for the big bang that would erupt behind us at the end of the countdown. The tanks, looking like giant toads, became visible against the skyline as they approached the top of the slope…[2]
At the same time that the tanks had begun their advance the artillery had begun their bombardment of the enemy’s positions with a mixture of smoke, high explosives, and shrapnel, whilst out of the sky had roared the many Royal Flying Corps aircraft. Buzzing like an angry swarm of Hornets, the biplanes had joined in the battle by spraying the German positions with a deadly hail of machine gun fire. Thus had begun the Battle for Cambrai.
The story of the success of the first day’s operations have been told many times. The infantry had followed in the wake of the tanks and had soon crossed the five hundred yards of no mans land and had made their way with ease through the gaps in the wire created by the steel monsters. By 8am that day the whole of the Hindenburg Line between Havrincourt in the south to the Canal de l’Escaut, to the north had been taken. The once apparently impregnable barbed wire defences of the Hindenburg Line had literally been trampled flat and dragged to a side by the twenty-eight ton tanks like so much matchwood.
Soon the tanks had been ranging to the east attacking the remaining defenders in the communication trenches, strongpoints, and dugouts with their six pounders and machine guns. Hundreds of prisoners were walking back towards the old British line, and tanks and infantry were moving inexorably towards their second objective, the Hindenburg Support Line. By midday the attackers had secured a large part of the support line, advanced over two miles on a six mile front, wiped out three German divisions, and taken many guns and over two thousand prisoners for a cost of around four thousand killed, wounded and missing. However by the end of the end of the day one hundred and seventy nine of the tanks had either been knocked out by enemy action, or disabled by mechanical failure.
The news of the smashing of the Hindenburg Line and the great advance had broken in Britain the following day. On that momentous day, throughout the length and breadth of the country church bells, silenced since the beginning of the war, had been rung in jubilation of the magnificent victory. Of course the news had been emblazoned all the front pages of the nation’s newspapers including ‘The Scarborough Mercury’, which on Friday the 23RD of November had proclaimed;
‘Byng’s Bombshell - Most sensational attack of the war - A lengthy article had followed the proclamation, which in effect had said that the British attack had achieved all it’s objectives [including some which would never be taken], and everything had basically been fine in the kitchen. However, whilst this may, on the whole, have been the case regarding Third Corps operations, the contrary had applied to General Sir Charles Woollcombe’s Fourth Corps, and whilst the newsreaders of Scarborough, and the remainder of Britain had been digesting the largely inaccurate and exaggerated news from the Cambrai front during the evening of the twenty third, over in France, thousands of men belonging to the Corps had been fighting a savage battle for their lives.
Standing in the middle of the British assault, Flesquaires Ridge had been an important German observation position and should have been taken by the 51ST[Highland] Division on the first day. From the outset General George Harper, the C.O. of the Division, had been against the use of tanks, and although he had reluctantly accepted the order to use his Division’s allotted seventy machines he had done so without enthusiasm. Therefore at Zero Hour the attack had gone in as prescribed with the tanks in front, however, unlike all the other British Divisions, the ‘little fella’s’ of the 51ST had been ordered to remain well behind, not close in to the tracks like everyone else.
Inevitably, the essential cooperation between tanks and infantry had been lost, and as a result although the Division had breached the Hindenburg Line with ease, Harper had decided to stick to his original plan and had ordered his men to wait for one hour before pressing on to attack the ridge and village of Flesquires. During that vital hour the Germans had reinforced the positions with artillery, which, lying in ambush, had destroyed eleven machines before the infantry had started forward again.
Harper’s infantry had moved forward again at around 9-30am. Once again they had let their tanks go forward alone, utterly unaware that enemy guns were waiting on the far side of the ridge. As the machines had gone over the hill, exposing their lightly armoured underbellies, these guns had opened fire with the result that in less than thirty minutes twenty seven tanks had been set on fire, destroyed, and abandoned along the ridge, therefore at just after 10am on the first day the assault had been stalled. Heavy machine gun and artillery fire had been sweeping the ridge and the tanks, which could have knocked it out, had been destroyed.
By late afternoon the specially trained anti tank gun battery which had been responsible for the destruction of so many tanks had been knocked out and six machines had managed to enter the village. Nevertheless a lack of coordination between tanks had infantry had ensured no easy victory, and soon these machines had been driven out by heavy fire. The attack had been renewed by the infantry. Going forward without tank support, the Jocks had been decimated during fierce house to house fighting by machine gun fire, the survivors being forced to retire. Severe fighting had continued throughout the remainder of the day, a day where a battalion of German infantry supported by a few gun had succeeded in stopping the advance of a whole British Division together with a brigade of tanks [during that night the Germans had abandoned Flesquieres without a fight. The deserted village had been taken by the 51ST Division early the next day].
On the left of 51ST Division had been General Walter Braithwaite’s 62ND [2ND West Riding] Division. Formed from Second Line West Yorkshire Territorial Army units during 1914, the Division had arrived on the Western Front in January 1917. Badly mauled during operations at Bullecourt during May 1917, the Cambrai ‘push’ had been the unit’s first operation since then and had acquitted themselves admirably during the initial advance. Having reached the village of Havrincourt without too much bother the 62ND had encountered stiff opposition there, especially at the village’s Chateau, where the 2ND/5TH Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment had lost seven officers and a hundred and fifty other ranks. Despite these losses the village had been taken by 10-15 that day, and the formation had swept onwards towards their next objective, the village of Graincourt.
Spearheaded by General Roland Boys Bradford’s [at 25 years of age the holder of a Victoria, and Military Cross, and Britain’s youngest Brigadier General] 186TH Brigade, the Division had met little resistance until the unit, accompanied by a company of tanks and several squadrons of cavalry, had reached the outskirts of the village when a pair of 77 mm field guns positioned at the eastern edge of the village had knocked out six tanks with direct hits. Three more tanks had subsequently arrived from another direction to destroy the offending guns, and enter the virtually undamaged Graincourt with the Yorkshiremen hard on their heels. Following the fall of this village Bradford had ordered some of the infantry and cavalry to advance towards their next objective, the village of Anneux, including the remains of a sugar beet factory standing on the road to Cambrai, a few miles away.
Whilst this had been taking place Bradford had also ordered another patrol, consisting of three tanks, to reconnoitre the nearby Boulon Wood to see what the situation had been there. The patrol had return an hour later to report that they had seen the enemy retreating towards Cambrai, and much more importantly, they had abandoned their positions in the wood and village, leaving them open to whoever wished to take them. By this time, however, Bradford had received orders not to advance any further. Later in the day his cavalry had been held up in front of Anneux by machine gun fire, and that night the young General had ordered his men to withdraw to Graincourt, thus missing the golden opportunity of taking the vital Boulon Ridge and village without spilling blood. It would not happen again.
The Germans had spent the night of the twentieth trying to recover from the effects of a most traumatic day. They had lost the better part of three infantry divisions along with a large number of artillery pieces. At one point during that wet night, the Germans, expecting the arrival of the British at any moment at the gates of Cambrai, had begun to prepare for street fighting. However, by this time the British advance had slowed and had failed to make an exploitation of the situation. Consequently the ever resilient German’s had scraped together a scratch force consisting of every spare man, including cooks, bottle washers, and typists, who could be found to form a defensive line, known as the ‘Cantaing Line’, between the villages of Moeuvres, Cantaing, and Revelon, this they had been told to hold at all costs until the arrival of reinforcement, probably on the 23RD.
The morning of the twenty first of November had been cold, wet and miserable. Tired and hungry after their four miles advance the previous day the men of Third and Fourth Corps had continued with their assault. Whilst Third Corps had concentrated their efforts in the drive towards the Masnieres-Beaurevior line to the east of the villages of Marcoing and Masnieres, Fourth Corps had been ordered to take the all important Boulon Wood, the capture of which by this time had become of ‘paramount importance’.
By 6am that day the Jocks of 51ST Highland had moved into the abandoned Flesquieres and pushed onwards over the ridge towards Cantaing, where they had been greeted by heavy machine gun fire. Once again Harper had insisted that his ‘little fella’s’ attack the village without tank support with the inevitable result that the men of General Buchanan’s 154TH Brigade had been cut to pieces by the veritable hail of machine gun bullets. Thirteen tanks had eventually arrived by midday, which despite two of their number being knocked out almost immediately, had roared into Cantaing at the head at the head of a charge by a squadron of dismounted cavalry [The Queen’s Bay’s]. Fierce street fighting had ensued, nevertheless, by 1-30pm that afternoon the combined force of tanks, cavalry, and infantrymen had captured the village along with four hundred prisoners.
Fourth Corps next objective had been the capture of a village named Fontaine Notre Dame. Barely two miles from the outskirts of Cambrai, eight tanks under the command of Major Pearson had been given the task of pushing onwards to the village during the late afternoon with orders to hold it until the arrival of the infantry. The tank’s advance of four thousand yards had been along a narrow ridge between, on the left, the towering bulk of Boulon Wood [which by this time had been reoccupied in force by the Germans], and La Folie Wood on the right.
Exposed to severe machine gun and artillery fire from three sides from both positions the tanks had nevertheless ran the gauntlet, and Miraculously, despite the intense fire, none of the tanks had been seriously hit. Soon the tanks had been roaring into the village at their top speed of around five miles per hour, with all gun blazing away, the six pounders silencing the numerous enemy machine gun posts, and in addition, two field guns, one situated in the village, and another near Boulon Wood. Men from the Seaforth, and Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders [51ST Division] had appeared half an hour later having lost many of their number near the hamlet of La Justice [out of 375 men of the Seaforth only 120 had reached Fontaine, the Argyll’s suffering almost as badly. At dusk the tanks ad returned to Cantaing to refuel and rest their crews leaving the weakened handful of Highlanders to defend the village believing that more men were on their way. There were no reinforcements forthcoming, by this time Harper had ordered his Division to halt where they had stood and to make no further attacks on the Cantaing Line until the 62ND Division had taken Boulon Ridge.
The street fighting at Fontaine had caused heavy casualties amongst the Jocks. By the end of the day the Seaforth and Argyll’s could barely muster two hundred men between them. That night had fortunately been quiet, food had been sent up to the meagre garrison but no desperately needed ammunition. At around 10pm a horse drawn convoy of German wagons had arrived at the village obviously unaware that the British had been there. Surprised to find fallen trees blocking their way the convoy had drawn to a halt, at which point men from the Seaforths had sprang out of the darkness to capture the first wagon in the line.
The other vehicles had managed to make a getaway. Later the same night the battered Argyll’s along with a number of Gordon Highlanders had been withdrawn from the village to take up defensive positions half way down the main road to towards Anneux, leaving the handful of Seaports to guard a perimeter around Fontaine some 3,500 yards in length, an impossible task for the few surviving men. Throughout the remains of the night the Jocks had got what sleep they could for out of the stillness of the night, in the not too distant city of Cambrai, they could the sound of trains arriving with German reinforcements destined intent on continuing the fight the following day.
Meanwhile, the 62ND Division’s assault on Boulon Ridge had been undertaken by ‘Boys’ Bradford’s redoubtable 186TH Brigade. Consisting of four battalions of the Duke of Wellington’s [West Riding] Regiment, the unit, delayed by the non-arrival of twenty tanks had begun its assault at around 10am and despite heavy German resistance, by mid day the formation had captured the village of Anneux. This had been the high point of a rather dismal, and costly, day for Bradford’s men who had, not for the want of trying, failed to achieve the remainder of their objectives. The Brigade had made no further progress that day, and with no possibility of being reinforced, with fall of night Bradford’s weary but valiant men had been withdrawn to Graincourt having captured over a thousand prisoners and thirty eight enemy artillery pieces since the opening day of the offensive. Their place in the line had been taken over by Brigadier General The Viscount Hampden’s 185TH Brigade [also from 62ND Division], albeit with difficulty due to the intense German harassing fire.
Whilst the battered remnants of the Duke of Wellingtons had been making their weary way to the rear, in Third Army’s Headquarters Byng had been receiving reports of the day’s operation from the various units of Third and Fourth Corps, non had made light reading. Poor staff work, plus a delay in getting orders forward following the cutting of telephone lines [usually by the tanks], combined with General Harper’s refusal to fight a modern battle had resulted in a general slowing down of the offensive.
The infantry had rapidly become accustomed to the comforting presence of tanks, even Harper’s ‘little fella’s’ had by this time got used to the idea, and had become increasingly reluctant to advance without them. The cavalry, waiting for the order to advance on Cambrai had still been waiting and had come to be regarded by the infantry as ‘useless frills cluttering up the battlefield’, at least in their mounted role, though some cavalrymen had done sterling service when used as foot soldiers. In fact, since the breaking of the Hindenburg Line two days before, very little had been achieved by Third Corps, and Fourth Corps together with the Cavalry Corps, had only achieved the objectives that they should have taken the day before.
With the approach of the forty eight hour deadline for pulling the plug on the Cambrai operation, Byng had forwarded a report of the day’s happenings to General Headquarters, which had basically told Haig that Fontaine had been captured, but Bourlon Ridge and Moeuvres had remained in German hands, and little progress had been made on Third Corps front against the L’Escaut Canal.
Seeing the dismal results laid before him Haig could have closed the Cambrai operation down at this stage as Fuller had originally intended, and be contented in the knowledge that the ‘raid’ on the Hindenburg Line had struck a serious punch to the confidence of the Germans, who had also lost a large number of men and guns during the assault. Nevertheless, with his reputation at an all time low following the recent debacle at Passchendaele, Haig, still seeking the wonderful victory, which would keep him in his job, had opted to continue the operation.
Following his decision to continue Haig and Byng had conferred on how to carry on with the battle and had drawn up a plan which had called for the closing down of Third Corps offensive, the Corps was now to go on the defensive and hold the line at the Canal de L’ Escaut, whilst Fourth Corps were to concentrate all their efforts in the capture of Bourlon Ridge. In effect, an operation which had once been an advance on a six miles front had become a battle for one objective, a low ridge of French earth rising from the west side of the Bapaume to Cambrai road barely a hundred and fifty feet in height crowned by six hundred acres of thick, now battle scarred woodland. Beyond this natural fortress, on the lower slope of the other side of the ridge had been Bourlon Village.
The operation to capture Bourlon Wood had been renewed on Friday the twenty third of November by the relatively ‘fresh’ 40TH Division, which had replaced the exhausted 62ND Division in the front line by dawn that day. The Division’s attack had begun at around 10-30 am on that wet and windy morning having been preceded by an artillery bombardment on the edge of the wood which had turned into a creeping barrage which had advanced one hundred yards every five minutes once the various unit’s had begun their advance. This assault had initially gone ‘fairly well’, the division capturing most of Bourlon Wood. However, that afternoon the German 3RD Guard Division had mounted a vicious counter attack which had almost resulted in the enemy retaking the hard fought for crest of Boulon Ridge, the attack only just being beaten back by the desperate efforts of men of the South Wales Borderers and Welch Regiment.
By dusk the Welshmen had managed to retake the crest of the ridge. Nevertheless, by the end of the day Bourlon village had still remained in German hands. The utterly expended 40TH Division had eventually been withdrawn from the line during the night of Major General Ponsonby’s 25TH and early hours of the 26TH of November, by this time the formation had lost a hundred and seventy two of its officers along with over three thousand men, the heaviest losses of all the British divisions which had entered the hell of the Boulon Ridge fighting.
Vicious fighting around, and for the village, had continued for the next four days, the final assault on Bourlon being carried out by the ‘refreshed’ 62ND Division on Tuesday the 27TH of November. By this time snow had fallen, however, on the day that the assault had gone in the snow had turned to rain.
Accompanied by nineteen tanks the Division’ 186TH and 187TH Brigades had begun their assault in the wake of a bombardment of the village with shrapnel and high explosives which had begun at 6-30 that morning. On the left, the men of 187TH Brigade’s 2/5TH York and Lancaster’s and 2/5TH King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry had been led towards the ravaged village by eleven tanks and had soon run into strong barbed wire defences which had been untouched by the bombardment. Here the two battalions had been cut to pieces, especially the KOYLI, by a veritable hurricane of machine gun and rifle fire, whilst ten of their tanks had been disabled by shell fire [during the attack five of the nineteen tanks had literally been lost never to be seen again].
On the right of the assault, Bradford’s elite 186TH Brigade had fared little better, the three battalion’s of Duke of Wellington’s being stopped in their tracks by the intense fire having achieved none of their objectives. During that afternoon the Germans had mounted their inevitable counter attack, which had caused all the attacking force to be withdrawn to the high ground in the rear. Once again Briathwaite’s Division had been unable to capture Boulon and could do no more. The Division had eventually been relieved, during a bombardment of gas shells, by the 47TH Division on the 28TH of November. By this time the division had lost one hundred and fifty four officers and three thousand one hundred and seventy eight other ranks. Amongst these appalling casualties had been twenty two years old; Second Lieutenant George Russell Hutchinson.
A Subaltern in the 2ND/8TH [Leeds Rifles] Battalion of the Prince of Wales’s Own [West Yorkshire Regiment], George, known popularly by family and friends as ‘Russell’, had been born in the West Yorkshire city of Leeds at No.11 Royal Park View, Headingly, on the 14TH of June 1895, and had been the only son of Maud Francis [formally Brayshaw], and ‘Auctioneer’ Charles Brown Hutchinson, who at the time of their son’s death had been the proprietors of the Criterion Hotel located on the corner of Scarborough’s North Street and Castle Road [once a favoured watering hole of the author, in 2005 the ‘Cri’ is known as ‘The Castle Tavern’].
Having spent most of his formative years in the polluted atmosphere of Leeds, Russell had arrived in Scarborough with his parents during 1906, to live at No.57 Tennyson Avenue. The Hutchinson’s had remained at this address until 1910, when Charles had opened a fruit and vegetable business at No.79 Victoria Road, the family, by this time joined by daughter Gertrude Lillian [born 1907], living in the rooms above the shop.
A pupil of Scarborough’s Central Board School until the age of thirteen, Russell had left the school at the end of the summer term of 1908 to begin work as a trainee journalist with Scarborough’s daily newspaper ‘The Scarborough Evening News’, which had been, and still is, located at No.19 Aberdeen Walk. Hutchinson had remained in this post until 1912, when at the age of seventeen he had left the town for the Midlands city of Leicester, where he had been taken onto the staff of the city’s ‘Leicester Mercury’ newspaper.
Russell Hutchinson’s military career had begun in the autumn of 1914 when he had enlisted into the army at Leicester with the multitudes of hopeful recruits spoiling for a fight before the war had ended, as most people at the time had falsely believed, before that forthcoming Christmas. George had initially enlisted for the duration of the war into the Army Cyclist Corps and had served for a time as a Private [Service Number 12898] with this unit. However, during November 1914 he had transferred to the newly formed [September] 7TH [Service] Battalion of the Leicestershire Regiment [No.11391], which had been a unit of the 110TH Brigade of the 37TH Division.
Following a period of intensive training on Salisbury Plain, by June 1915 Hutchinson and the remainder of 37TH Division had been deemed fit for Foreign Service, and on the twenty fifth of the month the formation had been inspected at Sidbury Hill [Wiltshire] by King George the Fifth. The following month the Division had received orders to proceed to France and by the second of August 1915 Hutchinson had been stationed at Tilques, a town situated to the north west of St Omer. By September 1915 Hutchinson’s Battalion had been in trenches to the north of Fonquevillers [better known to the Tommy's as ‘Funkyvillers’]
Gazetted as a Temporary Second Lieutenant during August 1916, following his ‘passing out’ from Officer Training Hutchinson, wearing a solitary Second Lieutenants ‘pip’ on his sleeve cuff, had returned to Scarborough for a period of leave with his parents, who by this time, had been resident at the Criterion Hotel, his father having recently [July] taken over the Hotel’s licence from Edward Hall Newham, after having worked for the previous two years as a Barman for Mrs Mary A.R. Story [The widow of William Good Story who had passed away ‘very suddenly’ on the 30TH of October 1914 at the age of 53years], the proprietor of Queen Street’s, ‘Castle Hotel’ [demolished during the 1990’s the site of the hotel is in 2005 occupied by a block of maisonettes known as ‘Blackfriars’].
George Hutchinson had joined the 2ND Line Territorial Force’s Leeds Rifles [commanded by Lieutenant Colonel A.H. James] during October 1916 whilst the unit had been carrying out an intensive course of training on Salisbury Plain with the remainder of 62ND Division prior to the formation being sent overseas. The Division, commanded by Major General Walter Braithwaite, had eventually received its orders to proceed to France at the opening of January 1917 and on the fifteenth of February the formation had moved into the front line for the first time, in the waterlogged Ancre Sector of the Somme front [that same day the division had suffered it’s first casualty, when 21years old Leeds born, 2976 Private Charles Edward Ward, belonging to the 2ND/ 7TH West Yorkshire’s had been killed by a sniper’s bullet].
During April 1917 Hutchinson, and the remainder of 62ND Division had taken their places in the offensive at Arras, when they had been thrown into the ‘blood tub’ that had been the so-called First Battle of Bullecourt. Previously untried in battle the formation had been given the impossible task of capturing the village of Bullecourt, an objective which had defied even the battle hardened Australians. Nonetheless, the West Yorkshiremen had been assigned to the taking of the village However, on the day that the unit had expected to begun their assault [11TH of April], the unit’s supporting tanks had not arrived and the division had received a report that the Aussies had taken Bullecourt. This had not agreed with the information being brought back by various reconnaissance patrols that had seen no Australians in the village and had also reported the village’s defences to be intact and that snipers and machine guns had been active, and that to attack would be suicidal. In the end the Division had not made their attack, for which the formation’s Commanding Officer had been severely criticized.
Following the affair in April, the 62ND Division had launched an unsuccessful attack on Bullecourt, once again, with the intention of taking the village on the 3RD of May. Assisted by eight tanks the attack had failed due to what the ‘Official History’ had termed ‘the inability of the infantry to follow the tanks’ [3], and makes no mention of the withering wall of machine gun and shell fire into which the West Yorkshiremen had been forced to advance that day. Extremely fortunate not to be amongst the 116 officers and 2,860 other ranks of 62ND Division reported killed, wounded, or missing during the operations on the third of May, on the fourteen of the month, Hutchinson, had been moved with the remainder of the Division, to Courcelles to refit, train and await reinforcements. Whilst at Courcelles the officers and men had either been billeted in ruined houses or had camped out under canvas and over the ensuing months had carried much hard training. Of this period the West Yorkshire Regiment’s Historian [Wyrall] comments;
‘They had lost heavily at Bullecourt, but they had shown a fine fighting spirit, though their first action had shown [as battalions newly arrived in France and Flanders always showed when they underwent their baptism of fire] that further training was necessary’…[4]
The seemingly endless rounds of training endured by the men of the 62ND Division had come to an end during late June 1917, when the formation had received orders to relieve the 20TH Division in the fairly quiet Noreuil- Lagnicourt sector of the Western Front. Whilst there the various battalions of West Yorkshire infantry had carried out numerous raids on the opposing enemy positions until August when they had once again returned to trench duties in the Bullecourt sector of Northern France, where they had remained until they had been summoned to the battle for Boulon Wood during mid November.
On Friday the thirtieth of November Maud and Charlie Hutchinson had received the dreaded buff coloured official envelope containing a telegram from the West Yorkshire Regiment’s Records Office [located at York’s Fulford Barracks], informing them of a communiqué having been received from the front reporting their beloved son as having been listed as ‘killed in action’ on the 22ND of November 1917. The heart wrenching tidings had eventually been featured in ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 7TH of December 1917;
‘Lieutenant Hutchinson reported fallen - Mr Chas Hutchinson, of the Criterion Hotel, Castle Road, received an official telegram on Friday with the intimation that his son, Sec-Lieutenant George Russell Hutchinson, has fallen in action on the 22ND of November.
Hopes are entertained that there may be some mistake, as Lieut. Hutchinson’s parents as well as a friend have letters from him, which are dated by him at the head of the letter November 24TH. Mr. Hutchinson is, in consequence, making further enquiries.
Lieut. Hutchinson began his career as a journalist in the office of this journal, from which he removed to Leicester and there enlisted after the outbreak of war. He was engaged at different times in France on special duty, such as interpreter. In August last he obtained his commission and was drafted to the [West] Yorkshire Regiment, being in Scarborough on leave about that time’….
The uncertainty surrounding the death of George Hutchinson had been settled within a week, as further news of the officer had appeared in the following week’s ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 14TH of December;
‘Lieut. G. R. Hutchinson - When the telegram arrived announcing the death in action of Second Lieutenant George Russell, son of Mr. Hutchinson, Criterion Hotel, Castle Road, it was thought possible that a mistake had occurred as his parents received a letter from him dated two days after that on which his death was reported. Inquiries since instituted, however, do not support the hope, as a letter has now been received from Lieut. [Ernest] Wrightson, of the same regiment, conveying the sad news that Lieutenant Hutchinson was killed by shrapnel. Lieut. Wrightson was with him a few minutes before he met his death’…
Although George Russell is officially recorded as having lost his life on Monday the 26TH of November 1917, his name is not mentioned in the Regimental History, the only officer casualties of the 2/8th West Yorkshire’s at this time, according to Wyrall, had been one killed [twenty years old Second Lieutenant Alan Webster Shann] and two others wounded on the 27th of November. Neither is George’s name mentioned in the Battalion’s ‘War Diary’ entry for the 22ND of the month, therefore, it must be assumed that he had been killed between these dates. [4]
No identifiable remains of Lieutenant Hutchinson had ever been recovered from the Cambrai battlefield and at the end of the war his name had been included on Cambrai Memorial to the Missing. Located in Louveral Military Cemetery, near the small village of Louveral, some sixteen kilometres to the south west of Cambrai, the Memorial contains the names of over seven thousand servicemen belonging the United Kingdom and South Africa, who had lost their lives during the battle and the subsequent fighting in December 1917, who like George, possess ‘no known grave’.
George’s name [and that of Leeds born Lieutenant Shann] is to be found on Panel five of the Memorial.
In Scarborough, apart from the Oliver’s Mount Memorial, George Hutchinson’s name is commemorated on a gravestone in Dean Road Cemetery [Section F, Border, Grave 54], which also contains the name of his Leeds born father and mother. The eldest son of C.H. Hutchinson of Kirkgate Market, Leeds [1919], Charlie Hutchinson had died at the Criterion Hotel during Thursday the 16TH of October 1919 at the age of forty nine years. Following the death of her husband Maud Hutchinson had remained for a time as the proprietor of the Criterion Hotel until the mid 1920’s when she had retired, to live in Scarborough for many years at No.32 Elmville Avenue.
The daughter of George Brayshaw of Beeston Hill, Leeds, Maud Hutchinson had passed away at No1 Prospect Bank, the home of her remaining child, Gertrude Lillian [the wife of Edward Leslie Haldane], almost exactly thirty eight years after her beloved George, on Friday the 18TH of November 1955 at the age of 82 years, her remains had been interred at the site following a service of remembrance at St Columba’s Church during the afternoon of Monday the 21ST of November. The Dean Road memorial also contains the name of Gertrude Elizabeth Brayshaw, Maud Hutchinson’s sister, late of No18 Cleveland Avenue, who had died in a Scarborough Nursing Home on Thursday the sixth of December 1945.
A year after the death of the officer, on Friday the 29TH of November 1918, the following dedication had appeared in the ‘In Memoriam’ section of that afternoon’s edition of ‘The Scarborough Mercury’;
‘In dear and loving memory of Lieutenant G.R. [Russell] Hutchinson 2ND/8TH West Yorkshire Regiment, killed in action 27TH November 1917- Nora’…
Throughout the night of the 21st of November the beleaguered handful of 1ST/4TH Seaforth Highlanders holding the ruins of Fontaine Notre Dame had listened to the sounds of their nearby enemy making preparations to renew their attack the following day. Well aware of being in boxed into a salient, and therefore extremely vulnerable to attack from three sides the Jocks, crouched amongst the ruins of ‘their’ village, although holding little hope of keeping a grip on the village had nevertheless chosen to make a fight of it.
The morning of Thursday the twenty second of November had dawned with mist and a cold wind [it would turn to rain later in the day] at first light the Germans had sent aircraft over the village obviously spotting for the artillery. Soon afterwards the enemy had begun to shell the village and the Highlanders had seen German infantry massing for the attack about a thousand yards away on both sides of the village. By this time the Jocks had fired off numerous rockets requesting fire support, however, none of these had been seen owing to the mist and soon they had been embroiled in a desperate fight for their lives. Outnumbered by more than five to one, the outcome of the battle had been inevitable, nevertheless, the ensuing six hours of ferocious fighting had been a time of extraordinary gallantry on the part of the Seaforth’s who had held off a force of at least regimental strength.
By 2-30 that afternoon the battle of Fontaine had ended. With no ammunition, and precious few men remaining, the surviving Jocks had got clear of the village to make their perilous way across the shallow valley to the British lines at Cantaing, where, following a post battle call of the regimental roll it had been found the battalion had lost eleven officers killed or wounded, thirty other ranks killed, a hundred and ninety two wounded, and further eighty six men were ‘missing’.
With the battle of Cambrai rapidly swinging in favour of the Germans and the village of Fontaine, the gateway to Cambrai, now lost, Haig had pressured Byng into bringing his reserves into the battle, insisting that Fontaine be retaken and Bourlon Wood captured by the 27TH of November, at the latest. The almost impossible task of Retaking Fontaine had eventually been handed to the Guards Division, which had duly taken over the British line from the Fifty First [Highland] Division.
The fate of the men about to take part in the assault on Fontaine had been sealed at a high level meeting that had taken place in a hut at Havrincourt the previous day. Attended initially by with Lieutenant General Holcombe [4TH Corps C.O.] Major Generals Fielding, Guards Division, and Braithwaite, 62ND Division [Field Marshal Haig and General Byng had arrived later], the meeting had begun at 9-30 that day with the three Generals discussing for some time the merits of an attack on Fontaine, which by this time had been defended by no less than three divisions of German infantry along with five hundred artillery pieces. Fielding had felt that the capture of the village would be an impossible task unless the high ground near Rumilly had been taken beforehand. Fielding had subsequently discussed his dislike of the operation with Byng later that afternoon who had insisted that the attack must go ahead regardless of the General’s foreboding.
Following this ultimatum the three Generals had between themselves arranged the details of their final details for the assault; ‘and it was apparent that G.O.C. Guards Division had not considered the attack on Fontaine, and had made no plan whatsoever, in spite of being warned by B.G.G.S. the afternoon before’. [5]
Faced with the suicidal task of capturing a heavily defended objective which had virtually been untouched by British artillery, Fielding had returned to his Headquarters at Flesquieres, where he had met with his three Brigade Commanders to draw up a plan of attack for the next day, which more or less, had been drawn up on the back of a cigarette packet. Obviously, with so little time before the beginning of the operation during the early hours of the next day, Fielding had had to keep his plan simple and had therefore plumbed for the traditional British frontal attack, which would be assisted by twelve tanks.
The attackers first objective had bee the capture of the enemy’s main line of resistance which had ran from a road junction at the east end of Fontaine to the northern edge of Bourlon Wood, whilst the second objective had been the securing of a line running south to north through the village, past the church, including the capture of the village railway station and the eastern outskirts of Fontaine, which would then become the Guards outpost line. Fielding had eventually consigned the task of taking Fontaine to Brigadier General Sergison-Brooke with his 2ND Guards Brigade, which had consisted of four battalions of Foot Guards, the 3RD Grenadier, 1ST Coldstream, 1ST Scots, and 2ND Irish Guards.
The Brigade had begun its approach to the front at dusk on the 26TH of November. Held in reserve at Ribecourt, the officers and men of the formation had left the village in darkness and into the teeth of a blizzard. Marching in silence, the greatcoated Guardsmen, their steel helmeted heads bowed to the driving snow, although well used to the rigours of marching, had nonetheless found their going difficult, the thick cloying mud sticking to their boots until the men had felt like their feet were attached to footballs. Despite their difficulties the Guards had fought their way to their start line and by the time that dawn had begun to show a ‘dirty white’, all had been made ready for the off.
On the left flank of the assault had been the 2ND Irish Guards. Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Alexander, The ‘Second Micks’ had had the worst experience of all of the Guards units during their approach march. Having endured a long journey from Flequieres in the bad weather conditions via La Justice, and Graincourt, the battalion had also been assailed by a heavy enemy artillery barrage, nevertheless the Micks had made it, albeit in a wet, tired, and shell shocked state. By Zero Hour the previous nights snow had turned to freezing rain [it would rain throughout the remainder of that day]. Promptly at 6-20 the British barrage had opened on Fontaine, and had begun to creep forward in the pre determined five minute ‘lifts’. This fire had been accompanied by an intense barrage of machine gun fire which had been use to quell enemy machine gun fire from the nearby La Folie Wood.
The 2ND Irish Guards task in the Fontaine operation had been to support the assault on Bourlon Wood [which had simultaneously been taking place to the left of the Guards attack] by 62ND Division, the battalion making an assault in the darkness towards the northeast corner of the Wood. Advancing in two waves, almost immediately the Irishmen had come under intense enemy fire coming from Bourlon Wood, which had caused many casualties. Nonetheless, the survivors had continued their advance and had soon coma across a line of enemy outposts, where the Micks had found many Germans sheltering from the elements. By this time the blood of the men had been ‘well up’ and as one can imagine few Germans had survived the subsequent ferocious onslaught with bayonets. The fortunate few that had managed to survive the cold steel had been taken prisoner and marched to the rear. As the Irish advance had continued on its way, one could say almost blindly, they had captured many prisoners along with a number of enemy guns but at a high price.
By this time elements of the ‘Micks’ had lost direction, and within an hour of the start No.2 Company had drifted to the left, but the remaining three had managed to maintain direction due to the use of compasses. However, by 9am the unit had been sorely mauled by a tenacious foe and the battalion had become fragmented into small fighting groups of desperate Irishmen fighting for their very lives. By Midday communication with the Micks had been lost. Fearing the worst, Fielding had ordered two companies of the supporting 1ST Battalion of the Welsh Guards forward to find what had happened to them. Just the onset of darkness the remnants of 2ND Irish Guards had been found, far from dead and still fighting in Bourlon Wood. That night the force, by then consisting of around one hundred and seventeen rifles, had been escorted out of the dreaded wood having lost around three hundred and twenty two of their number, including most of their officers.
In the centre of the assault, 1ST Coldstream Guards had got into position despite the bad weather to begin their attack at Zero Hour. Like the Irish Guards to their left, the Coldstream had begun their assault without tanks and had soon run into difficulties due to the intense enemy fire coming from well concealed machine gun positions in well dug trenches, and houses dotted along their line of attack. Nevertheless, within two hours, despite their appalling losses, the Coldtsream had fought their way into Fontaine and had battered their way through the village until they had arrived at the railway line at the other side, in the process capturing the commune’s railway station. However, by this time the Coldstream had lost so many men that the survivors had at one point been on the verge of being surrounded and annihilated by the numerically superior enemy force. Therefore, soon after 10am that morning the remaining Guardsmen had been ordered to make a fighting retreat back through the village to their original start line.
Later that day, back in the relative safety of Ribecourt, only 180 officers and men out of the force of around six hundred who had begun the attack earlier that day, had answered their names during the post battle call of the Battalion’s roll.
On the right of the assault had been the 3RD Battalion Grenadier Guards. Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel A.F.A.N. ‘Bulgy’ Thorne D.S.O., the Battalion had been divided into the customary four companies [numbered 1 to 4], each consisting of three officers and around one hundred and fifty N.C.O.’s and men. Third Battalion had belatedly begun their advance at 6-45 that misty morning, once again the supporting tanks had not arrived and the five hundred officers and men had moved off without their comforting presence.
Spearheaded by 2ND Lieutenant G.H.R. Hoare’s No.3 Company on the left, and the twenty years old, Lieutenant Gavin Patrick Bowes-Lyon’s No.1 Company on the right flank [with No's 4 and 3 Company’s in support], no sooner had the Grenadiers left their assembly trench than they too had encountered an intense fusillade of fire coming from a small house some two hundred yards to their right front, as well as that from a line of trenches located just to the east and south of the village. Despite many casualties, including Lieutenants ‘Mary’ Bowes-Lyon and Hoare, a handful of Grenadiers had got to the German wire, which they had found to be uncut. A way through the wire had eventually cut, however by this time only one sergeant and six men had been capable of continuing the assault, this they had done and had somehow fought their way to the village’s church where they had sought what cover they could from the intense enemy sniper fire to await the arrival of urgently needed reinforcements. [2]
The surviving members of No’s 1 and 3 Companies had eventually been joined by Captain J.S. Hughes M.C. and a few of his Guardsmen of No.4 Company. Determined to continue the assault Hughes had divided his small force into two parties, one of which he had led in an attack on a troublesome enemy trench on the road to Cambrai, whilst the Company’s second in command, Second Lieutenant C.W. Carrington, had been ordered to secure the road to the village railway station as far as the village crucifix. After a struggle both these objectives had been achieved.
The first objective of 3RD Grenadiers had now been achieved and a great number of Germans had been captured but the battalion by this time had been so short of men that there had not even been enough to escort their captives to the rear. Soon the Guardsmen had begun to run short ammunition, and their supply of hand grenades had become dangerously low. This critical situation had been exacerbated by the harassing fire coming from two derelict tanks [which had been destroyed days before during 51ST Division’s attack on the village] and a trench system just south of Fontaine, which had picked off the Guardsmen almost at random.
With precious little information coming out of the mayhem at Fontaine, ‘Bulgy’ Thorne had decided to go into the village himself to find out what had been happening. Taking along the Battalion’s Intelligence Officer, Lieutenant Carstairs would later write of his experience;
‘The full orchestra of battle was on. The air seemed alive with invisible wires being twanged, while the earth was thumped and beaten. The bullets zipped, whizzed whistled, spun, sung, and sighed according to their proximity and their point of flight…Together we proceeded up the main street of Fontaine Notre Dame, down which machine gun bullets were pouring with the volume of water from a fire hose. We hugged the houses to minimise the danger of being hit. We reached the cross roads and I marvelled that a man could get so far and remain alive. We were in the van of the battle. It seemed a miracle had happened to me’…[3]
Thorne had gone round the various small parties of Grenadiers still holding out in Fontaine and told them to hold on where they were until the arrival of reinforcements, a task made all the more difficult by the continual fire being poured on the Guardsmen from the upper stories of houses in all directions. The remnants of No. 4 Company had subsequently been driven out of their positions amongst the ruins of Fotaine by a concerted enemy counter attack, fortunately, at that moment a number of tanks had appeared, which had drove the Germans off with their six pounders and machine guns. Soon after the arrival of the tanks ‘calm and cool’ Captain ‘Jack’ Hughes had been wounded by a sniper’s bullet, command of the tattered No. 4 Company had then been taken over by Second Lieutenant C.W.Carrington.
By 10am it was becoming apparent that the Germans were pouring in more and more reinforcements to keep possession of the village in the knowledge that once Fontaine had fallen to the British the gates would be left wide open for an advance on Cambrai. The situation facing the beleaguered 3RD Battalion by this time had been perilous, to say the least. Outflanked, and almost out of ammunition, quite apart from the danger of being cut off, the various small knots of Grenadiers had in no way been of sufficient number to resist any attacks which the Germans may have made in force and eventually the decision had reluctantly been taken for the virtually surrounded Guardsmen to turn about and make a fighting retreat taking as many of their wounded as could be carried.
The retreat by 3RD Grenadiers had been covered by machine gun fire from the Guards Machine Gun Company and the guns of the few tanks which had fought their way into the village, whilst two companies from the Fourth Grenadiers had been sent forward to form a rearguard in order to prevent the Germans from advancing out of the battered village, which in the end had been the closest the British advance had got to the town of Cambrai, they were not to reach this far again for another year…’We were clear of the village [Carstairs would later record]. We stood opposite No.3 and No.4 Companies old positions. A hostile barrage was coming down with some power, but we passed through it with a feeling of comparative safety, now that we were quit of the village itself’…
Following their ordeal the blood spattered, exhausted, and filthy remnants of the 3RD Battalion of the Grenadier Guards had been sent to a camp at Trescault for two days of rest. On the twenty ninth of November the men, along with the other remnants of Second Guards Brigade, had be moved to ‘good billets’ at Bertincourt, where, the battalions which had taken part in the Fontaine operation had learnt [following numerous calls of their regimental rolls] that the Brigade had suffered over one thousand casualties for precious little gain. The calling of the roll of the 3RD Grenadiers had revealed the battalion had lost three officers killed, and another three wounded. Whilst amongst the other ranks, 270 N.C.O.’s and men were recorded as killed, wounded, or missing in action. Amongst the later had been twenty-one years old; 23783 Private John Wright [Lancaster].
Born in Scarborough on the 14TH of April 1896, at No.32 Scalby Road [the home of his grandparents], John had been the illegitimate son of ‘dressmaker’ Mary Ellen Wright [the name of John’s father had not been included on his birth certificate]. Popularly known by family and friends as ‘Jack, Wright had spent most of his formative years living with his grandparents, ‘Cabinet Maker’ John Wilson, and Mary Wright, initially in the house where he had been born in Scalby Road, and by the turn of the century at No.55 Commercial Street. Despite the marriage of his mother to Scarborough born fisherman Charles Ormonde Lancaster at Scarborough’s Register Office [located at the time in the ‘Poor Law Office in Dean Street] on Monday the 27TH of December 1897, Jack had remained with his grandparents. [4]
A pupil of Miss Mary Simpson’s Infant, and Mr William Thomas Northrop’s Junior Boys Departments of Scarborough’s Central Board School between the ages of four and fourteen, Jack had left the establishment at the end of the summer term of 1910 to begin employment with local building contractor F.W.Plaxton & Sons as an errand boy, however, by the out break of war in August 1914 he had been promoted to the firm’s wages office [located at the time at No79 North Street] where he had been employed as a clerk. By this time Jack had been living with an uncle and aunt at No.12 St Thomas Street. Also named John Wright, Jack’s uncle had been an army reservist, having served for many years before the war in Egypt with the East Yorkshire Regiment. Obviously, shortly after the outbreak of hostilities John senior had been recalled to the colours, leaving his eighteen years old nephew with wife Dora and son Stephen.
Eager to take their places in the war, Jack and Stephen Wright had eventually journeyed to the city of York the following year where the two young men had enlisted into the Army at Fulford Barracks on Thursday the 29TH of April 1915. At a period in the war when recruits had still been given a choice in which unit of the army they had wished to serve, Stephen had elected to serve for the duration of the conflict with his father’s old regiment, and had served as a Private [Service Number 3/7284] with the East Yorkshire Regiment throughout the remainder of the war. Standing at almost six feet in height, John Wright, on the other hand, had towered above the majority of the men who had enlisted that day, a distinction which had ensured that the nineteen years old had been ‘steered’ towards service with the Foot Guards for the duration of the war [interestingly, on John’s Service Record Charles Lancaster of 106 Longwestgate, Scarborough, is recorded as being his father, and next of kin].
Shortly after enlistment Jack Wright had reported to the Guards Training Depot at Caterham, Hampshire on the 30TH of April 1915, where he had endured six months of the toughest infantry training in the world. ‘Beasted’ around Caterham’s hallowed parade ground from dawn to dusk by foul mouthed Non Commissioned Officers, Jack had been deemed fit for service with the Grenadier Guards at the beginning of October 1915 and had been posted to London’s Chelsea Barracks, where he had joined the 5TH [Reserve] Battalion of the Grenadier Guards. Jack had remained on ‘home service’ until August 1916, by which time he had qualified as a signaller. Inevitably amongst a draft of replacements for battle casualties, Wright had embarked at Southampton on the thirteenth of August 1916 and had arrived at Le Havre the same day, moving shortly afterwards to the Guards Divisional Base Depot, located at nearby Harfleur.
At the time that Private Wright had been setting his feet on French soil the 3RD Battalion of the Grenadier Guards had been on the point of moving southwards from the Ypres Sector to the Somme, where the battalion had eventually become ‘heavily engaged’ on the fifteenth of September 1916 in the initial assault of the so called Battle of Flers /Courcelette, which had cost the battalion over four hundred casualties to German machine gun fire. The sorely mauled 3RD Battalion had been relieved form the line on the 16TH of September to move into reserve bivouacs at Carnoy, where, during the evening of the twenty sixth of September Jack Wright, along with a large draft of replacements [including Lieutenant Carstairs], had joined the Battalion.
That same night the 3RD Grenadiers had moved to Trones Wood in support of the 1ST Scots and 2ND Irish Guards which had then been holding the front line near to the recently captured [25TH September] village of Lesboeufs. The Battalion had spent that night in the nightmarish wood. Carstairs, would later describe…’It remained a wood only in name. It had been swept with shellfire until there was not a tree that had not been stripped of leaf and branch. Trees uprooted stretched across one’s path. Everywhere was the litter and debris of battle. An upturned six inch German howitzer, an unexploded twelve inch shell, gun limbers, wheels, helmets, cartridges, big dugouts caved in by direct hits, bits of dead men and scattered clothing ripped from bodies by the back blast of big shells, and a few hurried shallow graves. Near the wood a village [Lesboeufs] once existed. It had so literally vanished that not the dust of a single brick could be detected’. [3]
The following day Jack had assisted with the burial of numerous British and German corpses, which had littered the wood. Most of the bodies had been rotting for ten days, Carstairs report’s; ‘the stench and appearance of the dead was such that the young soldiers were sick. N.C.O.’s and old soldiers had to do most of the work’…
Shortly afterwards, on the twenty eighth of September 1916, Jack Wright had gone into the front line for the first time, the 3RD Battalion having taken over from the 1ST Scots Guards in the British line to the north of Lesboefs. During their time in these positions the men had dug a new forward trench and on occasions had been shelled, the battalion losing a number of men including the unit’s popular Sergeant Major, whose arm had been almost ripped off by a splinter from an exploding projectile. Jack had remained in these positions until the first of October 1916.
On the opening day of the operations that would later be name the ‘Third Battle of Ypres’ [Tuesday 31ST July 1917], Jack had taken part in the Guards Division’s operations at Pilckem Ridge. At 4-10am that morning the 2ND and 3RD Guards Brigade’s [supported by 1ST Guards Brigade] had launched their assault on the enemy’s positions on the ridge and at first had met little resistance, however, as the guardsmen had ventured deeper into enemy held territory they had come under the customary hail of German machine gun fire which had caused many casualties. In spite of this the attack had continued. By 5-50am the Guards had achieved their first objective [the Blue Line] and had gone on to their second objective, the ‘Black Line’ Third Battalion’s ‘War Diary’ records…’This phase of the attack was more complicated, for the enemy had machine guns scattered about in pill boxes; also the German infantry were holding positions in the many shell holes in front of their trenches. Hostile fire from one such pill box near ‘Tambour House’ caused over twenty casualties in Number 1 Company but was finally taken with assistance of Lewis machine guns’…
The Guards Division had continued their operation throughout that rain filled afternoon and night and had eventually carried all their objectives. By 10pm the men of 3RD Grenadiers had endured exceptionally heavy rain whilst digging in on their third and final objective [the ‘Green Line’]. Located to the left of a position known as ‘Grand Barriere House’, the rain soaked guardsmen had shortly been rewarded with a generous tot of rum for their sterling work throughout the day.
[During this attack the Guards Division had suffered 1,935 casualties, 3RD Grenadier Guards had losing two officers killed, four wounded. Amongst the other ranks 26 men had been killed, 113 wounded, and 12 were missing].
The Third Battalion had remained in the by then water filled trenches at ‘Grand Barriere House’ until Sunday the fifth of August, when the unit had been relieved by 1ST Grenadier Guards, The men being transported by train then motor bus to the village of Herzeele. Whist there, on the seventh of August Jack, by this time a seasoned veteran of the Western Front, had fallen foul of military law when had been placed on battalion orders and brought before Third Grenadiers Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Augustus Francis Andrew Nichol Thorne on a charge of ‘making away with signalling equipment’. Unfortunately details of Jack’s offence are now lost with time, however, Jack’s service record shows ‘Bulgy’ Thorne had awarded him with fourteen days of the dreaded ‘Field Punishment No.1’, which had basically meant that he had been publicly ridiculed by being ‘crucified’, handcuffed with arms outstretched to the wheel of a wagon for two hours per day for the prescribed period of time [although ‘crucifixion’ had been the customary F.P.No.1, it is recorded that the Guards had on occasions ordered their defaulters to pick tins from the parapet of their trenches, and ordered the dusting of trench sandbags and firing step].
On Wednesday the fifteenth of August Third Grenadier Guards had moved to the extreme northern end of the Ypres Salient, where the men had been billeted at a place known as ‘De Wippe Cabaret Camp’, which had been described by Carstairs as; ‘that gloomy spot with a cheery name’. Shortly after Wright had completed his punishment, on the fourth of September 1917, the Third Grenadiers had moved, via Cardoen, and Roussol Farms, along the Elverdinghe to Boesinghe road, to ‘Eton Camp’, a tented encampment which had been situated near to a prominent railway line which had often been targeted by enemy aircraft and long range artillery, little wonder the battalion had suffered some forty casualties in the first two days they had been there.
The Battalion’s ‘War Diary’ for this period reports….’5/9/17; 400 men were formed into small fatigue parties, with their main task being the transport of duckboards to forward positions, with much of the work being carried out at night. Hostile aircraft continued to be active, dropping bombs into the camp. Very heavy shelling by 11-inch howitzers, over fifty shells falling during the afternoon. More shelling continued throughout the night. A fatigue was caught while returning [to camp], this caused 31 casualties, plus one cooker and two water carts were destroyed’….
The Battalion had remained in this most dangerous area of the Salient until the night of the 21ST/22ND of September, when their places in the line had been taken over by the 1ST Battalion of the Essex Regiment.
Marching via Lunaville Farm [where the unit had stopped to rest and eat], the 3RD Grenadiers had then boarded trains, which had taken them to the area of Proven, where the unit had become ‘battalion in support’ and billeted at ‘Rugby Camp’, yet another hell hole…’The camp was nicely situated next to a battery of heavies, who fired all day and on whom the Boche retaliated at night, so that Rugby Camp came in for its share of shelling There were French next to us, in a state of fury at the stupidity of guns being near an infantry camp, they too got some of the shells intended for the battery’….
With ‘Third Wipers’ still raging the guardsmen had guessed it would only be a matter of time before they had once again been thrown to the lions. Their expectations had come to fruition at the beginning of October 1917 when the battalion had begun to conduct extensive training and practises for their imminent re-entry into the fighting.
For the sixth of October the battalion’s ‘War Diary’ reports…’Drill and individual training. Orders received to move back towards the front. First by train, detraining at Ondank then marching to ‘H’ Camp’ in the ‘Forest Area’. Another day of heavy showers, causing the men much discomfort’…
During the morning of Monday the 8TH of October the 3RD Battalion’s Quartermaster had issued the men with extra ammunition, bombs, tools, spare water bottles, and rations preparatory to them moving off that same afternoon to ‘White Hope Corner’. Lieutenant Carstair’s recalls…’it was dusk. The men were falling in. The evening was quiet. The night sinister and sombre. The men looked ominous, set and serious—a visual translation of my own sensations. I listened to the simple words of command and read in them an added meaning and new significance…’slope arms—move to the right in fours—right—by the left, quick march’. We stepped out while some gunners watched us with admiration those slightly supermen—the Guards…’we’re givin' em socks tonight said one’…
Arriving at ‘White Hope Corner’ at about 6pm the men had soon afterwards been given a ‘meat meal’, which they had washed down with tea laced with rum. The guardsmen spent the rest of that rain filled night where they had fallen and had slept little due to the incessant downpour and cold.
At 5-20am the following day, loaded down with all their extra equipment and ammunition Private Wright and his comrades had ‘gone over the top’ to take part in the Battle of Poelcapelle. The assault by the Guards Division had been carried out by the 1ST and 2ND Guards Brigades and had basically entailed the two formations advancing across the Broembeek River [which at the time had been little more than a stagnant ditch some twenty to thirty feet wide by two to five feet deep] to take a number of concrete pillboxes situated a little more than three thousand yards from the river, close to the edge of the Houthulst Forest.
By the end of the day, the attack, although judged to have been successful, had nevertheless resulted in the 3RD Grenadiers losing three officers killed, one died of wounds and two more wounded. Whilst the other ranks had lost thirteen men killed, 61 wounded, and 3 missing.
[It had been during this assault that the 3RD Battalion’s twenty six years old 15122 Sergeant John Harold Rhodes [already a holder of two Distinguished Conduct Medals], whilst under severe fire had single-handed captured a heavily fortified pillbox which had resulted in him being rewarded with the Victoria Cross. The award had eventually been ‘gazetted’ on the 27TH of November 1917, the same day he had succumbed to wounds received at Fontaine Notre Dame].
The day after their trial at Poelcapelle the remaining Guardsmen, despite being intermittent shellfire, had spent most of their time baling out their positions that had consisted of little more than joined up shell holes and shallow trenches. Eventually relieved that night Private Wright and the remainder of the battalion had marched away from their miserable surroundings eventually to the relative comfort of
‘H Camp’. Arriving there on the eleventh of October, ‘wet and cold, tired, and weary, the men there given some time to clean up, eat, and rest’.
The following day, whilst the remainder of his battalion had ‘carried out reorganisation and instruction in Lewis Gun drill’, Jack Wright, armed with a five days leave chit, had began a journey that would take him to one of the many ‘leave boats’ plying the channel between the insanity of war and the comfort of home at Scarborough.
By the time that Jack had returned to the battalion the 3RD Grenadiers had been ensconced in ‘very comfortable billets’ in the village of Moulle, where on the 21ST of October, he, along with the remainder of 2ND Guards Brigade, had been inspected by H.R.H. The Duke of Connaught. Dressed in ‘walking out order’ the men of the Battalion had lined the village road, on the right side had been the officers and men who had been decorated, mentioned in despatches, or recommended for a decoration following the ‘last push’. The Duke had spoken to each of these men in turn and shaken their hands and at the end of the proceedings all the men had cheered.
Three days later [Thursday the 25TH of October] the whole of the Guards Division had turned out to be inspected by Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig, who had congratulated the assembled Guardsmen on their fine turnout and complimented them for their past efforts and achievements.
On the day that the Cambrai Offensive had begun the Guards Division had once again been located in the Somme Sector, the 3Rd Grenadiers being billeted in the village of Courcelles-le Comte, where the officers and men of the battalion had been resting following many days of being on the move. Nevertheless, during the early hours of the day they had heard the distant rubble of artillery heralding the beginning of Third Army’s assault on the Hindenburg Line. The following night [21st of November, the day that the 51ST Division had first entered Fontaine] the battalion had moved in drizzling rain to Beaulencourt, located on the Bapaume—Le Transloy road.
By the evening of Friday the twenty third of November, as we know, 51ST Division’s attempt to recapture Fontaine Notre Dame had failed, soon afterwards the Guards Division had been ordered to make ready to move to the front to take over the fight for the village from the exhausted 51ST Division. The 3RD Battalion’s War Diary entry for this day reports…’Moving off from ‘Flint Camp’ [Beaulencourt] at 6am, the battalion marched to Lebacquiere on the Bapaume-Cambrai road. The day had been ‘Fine, dry but a cold wind’.
Jack Wright’s march towards Fontaine had continued the next night…’Soft snowflakes and sleet streamed off the marching guards groundsheets as they headed on through the night. Nearing dawn the sleet turned to rain and the chalky mud smeared everyone and everything. The march taking the battalion into the smoking and ruined land around the village of Ribecourt which was crowded with troops, fresh graves, cavalry, along with store dumps, wrecked tanks, and equipment lay everywhere. Tank trails, flattened barbed wire and bodies leading the way to the front’…The following day the 3RD Grenadiers had spent their time in reserve trenches immediately behind the front line where they had been engaged in the collection of salvage.
Orders for the forthcoming attack had arrived at Battalion Headquarters late during the afternoon of Monday the 26TH of November, and during that night the guardsmen, in company formation as if on parade in London, had marched through the dark unknown ground by compass bearing and by following guides until they had reached their start point for the morrow astride the Bapaume—Cambrai road, where they had quietly taken over the line from the 3RD Battalion of the Coldstream Guards.
A member of Captain Hughes, and Lieutenant Carrington’s Number Four Company, Private Wright had been amongst the handful of men from this unit who had fought their way through the bullet swept village as far as the church, where they had joined with the survivors of No. 3 Company in the defence of the Battalion’s flimsy perimeter. Grievously wounded by a sniper’s bullet during the ensuing ferocious street fight, Wright had been left for dead by his comrades when the time had come for them to retire, and had eventually been found by the Germans lying amongst the detritus of battle littering the village churchyard.
A few wounded Grenadiers had eventually been evacuated by the Germans to the small village of Hordain, where they had been herded into an improvised Prisoner of War cage. With little cover from the elements, and receiving no medical treatment for their wounds a number of the injured Guardsmen had died as a result of their wounds and exposure. The twenty one years old Jack Wright had succumbed to his injuries on Tuesday the fourth of December 1917. Shortly after his death the remains of the young Guardsman had been buried in the village’s Communal Cemetery.
With no information regarding the fate of Private Wright, the Third Battalion of the Grenadier Guards had initially recorded him as ‘Wounded and missing in action’, and consequently his parents, by this time living in Scarborough at No.106 Longwestgate, had initially received news of their son in the dreaded buff envelope stating that Jack was missing and any further news would be relayed to them when it had been received. Mary Ellen Lancaster had then had to endure many days of anxiety before she had received word of her beloved son at the beginning of the New Year of 1918; alas it had not been what she had hoped for.
At the beginning of 1918 the International Red Cross had received a list of names from Germany, recording the names of British prisoners of war who had recently died whilst in their hands. Sadly Jack Wright’s had been included and Mrs. Lancaster had eventually learned Jack was dead in a telegram she had received from the War Office on the 23RD of February 1918. The news of her son’s death had been featured in a casualty list that had appeared in the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 1ST of March 1918.
‘Died whilst a prisoner - News has been received by his parents, at 106, Longwestgate, of the death of Signaller John Wright Lancaster, Grenadier Guards, from wounds, whilst a prisoner. Before joining up three years ago he was a clerk to Mr Plaxton, builder. Signaller Lancaster was on leave in October last, and had not been back more than six weeks before the news reporting wounded and missing was received. Later new arrived that he had died on 4TH December’…
At the end of the war the remains of Private Wright, and a number of fellow Grenadier Guardsmen who had also died from the effects of wounds received at Fontaine Notre Dame whilst in German hands, had been moved from the communal cemetery at Hordain to the much larger ‘Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery’. Situated about four miles north of Arras on the D 937 road to Bethune, the beautifully situated cemetery is located about two miles to the south of the village of Souchez, in the Pas de Calais Department of France. Jack’s final resting place is to be found in Cabaret Rouge’s Section 16, Row B, Grave34, alongside [B 33] fellow Grenadier Guardsman; 28474 Private John Martin Dunne. Born at Liverpool [where he had also enlisted], the twenty three years old had also been wounded at Fontaine and had died two days after Private Wright having also succumbed to his wounds. [5]
In Scarborough, apart from the Oliver’s Mount Memorial, Jack Wright [Lancaster] is commemorated on the two small stone memorials [one of which had been donated after the war by Mr. and Mrs. H. Wright as a ‘Token of thanksgiving to almighty God’], located on the north interior wall of St Mary’s Parish Church [near to the Church’s large ‘Roll of Honour’] which had once belonged to the now defunct St Thomas’s Parish Church [located in East Sandgate], which commemorate over sixty men of the congregation of the former ‘Fisherman’s Church’ who had lost their lives whilst on active service during the war of 1914-1919.
Private Wright’s name is also to be found on a gravestone in Scarborough’s Manor Road Cemetery [Section L, Row 12, Grave 32], which also bears the name of his Scarborough born mother, Mary Ellen Lancaster, who had died at her home at No106 Longwestgate on Wednesday the 14TH of February 1923, at the age of 54 years. Also included on the memorial is the name of John’s youngest brother, Henry Lancaster, who had passed away due to the so called ‘Spanish Flu’ at the age of 6 years, on Saturday the 29TH of March 1919. During the post war years Jack’s ‘father’, Charles Ormonde, popularly known throughout Scarborough’s fishing fraternity as ‘Skite’ Lancaster, had continued to live for many years at No.106 Longwestgate. However, by the end of the Second World War the old fisherman had been living at No.18 East Mount Flats, where he had died ‘suddenly’ on Friday the 25TH of October 1946,at the age of seventy six years. The funeral of ‘Skite’ Lancaster had subsequently taken place during the afternoon of Tuesday the 29TH of October when his remains had been interred with those of Mary Ellen, and son Henry Lancaster. Their memorial also bears the inscription - ‘Come unto me all ye that are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest’.
Following his return to military life Jack’s uncle, and namesake, John Wright, had served at Gallipoli and in France as a Private [5805] with the 6TH [Service] Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment, which had been the Pioneer Battalion to the 11TH [Northern] Division. Whilst serving in France John had been almost crushed to death by a trench collapse and had eventually been dismissed from the army during May 1917 due to the injuries he had sustained in the cave in. Despite receiving a
Substantial pension of twenty two shillings and sixpence per week in recompense for his injuries, John had opted to work as a part time postman sorting mail in Scarborough’s General Post Office located in Aberdeen Walk.
On Saturday the 30TH of March 1918 John Wright had turned up for work as usual, to begin sorting some small parcels. However later that morning he had had collapsed, and despite attempts to revive him the forty four years old had never regained consciousness. A subsequent autopsy had revealed the old soldier had died as a result of his heart being ‘displaced and weakened’, brought on in all probability by the trench collapse in France. The remains of John Wright had been interred with military honours in Scarborough’s Manor Road Cemetery during the afternoon of Wednesday the 3RD of April 1918. Like that of his nephew, John’s name is also commemorated on Scarborough’s Oliver’s Mount Memorial.
Despite the magnificent efforts of 2ND Guards Brigade, Fontaine Notre Dame had not been taken on the 27TH of November and the village had remained in German hands until the following year. Learning of the failure of the capture of the village, and that of Bourlon Wood, that night Haig had at last closed the Cambrai operation down having lost around twenty thousand men in a week of fighting, which had begun as a marvellous achievement, which in the end, had achieved nothing.
The author wishes to thank Mr. John Masters of Sittingbourne, Kent, for his invaluable assistance with information regarding the 3RD Battalion of the Grenadier Guards before and during the Battle of Fontaine, and for the information regarding his Great Uncle, Private Henry Woodcock, 3RD Battalion Grenadier Guards, who like Private Jack Wright [Lancaster] had lost his life as a result of the battle at Fontaine. Without his help many shell holes would remain in my story, Cheers John.
Whilst Private Wright and his fellow Guardsmen had been fighting for their lives in the German hospital at Hondain, by the beginning of December 1917, Third Army had been reeling from a massive German counter attack which had been launched on the thirtieth of November all along the Cambrai front which had not only driven the British out of their newly won positions but the positions they had held before the start of the Offensive. On Friday the seventh of December 1917 [three days after Jack Wright’s death] ‘The Scarborough Mercury’ had reported;
‘The British set-back. Most considerable for two and a half years - Discussing the British evacuation of Bourlon Wood and other positions the ‘Daily Chronicle’ says; ‘The set back is the most considerable that we have sustained on the Western Front for over two hand a half years, and coming after our initial victory of November 20-21 it is the more disappointing. We had better face it quite frankly’…
The parliamentary correspondent of the same journal says; ‘A factor that has contributed to the check of our successful advance in the region of Cambrai is the dispatch of troops to Italy. The necessity of sending military assistance to Italy was urgent, but that policy, pins the taking over of more of the French line carried with it inescapable consequences. Not a few M.P.’s feel that the time has come to give some attention to British interests in the war’…We cannot go on indefinitely supplying the financial power, the sea power, and most of the munitions power to the alliance, and in addition undertaking unlimited military commitments on the continent’….
Despite numerous inklings of an impending German counter attack, Byng had chosen to believe in the intelligence reports telling of the Germans being so far weakened by Third Wipers and the recent Cambrai Offensive that they had been in no fit state to mount any form of offensive in the near future. As a result, the British Official History reports, ‘Third Army issued no warning, ordered no reserves, took no steps to ensure that troops in the rear should be readily available’…[11]
The attack had been preceded on the 28TH of November with the guns of Von Marwitz’s Arras and Audry Groups saturating the British line at Boulon Wood with 16,000 rounds of gas and high explosives, which had caused many casualties and had disrupted the relief of the exhausted Guards Division in front of Fontaine by the 59TH [2ND North Midland] Division, and the equally tried 62ND [West Riding] Division by the 47TH [2ND London] Division. As soon as it had begun the barrage had ended leaving the British reeling from the violence of the attack. That night the men had slept fitfully expecting at any moment a further attack which had never materialised. Neither had an attack developed the following day, the day had remained quiet, and that night, at Third Army Headquarters, Byng, recently promoted to General, had dined in luxury with his various Chiefs of Staff, whilst on the other side of the wire
masses of German infantry had been making their preparations for the attack, which would begin on the morrow.
The storm had finally broken before dawn on Friday the 30TH of November. At 5am that day German artillery had begun a bombardment of the British Seventh Corps positions, which had stretched for ten miles from Pontruet[where the British line had met with the French Army], northwards to the Banteux Ravine[the junction with Third Corps]. Precisely sixty minutes after it had begun the barrage had stopped, shortly afterwards three division’s of infantry belonging to General Von Kathen’s Busigny Group had launched a vicious assault which had been spearheaded by stormtroops armed with automatic weapons and flamethrowers, whilst over head the early morning sky had been filled with swarms of aircraft which had swooped on the British positions inflicting many casualties with their machine gun fire.
Although most of the Commanders of Third and Seventh Corps had been caught with their trousers down, one or two, notably General Jeudwine of the 55TH [West Lancashire] and General Scott of the 12TH [Eastern] Divisions, tasked with the defence of the Banteux Ravine, had had the nounce to take heed of the warnings and had prepared their various sectors for an attack. However, although the two divisions had established machine gun posts and artillery positions at vulnerable points in their line, along with maintaining reconnaissance patrols to give advanced warning of attack, both unit had been totally unprepared for the violence of the assault on the thirtieth and as a result had been swept aside like so much matchwood. Nevertheless, some units of the 55TH Division had refused to give in and had caused the Germans much hard fighting before being finally overwhelmed.
Amongst these units had been the 166TH Brigade. Although many of the individual acts of gallantry which had taken place on the thirtieth had gone unnoticed at the time, or had never been reported, and now over eight years after, are lost forever in the mist of time, never to be told, an account of the courage displayed by the men of this unit on the fateful day survives in the History of the ‘King’s Regiment [Liverpool], whose author describes the story of the defence of Limerick Post as ‘that of a very gallant fight, by men who knew they were surrounded, who were called upon to surrender and refused, preparing to fight to the last’. [12]
At the time of the counter attack the Brigade had been holding some interconnected strongpoints with names such as ‘Heath’ and ‘Meath Post’s’, ‘Kildare Trench’, and ‘Limerick Post’, which had been situated in the British front line to the east of Villers-Guislain. Garrisoned by men mainly from the 1ST/6TH, and 1ST/10TH King’s Regiment [Liverpool], the latter more popularly known as the ‘Liverpool Scottish’, these posts had come under severe attack at around 8am that day, and by the afternoon most had fallen despite a stout defence. At ‘Kildare Post’, with all their ammunition expended with no fresh supplies, or reinforcements forthcoming the garrison had been forced to abandon their hard defended position, the survivors making their way, under intense fire, some eight hundred yards to their rear where they had established a firing line
At 1-30pm that afternoon, upon hearing of the loss of most of the Brigade’s strong points, the 1ST/10TH’s C.O. [Lieutenant Colonel J.R. Davidson] had ordered that the remaining, ‘Limerick Post’, be held at ‘all costs’, and shortly after issuing this order Battalion H.Q. had lost contact with the post, which by this time had been surrounded, and all communication cut. Commanded by Captain J.A. Roddick of the Liverpool Scottish, the garrison at ‘Limerick Post’ had consisted of a mixed bag of a hundred and fifty officers and men belonging to the 1ST/5TH Royal Lancaster’s, 1ST/5TH Loyal North Lancs, and the Liverpool Scottish.
By 2pm Limerick post had been completely surrounded, the defenders putting up a fierce resistance, their positions reeking with the smell of cordite from their rifles and three Lewis guns…’No words can picture that scene, nor do the official narratives attempt to do so. Soldiers generally are averse to anything in the nature of what is called ‘sob stuff’, but in that grim situation, with nothing but death or surrender staring officers and men in the face, were all the elements of drama.
With shouts and yells, the enemy tried to induce the garrison to surrender but, finding that all his appeals fell on deaf and determined ears, he then launched two heavy and simultaneous attacks, one from the north-west and the other from the south. British and Germans then came to grips with one another in severe hand to hand fighting, the latter being bloodily repulsed.
The Germans had renewed their assault at around 4pm that afternoon, and according to accounts had only succeeded in ‘receiving a severe handling’. The assault had continued throughout the afternoon of the 30TH with the enemy attempting to bomb the Lancastrians out of the post which had only resulted in the Germans being bombed themselves with such severity that they had given up the attempt---for a while.
Having had very little food or water that day, the garrison of Limerick Post had eventually been issued with a cup of water along with ‘bully beef’ and biscuits from the reserve supply at around 6pm, the time when two volunteers from the Royal Lancaster’s had escaped from the post to provide Brigade H.Q. with a situation report, these men had eventually got through the German cordon, and two hours later they had been followed by two men from the Liverpool Scottish, also bearing essential information.
Desultory fighting had continued throughout the remainder of the night, until 3am on the first of December, when the Germans had opened a bombardment on the position with two ‘granatenwerfers’, or trench mortars, which had then been followed by an all out attack…’The sand-bagged walls of the Post were now battered and broken, and about eighteen casualties were suffered as the result of the bombardment, but still there was no thought of surrender. Indeed, the enemy when he came on was met with such a fire from Lewis Guns and rifles that, after losing heavily, he again fell back completely repulsed’…[12]
Despite having repulsed numerous concerted enemy attacks, Roddick had realised that with the coming of daylight his post along with its gallant garrison would be obliterated by artillery fire as soon as the enemy’s gunners had registered their fire on the place. The officer had therefore decided to evacuate the hard fought for post. The evacuation had begun just as dawn was approaching at five minutes after five that day, when parties of fifteen men together with an officer apiece, had moved out in ‘artillery formation, with a series of scouts fifty to sixty yards in advance till the gallant little crowd reached their own lines without meeting resistance. At 5.45 am all were safe’… [12]
During the fighting at ‘Limerick Post’ the London Scottish had lost many men. The battalion’s ‘War Diary’ for the whole of November report the units losses at 522 all ranks. Amongst this number had been nine officers and four hundred and thirty five ‘other ranks’ recorded as ‘Missing in action’. One of these had been twenty two years old; 359764 Private Clarence Fleming.
A member of ‘B’ Company of the 1ST/10TH Battalion The King’s Regiment [Liverpool], Fleming had been the only son of Emily [formally Brown] and William Fleming, a ’Ladies Tailor’, who had been living in Scarborough at No. 6 West Square at the time of their son’s death.
Born in Scarborough on the 10TH of May 1895 at No 36 Franklin Street, Clarence had been another pupil of the Infant and Junior Departments of the town’s ‘Central Board School’ between the ages of four and thirteen years. Leaving the Central at the end of the summer term of 1908, Clarence had subsequently gone to work in the family business, which at this time had been conducted from the Fleming’s home in Franklin Street. By the outbreak of war in August 1914 William Fleming had acquired a premises in Scarborough’s Hanover Road where Clarence had worked as a cutter until his enlistment [at Scarborough] into the army during March 1915.
Initially serving as a Private in the Army Service Corps [Service Number 252272], Fleming had been stationed at the A.S.C.’s Reserve Depot located at Park Royal, in London, where he had been attached to the 661ST Company. However, by the beginning of 1917, whether by choice or necessity, Clarence had been transferred to the infantry and had shortly been amongst one of the many draft of replacements which had been landing in France to replace the thousands of men lost in the recently ended [November 1916] Somme Offensive, and inevitably, the stinking mud of Flanders.
Sent for ‘intensive battle training’ at one of the many notorious ‘Bull Rings’ which had been dotted along the coast near to the town of Etaples, Clarence had eventually been posted to an active battalion, the veteran 1ST/10TH King’s [Liverpool]. More popularly known as the Liverpool Scottish, the battalion had been a pre war Territorial Force infantry unit that had been stationed in the city of Liverpool at No.7 Fraser Street. Veterans of the Western Front since November 1914, the Liverpool Scottish had originally been attached to the 9TH Brigade of the 3RD Division, however, by the time that Fleming had joined the ‘kilties’ during March 1917, the formation had been a part of the 166TH Brigade of the 55TH [West Lancashire] Division.
By March 1917 the Liverpool Scottish had been in the dreaded Ypres Salient, where the unit had been manning a section of the front near to the village of St Jean, where the battalion had been ‘passing a strenuous existence’, and where ‘patrol fights were frequent, raids by both sides were busy securing identifications for the purpose of following movements’. In addition, the Battalion’s Historian continues; ‘We exploded mines under the enemy trenches, and he did likewise beneath ours, and there was a good deal of crater fighting’. [12]
Clarence Fleming had received his ‘baptism of fire’ during ‘Third Wiper’s’ when he had taken part in the first major operation of the offensive known as ‘The Battle of Pilkem Ridge. During these operations [already featured in a previous chapter] the Liverpool Scottish had been tasked, with the remainder of 166TH Brigade, with the capture of the so-called ‘Blue Line’. Although the battalion had met with little opposition and it’s ‘War Diary’ merely reporting…’On July 31ST Battalion took part in an attack on the enemy’s position east of Wieltje, in conjunction with brigades etc., on either flank’…the unit had suffered over two hundred killed, wounded [including the then Lieutenant Roddick], and missing. Amongst the wounded had been the Battalion’s extraordinarily courageous attached Medical Officer, Captain Noel Godfrey Chavasse, Royal Army Medical Corps, who had died from the effects of wounds on the 4TH of August 1917. [13]
The Liverpool Scottish had been relieved from the line during the night of the 2ND/3RD of August, the mud drenched and rain soaked survivors of the unit making their way to the area of Wetou and had played little part in ‘Third Wipers’ until September when the battalion had been involved in The Battle of the Menin Road Ridge [20-25 September], when during the night of the fifteenth of September ‘V’ Company had sent out a ‘strong patrol’ to reconnoitre the enemy’s positions on the Hannebeke and also, if possible capture them. The attempt had been unsuccessful, so had another, which had taken place the following night. The Battalion had taken no further part in the floundering operation in Flanders the battalion moving by train, at the end of September, from the area of St Jean to Vlamertinghe, and eventually onwards to Watou. The unit’s total losses for September 1917 being 66 all ranks, killed, wounded, and missing.
Following the 55TH Division’s withdrawal from the fiasco at Passchendaele, the 166TH Brigade had been ‘rested’ until the 25th of September, when the formation had received orders to move into Northern France, where it had concentrated around the town of Beaulencourt. Soon after their arrival in the area the men of the unit had taken over the line in the Epehy Sector, where the line had apparently been in a poor condition, for on the 10th of October the Liverpool Scottish ‘War Diary’ had reported; ‘much work was necessary on the trenches and large parties were employed both by day and night improving parapets and widening trenches’. Fortunately the enemy had largely been ‘inactive during this period, and despite numerous nightly patrols into No Man’s Land the men had remained relatively unscathed, and on the 13TH of October the battalion had been relieved by the 1ST/9TH King’s, the ‘Kilties’ moving back to warm billets at Villers-Faucon.
During the night of the 29TH/30TH of November Clarence Fleming and his fellow Liverpool Scots had been manning a section of the British front which had ran [right to left] from the Catalet Road, west of Ossus Wood, to just south of a position known as ‘Fawcus Avenue’, from where they had carried out a number of patrols into No Man’s Land. During these forays they had gone as far as the enemy’s wire checking especially for freshly cut gaps in the huge expanses of barbed wire, always a sure sign that an attack had been imminent. They had found none and had subsequently reported the night as being ‘quiet’, the situation ‘normal’.
Despite the apparent calm, at five minutes past seven am on the thirtieth the situation had changed when all hell had broken loose with the beginning of the enemy gas and high explosives bombardment …’The Boche guns opened fire on all trenches, posts and occupied areas in the Battalion Sector; his trench mortars also put a heavy barrage on the front line posts. At about 8am he attacked in great force’…Soon the Liverpool Scottish had been fighting for their very lives, many as we have seen, including Private Fleming, had not see out the day.
Like thousands of families at the beginning of December 1917, the Fleming’s had turned their thoughts to Christmas. Although supposedly the season of goodwill, they had received very little in the way of festive cheer, for by the time that Christmas Day had dawned they had received the news that their beloved son was missing in action. Shortly afterwards, on Friday the 28TH of December the tiding had been included in that evening’s ‘Scarborough Mercury’;
‘Reported missing - Private C. Fleming, Liverpool Scottish, 6 West Square, is reported missing. He was formerly in the Territorials, but transferred. He is 22 years of age and was before the war employed with his father in the business in Hanover Road.’
Nothing more had been heard of their missing son, and William Fleming had instigated his own enquiries into the whereabouts of Clarence. It had not been until May 1918, that the Fleming’s had received information from the German Red Cross informing them that Clarence had indeed been killed in action. The tiding had once again appeared in the local press, the ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 24TH of May had reported;
‘Fallen and buried - Fallen and buried’. This is the nature of the long sought for information regarding Private C. Fleming, Liverpool Regiment, West Square, the only son of Mr Fleming, who has been missing since 30TH of November. The War Office forwarded the news and stated it has reached them from the German Red Cross, a German infantry regiment having recorded his identity disc on 12TH December 1917. Private Fleming was 22 years of age, and before the war was in his fathers business at Hanover Road. A few days ago Mr Fleming had a card from Germany stating, in response to his request, that enquiries would be made. The news has, however, arrived from the source named. He war in the Territorials when war broke out, and served from that time’…
Despite numerous searches of the Cambrai battlefield before, and after the end of the war, the remains of Private Fleming had never been found and his name, like Lieutenant Hutchinson’s had been included amongst the 7,048 names of officers and men ‘of the forces of the British Empire who fell at the Battle of Cambrai between the 20TH of November and the 3RD of December 1917, whose names are here recorded but to whom the fortunes of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death’, who are commemorated on the Cambrai Memorial at Louverval, Northern France.…Clarence Fleming’s name can be found on Panel Four of the Memorial.
A former member of the congregation of Scarborough’s now defunct Holy Trinity Church, at the end of hostilities Clarence Fleming’s name had been included on the Church’s ‘Memorial Tablet’ commemorating twenty eight men from Holy Trinity who had lost their lives between 1914 and 1919, which had been unveiled during the service which had taken place in the morning of Sunday the 21ST of November 1920 [There had also once been a memorial stained glass window in the church commemorating the lost men], however, the whereabouts of this memorial is not known. Also a member the congregation of Christ Church, Clarence’s name had also been included on this church memorial, which had commemorated twenty church members who had lost their lives during the war. Christ Church had once stood in its own grounds in Scarborough’s Vernon Road until its demolition in the 1970’s. The site is now occupied by ‘Iceland’ food store, and the church memorial, which takes the form of a wooden cabinet which contains a crucifix, is now located in St Mary’s Parish Church
Apart from the Oliver’s Mount Memorial, Clarence’s name can also be found in Scarborough Manor Road Cemetery [North Terrace, Border, Grave 4] on a grave marker which also contains the name of his Huddersfield born father, William Fleming, who had died in Scarborough at No. 22 Harcourt Place on Sunday the 5TH of March 1933, at the age of 61 Years, and sister Phyllis, who had passed away, also at No.2 Harcourt Place, on the Thursday the 29TH of October 1936 at the age of thirty four years. Clarence’s Scarborough born mother, Emily Fleming had lived for many years in the town at No.51 Roscoe Street, and had outlived her only son by over forty years, having died in a Scarborough Nursing Home at the age of 86 years on Sunday the fifth of January 1958. Her funeral had taken place during the afternoon of Tuesday the 7TH January, following a requiem Mass at St Peters Catholic Church, Scarborough [A small, now broken, memorial commemorating the name of Private Fleming is also to be found at the grave site of the soldier’s Grandparents, Richardson and Mary Brown which is located in Section P, Row 6, Grave 33 of Manor Road Cemetery].
The Manor Road memorial also contains a wonderful inscription to a beloved son forever missing at Cambrai - "Better by far you should forget and smile than you should remember and be sad"…
To the left of Private Fleming’s unit the line had been held the men of the 12TH [Eastern] Division who had fared little better than their Lancastrian counterparts, having felt the full force of the German onslaught of the thirtieth. Amongst the units that had been holding this section of the line had been two battalions of the Royal Fusiliers [City of London Regiment] belonging to 35TH Brigade. On the left had been the 8TH Battalion, which had been in positions to the east of La Vacquerie, whilst the 9TH had been in trenches south of the Gouzeaucourt-Cambrai road. The Royal Fusiliers Historian takes up the story of the Ninth;
’At 6-45am on November the 30TH an intense artillery bombardment began, and at 7-40 infantry attacks developed. Almost immediately the resistance of the 35TH Brigade and part of the 55TH Division on the right of the 9TH Battalion was overcome, and ‘C’ Company was forced to withdraw, taking up a position astride the Cambrai road. The Germans advanced down the Hindenburg Front Line after the troops of the 35TH Brigade to the Brigade Headquarters. ‘B’ Company at once delivered a counter attack over the open, forcing the Germans 200 yards, when bombing blocks were made in all the trenches and the position was held firmly. ‘D’ Company, on the left, were surrounded, and most of them became casualties. Only one officer and 13 other ranks succeeded in fighting their way back to the main body of the battalion…[14]
The story of the 8TH Battalion runs on similar lines, whereby only twelve men had been able to fight their way out of the nightmare of the German attack to take up positions in the Brigade reserve line, from where, with the enemy just fifty yards behind, the Commanding Officer of the battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Neville Bowes Elliot-Cooper, already the holder of a D.S.C. and M.C., had mounted a courageous but forlorn counter attack with a handful of men…’The small body went forward cheering; the Germans wavered and were then driven back over the Cambrai road. But there heavy machine gun fire was encountered. Elliot-Cooper himself fell. All the officers became casualties; and seeing the impossibility of maintaining and consolidating the position, he had ordered the withdrawal. He was only 29 years of age, and by this order he deliberately accepted the bitter fate of falling into the hands of the enemy’…[15]
There had been no further attacks that night, however the following day, the first of December the Germans had renewed their assault by trying to cross the Cambrai road towards La Vacquerie. Once again they had been beaten off by rifle fire and machine gun fire from the Fusiliers. Seven times the enemy had tried to breach the line there, and seven times they had been repulsed until the Fusiliers had ran out of bombs. Subsequently forced to abandon their positions, the men of the two battalions had withdrew 150 yards to a point just north of the Cambrai road, where they had continued to hold the enemy.
Without food for four days, and having endured some of the bitterest fighting of the German counter attack, the half starved and battle weary survivors of the 8TH and 9TH Battalions of the Royal Fusiliers had been relieved in the front line during the night of Monday the 3RD of December. By this time the 9TH Battalion had suffered over two hundred casualties, whilst the 8TH Battalion had lost 10 officers and 247 men killed, wounded, and missing. Amongst the latter had been twenty nine years old;
GS/49839 Lance Corporal Thomas Craven Coverley. A member of the Battalion’s ‘C’Company, Tom had been born at No.5 Saville Street in the North Yorkshire market town of Malton on the 2ND of April 1888 and had been the youngest son of Joanna, and ‘Master Tobacconist’, William Miller Coverley, who at the time of their son’s death had been residing in Scarborough at No.7 Albemarle Crescent [in 2006 the building is occupied by ‘Moneyweb Ltd, Independent Financial Advisors’].
An employee of the London Joint Stock Bank before the war, Thomas Coverley had enlisted into the army at Whitby during 1915, and had initially served as a Private [Service Number 2391] in the 31ST[Reserve] Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers, and had been undergoing training at Leith near Edinburgh, when on the 3rd of June 1916 [by which time he had been promoted to Lance Corporal] the twenty eight years old had been married in the Parish Church of the tiny Lincolnshire village of South Rauceby to Mary Elizabeth Elmitt, the twenty two years old Canadian born daughter of local farmer William Thomas Elmitt.
Three months after his marriage, Thomas Coverley had been posted to the 8TH Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers during October 1916 and had joined the severely mauled unit on the Somme shortly after it had suffered heavy casualties [over 250 all ranks] to enemy machine gun and artillery fire during an abortive assault on an enemy position known as ‘Bayonet Trench’, which had taken place on the seventh of the month. Conditions ‘on the Somme’ during this period had been appalling. An insight into the nightmarish world into which Private Coverley had been pitched can be glimpsed in the words of an anonymous Royal Fusilier officer;
‘It rained nearly every day. The men were soaked to the skin with liquid mud for days on end, and after ration carrying fatigues were deadbeat. It was a long carry, and the mud was appalling…. The sick rate in the Battalions at this time was the worst I have ever known. One morning each battalion in the Brigade had over 150 sick, and one had nearly 250’…[14]
Coverley and the remainder of Lieutenant Colonel Elliot-Cooper’s 8TH Royal Fusiliers had remained on the Somme throughout the dreadful winter of 1916 and early 1917 to eventually take part in the Battle of Arras, when on the 9TH of April the 8TH and 9TH Battalions had conducted a successful operation against enemy positions to the north of the Arras-Cambrai road for the loss of 175 officers and men killed, wounded, and missing, which at the time had been considered ‘light casualties’.
On the 3RD of May the 8TH Royal Fusiliers had been involved in operations to the south of the River Scarpe near to the village of Pelves. Once again the formation had lost many men for precious little gain. The battalion had in fact been so badly cut up by machine gun fire that day that by the fall of night the unit could barely muster a company of men, having lost 282 officers and men during the hour of daylight.
Spared from the hell of Passchendaele, the 12TH Division had next taken part in a major offensive during the opening day of the Cambrai operations, when the formation, on the right flank of the assault, and attached to Third Army’s Fourth Corps, had taken the Bonavis Ridge with the assistance of seventy six tanks. Casualties during this operation had once again been considered ‘light’.
During this action the 8TH and 9TH Royal Fusiliers had formed up to the north and south of the road to Cambrai, in the ‘Gonnelieu Trenches’, from where the two units had launched an attack on ‘Barrier Trench’ and ‘Sonnet Farm’ to the south of La Vacquerie. Both objectives had been secured at a cost of over a hundred and twelve casualties. Two days later the 8th Battalion had carried out a ‘local attack’ on Pelican Trench, towards Banteaux. After a ‘brisk little engagement’ of seventeen minutes the battalion had captured all its objectives. However, fifteen minutes later the Germans had counterattacked with their customary ferocity and had retaken four hundred yards of trench system, which had cost the battalion over fifty eight casualties. The 8TH Royal Fusiliers had been relieved the following day, when the battalion had moved into the positions near to La Vacquerie that they would be holding on the day of the German counter attack.
Officially recorded as having died on Sunday the 2ND of December 1917, no identifiable remains of Lance Corporal Coverley had ever been found, and during the post war years his name, along with those of Lieutenant Hutchinson, and Private Fleming, had been included amongst the seven thousand and forty eight names of missing servicemen of the Cambrai operations; ‘to whom the fortunes of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death’, who are commemorated on the Cambrai Memorial at Louverval, Northern France. Forever missing in action, Thomas Craven Coverley’s name can be located amongst the names of fellow ‘missing’ Royal Fusiliers recorded on Panels 3 and 4 of the Memorial.
Although not a native of Scarborough, Thomas Craven Coverley’s name is included on the town’s Oliver’s Mount War Memorial. It can also be found in Scarborough’s Dean Road Cemetery [Section C, Border, Family Vault 7A] on a now broken memorial which also commemorates the name of the soldier’s only child;
70142 Flying Officer [Pilot] William Hugh Coverley. Born eight months before the death of his father [who had only seen his son once in his lifetime] in the Lincolnshire village of Metheringham on Thursday the 5TH of April1917, Hugh Coverley had begun his association with Scarborough during February 1918, when his mother had brought him to the town to live with his grandparents at No.7 Albemarle Crescent. Soon after their arrival in Scarborough May Coverley had begun work in the local office of the Inland Revenue where she had been employed throughout the early 1920’s.
Remarried at St Mary’s Parish Church on Monday the 21ST of August 1922 to former soldier Ronald Albert Gough, the couple had remained in Scarborough until 1925,by which time their daughter, Elizabeth Ray had been born in their home at No.45 Moorland Road on March the 31ST 1923, the occasion being followed by Hugh and Ray being baptised in Scarborough’s St Columba Parish Church on the 17TH of May of the same year. By now Ronald Gough had secured a job as a manager with the Electrolux Company, and soon the majority of the Gough family had left
Scarborough to live in various localities throughout the United Kingdom [including No 37 Dawson Street, Dublin, to where Hugh had often travelled alone from Scarborough during school holidays].
Hugh had however, stayed in Scarborough with grandparents William and Joanna Coverley, and at the age of eight had begun life as a ‘day boy’ at the austere Scarborough College. Located in Scarborough’s Filey Road at the time that Coverley had been at the College it had been ruled by the indomitable, some may say notorious, Armstrong brothers, the outwardly sombre and taciturn Lawrence [nicknamed ‘Pluto’], the head of the Junior House, and the ‘oversized extrovert’ Percy ‘Snot’ Armstrong, the Head of School. An austere establishment where white starched Eton collars, Tweed suits and waistcoats had been the order of the day, a contemporary of Coverley says of his time at the college between 1923 and 1931;
‘We were soundly taught, but with little attempt to capture our imaginations. We worked from 9am to 1pm including Saturday mornings and from 4pm to 6pm followed by ninety minutes of homework. If we did not learn we were punished. Beating, detention, and lines were common, with corporal punishment handed out by everyone from Percy Armstrong down to the prefects. So it was that by the time we left, usually at sixteen or seventeen, we had our School Certificates, most as I remember it, with the matriculation that gave us entrance to universities’.
[Geoffrey S. Powell. ‘Six inches of Bath water’; One hundred years of Scarborough College].
Like many of Scarborough College’s former students between the wars, Hugh Coverley had not ‘gone up’ to University. Leaving the College at the end of the summer term of 1934, Hugh had joined his family, which at the time had been living in the village of Keynsham located near the city of Bristol, where he had eventually found employment as a trainee with the respectable firm of Estate Agents and Auctioneers; Lalonde Bros& Parnham [now Chesterton Lalonde], whose offices had been located in Bristol’s Queen Street.
Although involved in the handling of the selling of the new housing projects that had been mushrooming around Bristol during the mid 1930’s, Hugh’s sight had firmly been set skywards and the fruition of a lifelong yearning to fly. Like many of the aspiring flyers of this time Hugh’s dream had become reality with the arrival during the summer of 1936 of world famous Sir Alan Cobham with his equally renowned Flying Circus. In a flight costing ten shillings [50p] Hugh and sister Ray had flown over Bristol in one of Cobham’s battered Tiger Moth aircraft, one can well imagine the thrill experienced by the teenagers. Another teenager had later told of a flight with Cobham’s Circus over his school during 1936…
’It was extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary. You never had any idea what the earth looked like from way above it. And the pilot took us over the school…to see what we lived in from the air, and worked in, and played in, we had a big play ground, we kicked a tennis ball about, and we had five courts there, and that was where you saw part of your life going through. You didn’t realise it at the time but when you reflect on it it’s beyond belief, at that age, because it was extraordinary…And I remember the noise of the aeroplane and that sort of thing, and the pilots were all laid back characters. You automatically thought, ‘well, I’d like to be one of them’, because they were all heroes to us, flying aeroplanes. That’s how it all started’….Gerald Stapleton [Spitfire Ace; Davidson & Taylor; Pan Books; 2004].
That’s how flying had also started for Hugh Coverley. Although interested in motorcycles, and fast cars, the aeroplane had always remained his first love, and when the Reserve of Air Force Officers [RAFO] had been formed he had applied to join instantly. Initially learning the rudiments of flight on the ground during the weekends and attending lectures on the arts of navigation and gunnery during the week Hugh had eventually been commissioned as an Acting Pilot Officer in the reserve on the 21ST of December 1936. A year later, on the 12TH of October 1937, Hugh had been promoted to Pilot Officer [RAFO] and subsequently on the 12TH of April 1939 to Flying Officer [RAFO].
During August 1939 with the clouds of another world war looming Hugh Coverley had been posted to Abbotsinch, in Scotland where he had joined ‘Blue Flight’ of No.602 [City of Glasgow] Squadron [A pre war Royal Auxiliary Air Force formation which by the time that Coverley, always known by the name of ‘Roger’ within the Squadron, had joined had been incorporated into the Royal Air Force], which, to his delight, had been armed with the magnificent Mark 1 Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft.
Britain had declared war on Germany at 11-15am on the third of September 1939 [the day that Hugh had been promoted to Flying Officer in the R.A.F. proper] and at first nothing had happened. The so called ‘phoney war’ had ended during October when Hugh and the remainder of 602 had moved to Grangemouth, and later, on the 13TH of October, to an airfield at Drem, which is situated on the East Coast to the south west of North Berwick, in Northumberland, from where nine days later, ‘Blue Flight’, consisting of three ‘Spits’ had been scrambled to intercept an enemy aircraft which had turned for home at first sight of the Spitfires. Although the aircraft of Blue Flight had opened fire on the enemy aircraft, which had last been seen disappearing into cloud with smoke belching from its tail, a lack of photographic evidence had denied 602 claiming the first kill over British soil since 1918.
Nevertheless, that same afternoon the Squadron had once again been scrambled along with Spitfires from 603 [City of Edinburgh] Squadron and on that occasion the Squadron had claimed a Junkers Ju 88 [Stuka] Dive Bomber, which had been preparing to bomb the naval dockyard at Rosyth. Seconds earlier 603 had knocked a Heinkel bomber from the sky, thus once again, robbing 602 of the privilege of drawing first blood in British skies. However, on the 7th of July Blue Flight had once again been scrambled to deal with a force of enemy aircraft, on that occasion Coverley had been credited with a share in the destruction of a Ju 88 Dive Bomber.
Soon after the completion of the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from the beaches of Dunkirk [Operation Dynamo, June 4TH 1940] France had capitulated to the Germans on the 22ND of June 1940. With the majority of Northern Europe now in his hands Hitler had turned his attention towards an invasion of England. Obviously, before this could be achieved Britain’s defences, primarily the aircraft of the Royal Air Force would have to be first knocked out to gain command of the skies. Therefore, on August the first 1940 Hitler had issued his Directive No.17, in which he had ordered;
‘The Luftwaffe will use all the forces at its disposal to destroy the British air force as quickly as possible….August 5TH is the first day on which this intensified air war may begin, but the exact date is to be left to the Luftwaffe and will depend on how soon its preparations are complete, and on the weather situation’…
Thus had been launched the ‘Alderangriff’, ‘The attack of the Eagles’, better known to the people of Britain as the ‘Battle of Britain’.
By the beginning of August 1940 602 Squadron had been commanded by Squadron Leader A.V.R. ‘Sandy’ Johnstone and had still been stationed at Drem. However, on the twelfth of the month the Squadron had suddenly been ordered southwards to the airfield at Westhampnett [now Goodwood racing circuit] in West Sussex to relieve No.145 Squadron.
Arriving on the 13TH , the day that the Germans had undertaken 1,485 sorties against the R.A.F., during the following day 602 had gone into action for the first time in the air battle which had culminated on the 15TH of August, a day when the Luftwaffe had flown 1,786 sorties claiming ninety nine British aircraft shot down in air combat [This figure had been later been found to be exaggerated, the actual number had been 35 aircraft lost], whilst the British had claimed 180 enemy aircraft destroyed by Fighter Command and anti aircraft fire, but reality had shown that only half that figure had been ‘downed’ [76 aircraft].
On the sixteenth of August 602 Squadron had flown two sorties that had accounted for a Ju 87 that had been caught dive-bombing Tangmere airfield. At tea time that same day about sixty Heinkels escorted by Messerschmitts had been sighted, the Squadron had once again taken to the air and had accounted for five Messerschmitts without losses to 602.
It had been a very different story on the eighteenth of August however, when a mixed force of over fifty Messerschmitt 109’s and Heinkels had been caught attacking the airfield at Ford. During the ensuing dogfight, although 602 had accounted for eight enemy aircraft, the unit had lost five of their precious Spitfires and two pilots killed [Flight Lieutenants Urie had baled out wounded, the wounded Flying Officer P.J. Ferguson had crash landed, and Flying Officer Henry Woolaston Moody [a friend of Hugh’s] had baled out unhurt. The following day Moody had again been forced to bale out this time with burns after his aircraft had been hit by return fire from a damaged Junkers 88].
On Sunday the 25TH of August a solid mass of three hundred enemy aircraft had been spotted between Swanage and Dorchester. 603 had been amongst the squadrons that had been scrambled to attack the horde of aircraft, the pilots having no problem singling out their own targets as they had dived into the attack. The Squadron had later claimed a mixed bag of twelve enemy aircraft destroyed or damaged during the ferocious dog fight, however post war research has shown that this had been an exaggerated amount due to the duplication of claims and the unit is only credited with ‘three probables’ for the action.
During the course of the fighting Coverley’s aircraft, Hawker Hurricane, P9381, had been hit by enemy fire forcing the young flier to abandon the plane to parachute unhurt to the ground, the Hurricane eventually crashing and burning out on Galton Heath. Sergeant Pilot Mervyn Herbert Sprague also from 602, had also been casualty of the battle that day, although he had also baled out unhurt, Mervyn would also lose his life in air combat four days after Hugh Coverley, on the 11TH of September 1940.
Constantly in a state of readiness or being scrambled, refuelling, re arming, and back to cockpit readiness, the next few days had been hectic and exhausting for the men and aircraft of 602. On the fourth of September a large force of Dorniers bombers escorted by Messerschmitts had been intercepted and dispersed without casualties. However, on the sixth it had been a different story when ‘B’ Flight had been surprised by a force of Messerschmitt 109’s losing three of its Spitfires for only one ‘certain’ enemy aircraft.
During the afternoon of the following day, Saturday the 7th of September 1940, the Luftwaffe had launched its largest attack of the battle consisting of over three hundred bombers, escorted by a huge force of fighters all heading for the Thames Estuary, East London, and the aerodromes to the north and south of the city;
‘It was four o’clock in the afternoon when radar picked up the assembly of the big formation over Calais, where Goering with a large entourage watched its departure in person. It came in two waves, at unusually high altitude, with the bombers at 16-20,000 feet, and it was some time before it was recognised for what it was’…
To meet the threat 11 Group had scrambled just four squadrons of fighters, a totally inadequate force in the face of practically the entire Messerschmitt strength of two enemy ‘Luftflottens’, or squadrons, some 600 aircraft. Amongst the meagre British force had inevitably been 602 Squadron. ‘Sandy Johnstone had later recalled;
‘It was a hazy sort of day to about 16,000 feet. As we broke through the cloud you could hardly believe it. Hundreds of enemy bombers, closely escorted by as many 109’s, and once we had got stuck into them, the whole sky erupted into a seething cauldron of whirling dervishes with streaks of tracer everywhere around. From then on it became a case of every man for himself and, having extricated myself from it, goodness knows how, I remember thinking how lucky I was to be still flying...[4]
[Coverley’s C.O., Squadron Leader Alexander Vallence Riddell ‘Sandy’ Johnstone, had probably bagged four enemy aircraft during that afternoon].
Despite the valiant efforts of the few, the outcome of the battle had been inevitable. The ‘Official History’ says of the 7TH…’On the whole September 7 amounted to a victory for the German bombers, most of which had reached their targets without much difficulty, dropping more than three hundred tons of high explosives and many thousands of incendiaries on and around the capital within an hour and a half’…
During the savage fighting which had taken place over Mayfield, Sussex, that day the Royal Air Force had destroyed seventy four enemy aircraft at a cost of twenty seven aircraft along with fourteen pilots killed or reported as ‘Missing’. 602 Squadron had lost two of its Spitfires with the loss of both pilots, Pilot Officer Harry Moody, and his close friend twenty three years old ‘Roger’ Coverley. The remains of thirty years old Pilot Officer Moody, or his aircraft had never been found, and his name had eventually been placed on Panel 9 of the Royal Air Force Memorial to the Missing at Runnymede, Surrey [There is a theory that Moody’s aircraft had come down in the Thames Estuary, the splash not being noticed amongst the many exploding bombs].
Although alive, albeit badly burned, when he had baled out of his aircraft [Spitfire N3198], Hugh’s descent had gone unobserved and it had it had not been until a number of days after the battle that his remains had been found, his burnt out aircraft being located at Fosters Farm, Haysden Lane, near Tunbridge. Like his father before him, Hugh had initially been reported as ‘Missing in action’. However, on the 16TH of September the body of the burnt flier had been located and the news of his death had eventually reached Scarborough during mid September. The ‘Scarborough Mercury’ of Friday the 20TH of September 1940 had reported;
‘Airman killed in action - Relatives of Flight Lieut. William Hugh Coverley, aged 22, only son of Mrs. R. Gough and the late Mr. Coverley of Keynsham, near Bristol, and formerly of Scarborough, have received intimation that he has been killed in action. He was a former pupil at the Scarborough College. The funeral will take place locally’….
Officially recorded as having died ‘due to war operations’ on the seventh of September 1940, a few days after his death the remains of Hugh Coverley had arrived in Scarborough, having been brought to the town by road from Pembury, in Kent.
At the time of her son’s death May Gough had been residing in the village of Lowdham, in Nottinghamshire, from where, she and her husband, together with daughter Ray had travelled to Scarborough to attend the funeral of their beloved son which had taken place in the town’s Dean Road Cemetery during the afternoon of Monday the 23RD of September 1940 following a service of remembrance held in the nearby St Columba Church [although a former member of the congregation, Hugh Coverley’s name is unfortunately not included on St Columba’s War Memorial].
Interred in Section C, Family Vault 7A of Dean Road Cemetery, the remains of William Hugh Coverley had been laid to rest with those of his grandparents; Joanna Coverley [formally Robson]. Born in Low Marishes [a hamlet located near the market town of Thornton Le Dale, North Yorkshire] on the 9TH of April 1852, Joanna had died in Scarborough at No7 Albemarle Crescent during Tuesday the 22ND of December 1931 at the age 79 years [her burial had taken place on the 28TH of December].
Hugh’s grandfather, Captain William Miller Coverley had been born in Scarborough at No.9 Harcourt Place on the 10TH of January 1851 [baptised at St Mary’s Parish Church on the 5TH of February 1851] and had been the son of Eliza and John Coverley, who, according to various trade directories of the time had been a ‘dispensing and family chemist, and member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Britain’. Listed as a ‘Master Mariner’ in the 1881 Census, by 1901 William Coverley had been living with his family in Malton, where he had been carrying on a business as a Tobacconist at No.5 Saville Street. [16]
William and Joanna had retired to Scarborough during the summer of 1908, where the family had resided at No7 Albemarle Crescent until the death of William Miller on Friday the 19TH of June 1936 at the age of 85 years [his remains had subsequently been interred in the family vault in Dean Road Cemetery during the morning of Tuesday the 23RD of June 1936].
At the end of the Great War of 1914 –19 Scarborough Council had advertised for the relatives of the town’s eight hundred servicemen who had lost their lives during the war to submit the names of their loved ones to the council for inclusion on a proposed Scarborough War Memorial. Although, strictly speaking not a native of Scarborough, Thomas Craven Coverley’s name [and those of many other non Scarborians] had been included on the War Memorial which had eventually been constructed on the town’s Oliver’s Mount. Alas, although having spent much of his life in Scarborough, and had been educated in one of the town’s premier colleges, the name of William Hugh Coverley had not been included in the panels commemorating the names of Scarborough war dead of the subsequent World War 2 Memorial. Plans are afoot to address the situation.
During the post war years the name of Hugh Coverley had been included on the Scarborough College ‘Roll of Honour, a pair wooden tablets which had contained the names of thirty four old boys who had lost their lives during the war of 1939-1945. These memorials had been unveiled during the evening of Sunday the sixth of November 1949 before a congregation of relatives, and past and present scholars of the College by Wing Commander R.H. Shaw D.F.C, an old boy himself. In his address to the assembled crowd, the Reverend J.M. Sergeant, the Vicar of St Saviours, Battersea, also an ‘old Scardeburgian’ had said… ‘Our war effort had won for us a respite—an opportunity if we would take it, to remake the world. That opportunity, he had said, had been purchased with the lives of our dear comrades’…. Sadly today [2006] the Scarborough College’s memorial is no longer on public view.
Many years after the war Hugh’s sister had received an emotional letter from Sandy Johnstone recalling those long gone dark days of 1940, the words of the former flying ace providing a poignant reminder of her once idolised elder brother;
‘The passage of time has in no way dimmed my fond memories and I will forever feel immensely proud at having shared so many hair raising experiences with Hugh. We often flew together and one knew instinctively that, with him alongside, one had nothing to worry about, indeed, I could hardly believe it when he did not return from that devastating onslaught on London, for I knew he was more than capable of looking after himself in action…Johnstone had also recalled Hugh’s pet Bulldog… ‘Spud, too we remember. Quite a few had dogs with them, but Spud was something special and, like his master, a credit to the squadron and who doubtless missed Hugh just as much as we did’…[17]
[Returned to Hugh’s mother shortly after his master’s death, Spud had died soon afterwards].
Over the years the Dean Road memorial commemorating the father and son who had so gallantly served King and Country, and ultimately given their lives during the two world wars had become neglected, and had finally broken and fallen over during the 1990’s, Hugh’s gravesite falling into disrepair.
The extraordinary story of Thomas and Hugh Coverley could have ended there, however, during 2004, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission had placed one of their pristine Portland stone grave markers at the site, and during the following year interest in the grave had been rekindled by Mr Bill Parker, the second in command of Scarborough College’s Combined Cadet Force who had discovered Hugh’s grave during research which he had undertaken through the C.W.G.C.. Mr Parker had also supervised the restoration of the Coverley family plot, and in addition, had traced Hugh’s surviving sister, Mrs Elizabeth Ray Buxton, who now [2006] lives in Derbyshire.
On the fourteenth of December 2005 members of the Scarborough College’s Combined Cadet Force had mustered at the site of Hugh Coverley’s final resting place to pay their respects to an old boy of their school that had paid such a dear price in the cause of freedom during those dark days of 1940. Whilst at the site the cadets had laid a wreath, whilst the unit’s standard-bearer, Philip Fordham, had dipped his standard in homage. Two minutes of silence had followed the sounding of ‘Last Post’, during which Cadet Kathryn Dee had dropped poppy petals onto Hugh’s grave. At the sounding of Reveille the college standard had been raised and Cadet James McMillan had read out the Exhortation. Following the readings Cadet Samuel Spaven had laid a poppy wreath, whilst Cadets Helen Robertson, Emily Lucas, Leigh MacLeod, and Helen Precious had positioned fresh flowers. At the end of their emotive ceremony of remembrance Cadet Helen Robertson had read the words of a prayer she had especially written for the occasion.
‘Lord, let us all take time today to remember those who set aside their own lives, their own joys and their own loves to save our own souls. Today we remember Flying Officer [Pilot] William Hugh Coverley, and thank him for the sacrifice he personally made for each one of us. We remember his family and friends, and all those that knew him well; bless them as they live their lives in the knowledge of what he did for them. Thank you for the sacrifice you made, and bless us all.. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen’…
Helen’s words reflect those spoken by the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother a number of years before;
‘In the hearts of the British people there will always be a special place for The Few, the young men from Britain, the Commonwealth and Allied countries who fought and won the Battle of Britain in 1940. Without their courage, skill and determination in the face of fearful odds, who can tell what the final outcome of the war might have been. Many of them gave their lives, young lives which held so much promise for the future’…
The last of the large set piece offensives of the Great War, ‘Byng’s Bombshell’ had also been the great ‘ if only’ operations of the conflict. If only the High Command had exploited the successes of those crucial first couple of days, if only a number of the Generals had not been bogged down with old fashioned tactics if only the cavalry had been used more expertly, if only there had been more reserves, if only…
Soon after the closing down of the Cambrai Operations had come the recriminations, especially concerning the seemingly lack of foresight regarding the German counterattack of 30TH of November, and the casting around for a suitable scapegoat. Although some of his Generals had been found wanting, Byng had refused to lay the blame on his subordinates [nevertheless a number had been sent home shortly afterwards] and despite Haig having accepted total blame for the fiasco, a subsequent Court of Enquiry had nevertheless laid the blame squarely on the shoulders of the ordinary soldier, the ‘Poor Bloody Infantry’ which we have seen in the preceding pages had been far from lacking in courage and determination to carry their task through to the end. The renowned historian, Liddell Hart says of this sordid affair;
’One shadow which still lingers is that undeservedly thrown on the regimental officers and men by superior officers anxious to exculpate themselves. The official court of enquiry pinned the blame on the troops, ascribing the surprise [of the German counter attack] to their negligence and also asserting, contrary to facts that they had failed to sent up S.O.S. flares. Even Byng declared—‘I attribute the reason for the local success on the part of the enemy to one cause and one alone namely—lack of training on the part of junior officers and NCO’s and men’…It is thus due for history to record, from the records, that many of the junior leaders were acutely alive to the danger and gave vain warnings to their superiors. And as for their resistance, it was more than anyone had a right to expect of troops who had been kept in action continuously since their attack on November 20TH’…History of the First World War; Papermac 1997.]
The author wishes to express his sincere gratitude to Mr. Bill Parker of Scarborough College, and especially to Mrs Elizabeth Ray Buxton, the sister of Flying Officer Coverley. Without their unbridled assistance the story of William Hugh Coverley would have never seen the light of day.
[1] The Ironclads of Cambrai; Bryan Cooper; Cassell 1967.
[2] With a machine gun to Cambrai; Corporal George Coppard; Cassell 1999.
[3] Military Operations in France and Belgium 1917; Volume 1; Cyril Falls; Macmillan; 1940.
[4] The West Yorkshire Regiment in the war 1914-18; Everard Wyrall; Bodley Head; London.
[5] Guards Division report on operations 9TH of November—6TH December 1917;
WO 158/385; National Archives.
[6] The son of the Honourable Patrick Bowes-Lyon, and the Honourable Mrs. P. Bowes-Lyon, Lieutenant Bowes-Lyon had also been a cousin of the late H.R.H. the Queen Mother. Reported missing, presumed killed during the assault on Fontaine Notre Dame no remains of ‘Mary’ Bowes-Lyon had ever been found. His name is included on Panel 2 of the Cambrai Memorial to the Missing, at Louverval, Northern France.
[7] ‘A generation missing’; William Heinemann Ltd; 1930. Strong Oak Press; ‘The fourteen-Eighteen collection’; 1989 [a copy available in Scarborough Library’s ‘Scarborough Room’]. An American born in Philadelphia during 1888, Carroll Chevalier Carstairs had passed himself off as a Canadian and had eventually received a Temporary Lieutenant’s commission in the British Army. He had initially served on the Western Front with the Royal Field Artillery, however during 1916 Carstairs had been transferred to the Guards Division and had served with the 3RD Battalion of the Grenadier Guards until he had been seriously wounded just six days before the Armistice. Awarded with a Military Cross during February 1918, as a reward for bravery displayed during the Cambrai operations, Carroll Carstairs had died in New York during 1948.
[8] John’s Scarborough born grandfather, John Wilson Wright, had died on Sunday the fourth of October 1914 at the age of 67 years, whilst his grandmother, Mary Wright, had passed away at No.106 Longwestgate the following year, on Sunday the 21ST of November 1915 at the age of 69 years. Both are interred in Scarborough’s Manor Road Cemetery in Section K, Row 4, Grave 31. Unfortunately, their final resting place is unmarked.
[9] Cabaret Rouge British Cemetery is also the final resting place of Scarborough born; 35790 Private John Henry Clark. The eldest son of Rosabella, and ‘Engine Driver’ Robert Clark, of No.2 Locomotive Terrace, Londesborough Road, Scarborough, John had died at the age of 27 years on Monday the 10TH of June 1918, from the effects of wounds he had received during the German Spring offensive of March 1918, whilst serving with the 15TH [Service] Battalion [1ST Salford Pals] of the Lancashire Fusiliers. A former grocers assistant, John Clark’s grave is located in Section 8, N, Grave 43.
7097 Lance Corporal Douglas Horton had been killed in action at the age of twenty one whilst serving with ‘C’ Squadron, of the 18TH [Queen Mary’s Own] Hussars, on Tuesday the 20TH of October 1914. Born at Scarborough during 1893, Douglas had been a former pupil of Scarborough’s ‘St Martin’s Grammar School, and had been one of four sons of ‘bath chair man’, William, and Emily Horton of No.10 Greenfield Road, South Cliff, Scarborough, who had served in the war. Reported for many months as ‘missing in action’ until his grave had been located on the battlefield during 1916, Horton’s remains had subsequently been re-interred in Cabaret Rouge’s Section 21, E, [Grave 19].
[10] During the assault on Fontaine Notre Dame ‘C’ Company of the 1ST Scots Guards had been sent in to try to assist the sorely depleted 3RD Grenadiers desperately fighting amongst the ruin of the village. Despite murderous enemy machine gun fire coming from La Folie Wood, the company had managed to get within a hundred and fifty yards of Fontaine before being stopped by intense fire coming from the village. By this time the unit had lost a good number of men and all of its officers and command of the company had been taken over by Sergeant John McAuley D.C.M.. A former heavyweight boxer, and Glasgow policeman, McAuley had not only succeeded in rescuing his commanding officer [the Honourable Arthur Kinnaird] despite being knocked off his feet twice by shell fire, aided by just two men and a machine gun had also managed to beat off an attack, killing at least fifty of the enemy in the process. For this act McAuley had been awarded with a Victoria Cross [Gazetted on the 11TH of January 1918].
[11] Military Operations France and Belgium; Volume 2 1917
[12] Everard Wyrall; The History of the King’s Regiment [Liverpool] 1914-1919;Volume 3, 1917-1919.
[13] Already the holder of the Victoria Cross [‘Gazetted’ 26TH of October 1916] along with a Military Cross, Chavasse had died from the effects of wounds received on the 2ND of August 1917 at Brandhoek, on the fourth of August. The Thirty-two years old had subsequently been awarded with a second Victoria Cross [‘Gazetted’ on the 14TH of September 1917]. One of only three recipients of two Victoria Crosses; Chavasse’s remains are interred in Brandhoek New Military Cemetery, [Section 3, B, Grave 15].
[14] The Royal Fusiliers in the Great War; H.C. O’Neal; The Naval and Military Press Ltd; Courtesy of the Royal Fusiliers Museum, Tower of London.
[15] Posthumously awarded with a Victoria Cross for his deeds on the 30TH of November 1917, the wounded Elliot –Cooper had been taken prisoner and had eventually been transported to a prisoner of war camp near Hamburg where he had died from the effects of his wounds at the age of twenty nine, on the 11TH of February 1918.
[16] At the time of the 1901 Census the Coverley family had consisted of; William, tobacconist, aged 50 years, born Scarborough. Joanna, 49 years, born Thornton [Le Dale] Marishes. Elizabeth, 243 years, born ‘Thornton, Marishes’. Charles W., 19 years, mechanical engineer’s apprentice, born Scarborough. Thomas C., 12 years, born Malton.
[17] The letter had been written by Johnstone during 1990 in reply to a letter sent to him by Ray Buxton following a recent article in the Sunday Post featuring the veteran flyer.