World War One - Royal Naval Division (from the book "Neath a Foreign Sky" by Paul Allen)
In Remembrance of;
- Sub Lieutenant Sidney Hepworth
- Private Claude Butler Brockwell
Badly mauled during fighting at Welsh Ridge during the 30TH and 31ST of December 1917, by the beginning of the new year the 63RD [Royal Naval] Division [R.N.D.] had been in such a depleted state that the unit had been unable to maintain its line of defence, and during the night of the 22ND/23RD of January the Division had been relieved from the line by the 2ND Division, the 63RD moving back into the support trenches. Supposedly sent there to ‘rest and recuperate their losses’ the men of the Division had, nevertheless, soon been put to work in strengthening the lines defences. Described as a ‘relatively peaceful period’ in the unit’s history, this period had come to an end during the middle of February 1918 when the Division, by this time ‘strongly reinforced’, had been moved back to the Cambrai Sector’s Flesquieres Ridge where the unit had been positioned when the Germans had launched their Spring Offensive of 1918. [1]
Despite having a reputation of being amongst the finest of fighting units on the Western Front, like most British units which had been in the line in the days following the dawning of the 21ST of March, the R.N.D. had stood little chance in the face of the so called ‘grey avalanche’ which had engulfed most of Fifth Army during that momentous day. Driven out of their positions in the Hindenburg Line by the fall of night on the 21ST of March, over the next few days the land locked sailors had conducted a ‘fighting retreat’ across the wasteland of the old Somme battlefield of 1916, and by the evening of the 24TH of March the R.N.D. had reached the infamous ‘High Wood, where so many lives had been thrown away, some would say needlessly, during the dreadful summer and autumn of 1916. Exhausted to the bone by this time, early the next day the men of the Division’s 189TH Brigade had been forced to defend its positions against a concerted assault made by enemy infantry. General de Pree [the C.O. of 189TH Brigade] describes;
‘At 6-30am’, ‘the enemy could be seen advancing from Flers towards High Wood, and at 9am considerable movement was seen behind the enemy’s line, and patrols were seen moving forward round our right flank. At 10am the attack became general.
At this time there was very little artillery fire, and it was quite possible to ride about on a horse fairly close up under cover in folds of the ground.
The advance of the German Army was very interesting to watch and was exceedingly skilfully carried out. The front was covered by large patrols each carrying one or two light machine guns. The use of light signals by these patrols was most remarkable. They signalised each stage of their advance by sending up a Very light with the result that the general effect given was the advance of a line of lights as far as the eye could see.
The large patrols mentioned above everywhere probed our front, an if they found a gap, they at once pressed through it and sent up a success signal The troops in rear at once moved to it and poured through the gap, and in a few minutes our flank was turned at that place. As far as could be seen the majority of the enemy’s infantry in this part of the front, had abandoned their rifles and simply acted as ammunition carriers to their numerous light machine guns. This seems to be borne out by the extraordinarily persistent volume of fire that they kept from these guns’… [1]
Described by Jerrold as one of the ‘most determined and well defined engagements of the many fought by the Division during the great retreat’, the supreme efforts of 189TH Brigade had mattered little in the face of overwhelming odds, and that same night the Division had once more been forced to retire, not before ‘C’ Company of the Anson Battalion [on the extreme left flank of the Division], had almost completely been surrounded and facing annihilation but for a brilliant counter attack which had been mounted by Royal Marines and sailors from 188TH Brigade. Much hard fighting had ensued; however, by the fall of night the division had fought its way to the remains of the village of Courcelette, where the unit had once more taken up defensive positions.
On the 26TH of March, the exhausted sailors had crossed the Ancre to take up positions on the north bank of the river, near the place from where the unit had launched its successful, but extremely costly, assault on the nearby village of Beaucourt-sur la’ Ancre, which had taken place on the 13TH of November 1916, in appalling conditions, during the latter stages of the Somme Offensive. The R.N.D had remained in these positions until the night of the 26TH/27TH of March, when the unit had been relieved in the line by the British 12TH Division, the formation falling back to positions near Engelbelmer. However by this time the Germans had themselves crossed the Ancre at Authville and had penetrated as far as the villages of Martinsart and Mesnil. The R.N.D’s 188TH brigade had by this time been billeted in Martinsart and had consequently been ordered to mount a counter attack on the nearby Aveluy Wood, which had been mounted by the Anson and 2ND Royal Marines Battalions: Jerrold says of the attack;
‘The attack was launched at 2-50am[on the 27TH of March] and met immediate success. The enemy, in spite of their numerous machine guns, broke and fled in disorder, many screaming and climbing the trees in Aveluy Wood in their panic. Fifty prisoners and thirteen machine guns were taken and many were killed. This frustrated the most dangerous attempt, which the Germans made to get through on this front. It showed what could be done by a sudden and vigorous counter attack, even under the most depressing circumstances It also spoke volumes for the men of this Brigade, that, worn out with fatigue, after days of retirement in which there had been little cause for encouragement, they could turn on their pursuers and drive them before them like chaff’…[1]
The R.N.D. had remained in the front line, where it had seen almost continuous action, until the 15TH of April 1918, when the Division had been withdrawn to march back to the area of Puchevillers, where the totally expended officers and men of the Division had at been allowed to rest. In continual retreat and involved in some of the most ferocious fighting of the British retreat, between the 13TH and 27TH of March the formation had received no reinforcements, and the average strength of the Battalions involved in the counter attacks of the 27TH of March w had not been more than 250 officers and men [at full strength a Battalion had usually consisted of around a thousand all ranks]. Although the R.N.D. had won through in the end, the price of success had inevitably been high, the Division losing something in the region of over six thousand officers and men. Amongst them had been twenty-seven years old;
Sub Lieutenant Sydney Hepworth, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. Attached to the Anson Battalion, Sydney had been born in Scarborough, at No.45 Queen Street during 1891, and had been the third son of Rachel and George Barnard Hepworth, a ‘draper/upholsterer’ by trade. [2]
Sydney had enlisted as an ordinary seaman into the Royal Naval Division during the early part of 1915 in response to a recruiting poster which had appeared at the time advertising for men between the ages of 18 and 38 to serve in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as ‘Handymen to fight on land and sea’, in the recently formed [September 1914] division.
Following basic training at Blandford Camp [situated near the small Dorset village of Blandford Forum], Hepworth, and the remainder of the R.N.D., had embarked for Egypt, preparatory to taking part in the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign. Involved in the majority of the major operations which had taken place on the disease and fly riddled patch of Turkish real estate between the 25TH of April 1915, the first day of the landings, and December 1916, when the British had ignominiously abandoned the peninsular. Eventually earmarked for service on the Western Front, the division had landed at Marseilles between the 12TH and 23RD of July 1916.
A veteran of the action at Beaucourt during 1916 and the subsequent Second Battle of the Scarpe [Arras] during 1917, during which he had taken part in the bitter fighting for the village of Gavrelle, which on the 28TH of April 1917 had resulted in the R.N.D.’s 1ST and 2ND Battalions of Royal Marines losing over eight hundred casualties [still the highest number of men ever lost by the Royal Marines in a single day]. By the end of these operations Sydney had been promoted to the rank of Petty Officer and had shortly been considered as officer material and had been posted to England for officer training. Attached to the 15TH Officer Training Battalion at Romford in Essex, Hepworth had remained with this unit for four months before being gazetted as a Temporary Sub Lieutenant in the R.N.V.R. during November 1917. Returning to France during December 1917 he had rejoined the Anson Battalion in time to serve in the action at Welsh Ridge.
Grievously wounded during the attack on Aveluy Wood, Hepworth had been transported to Doullens, a town situated in the Department of the Somme some 30 kilometres north of the city of Amiens, where he had been admitted to the 3RD Canadian Stationary Hospital. Whilst there the young officer had succumbed to his injuries during Wednesday the 10TH of April 1918. Two days later his widowed mother had received word that her third son had died as a result of injuries received in action. That same day, Friday the 12TH of April, the ‘Scarborough Mercury had reported;
‘Sub-Lieutenant dies of wounds - Official news has been received that Sub-Lieutenant Hepworth, R.N.D., 24 Garfield Road, has died of wounds in France, where he had been about five months. He had, however, been in the Royal Naval Division about three years. He was the son of Mrs. And the late Mr. G. Bernard Hepworth, formerly of Market Street. He was a single man of about 28’…
The following week, on Friday the 19TH of April, the ‘Mercury’ had added "Sub Lieutenant S. Hepworth - It is now known that Second Lieutenant Hepworth, 24 Garfield Road, whose death has already been announced, never regained consciousness and died a few after admission to hospital. He has been buried in an officer’s cemetery and his grave has been marked and is being cared for. He has a brother in the Canadians"…
Following his death, the remains of Sydney Hepworth had been transported to the eastern side of Doullens where they had been interred in a military burial ground, which had been situated near to the town’s communal cemetery. Now known as ‘Doullens Communal Cemetery Extension No.1, this cemetery is the final resting place of one thousand three hundred and sixty six casualties of the ‘Great War’, Sydney Hepworth’s is located in Section 4, Row D, Grave 46.
In Scarborough, apart from the town’s Oliver’s Mount Memorial, Sydney’s name had been included on a memorial in Jubilee Primitive Methodist Chapel, which had once been situated in Aberdeen Walk [in 2006 the site is occupied by the town’s ‘super’ Job Centre]. Constructed by local craftsman Fred Webster, this memorial, reportedly consisting of a ‘substantial tablet of white marble’ had once been situated in the entrance porch of the chapel, and had been unveiled during the afternoon of Wednesday the 9TH of March 1921 by the town’s Mayor of the time, Councillor William Boyes [the founder of Boyes stores]. In addition to commemorating fourteen former members of the church who had lost their lives in the course of the First World War, this memorial had also included the names of 60 men from the chapel who had served in the armed forces who had been fortunate enough to return to the town after the Armistice. Sadly the whereabouts of the Jubilee Chapel’s War Memorial is not known.
Sydney’s father, George Barnard Hepworth had died at the age of fifty during the evening of Monday the thirtieth of June 1902 following a heart attack whilst walking in Hanover Road. His remains had subsequently been interred in Scarborough’s Manor Road Cemetery during the afternoon of Thursday the third of July 1902 in Section O, Row 12, Grave 30 of the cemetery, alas, Mr. Hepworth’s final resting place is not marked. His mother, Rachel Hepworth, ad continued to live at her home at No.24 Garfield Road throughout the nineteen twenties, however, by the mid 1930’s the ownership of the house had been taken over by daughter Alice Maud Hepworth. Rachel is not recorded as having died in Scarborough.
Sidney’s younger brother, William Ernest Hepworth [born at Scarborough on the 26TH of September 1891] had been farming on the prairies of Alberta, Canada, near to the settlement of Myleen at the outbreak of the First World War, and had eventually enlisted into the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Force at Calgary on the 10TH of June 1917 to serve as a Private [Regimental Number 895535] in the Canadian Infantry, unlike his elder brother; he had survived the war to return to Canada following his demobilisation during 1919.
Doullens Communal Cemetery Extension No.1 is also the final resting place of another native of Scarborough. 3018 Private Claude Butler Brockwell Military Medal: Born in the town at No.1 Granville Road during 1890, Claude had been the youngest son of Mabel and Major Arthur Butler Brockwell, a ‘classical and mathematical tutor’, who had been residing in Scarborough at No.39 Westbourne Grove at the time of their son’s death, on the 6TH of April 1918. [3]
Privately educated by his father, Claude had subsequently been employed in the Town Clerks Office at Scarborough’s Town Hall, before turning to farming at Seamer. Brockwell had migrated to Australia at the age of nineteen and had been working near Perth in Western Australia at the outbreak of war. He had enlisted into the Australian Imperial Force at Perth on the 25TH of June 1915 and had subsequently served with the 51ST Battalion of Australian Infantry. Brockwell had embarked aboard the Australian Transport ‘H.M.A.T. Themistocles’ at Freemantle, Western Australia, on the 13TH of September 1915 and had joined this unit at Tel-el Kebir in Egypt at the beginning of 1916.
Brockwell had remained in Egypt until June 1916, when the 51ST had embarked at Alexandria for service on the Western Front. Within a fortnight of his arrival at Marseilles on the 12TH of June 1916, Brockwell had been in the Somme Sector, where during August and September 1916 his battalion [attached to the 13TH Brigade of the 4TH Australian division] had been thrown into the ferocious fighting for Mouquet Farm, where, during two attacks made on the 14TH of August and 3RD of September, the 51ST had suffered casualties amounting to a third of its strength [around three hundred officers and men killed, wounded, and missing]. Acting s a stretcher-bearer during these operations, Claude had been awarded with the Military Medal [‘Gazetted’ in page 11144, position 21 of the London Gazette of 16 November 1916] following his battalion’s ordeal at ‘Moocow Farm’, the citation accompanying his award reads;
‘For great gallantry near Mouquet Farm. This man who is a stretcher-bearer during a night attack on the 14TH/15TH August 1916 displayed great courage and resourses continuously bandaging wounded under heavy fire and placing tem in shell holes. Later after daybreak he carried man after man in under heavy fire from shell holes into our front trenches’…[4]
Brockwell had served for a further two years on the Western Front, including taking part during early 1917, in the advance following the German retreat to the Hindenburg Line, and on the 2ND of April the assault, and capture of the heavily fortified village of Noreuil. Later that year the 51ST had moved to the Ypres Sector where he had taken part in the Battle of Messines [7-12 June] and the Battle of Polygon Wood, which had taken place between the 26TH and 27TH of September 1917.
Involved in the German Spring Offensive of 1918, during this period the 51ST battalion had taken part in the defence of Dernacourt on the River Ancre, the unit assisting to repulse a heavy German assault, which had taken place on the 5TH of April. Grievously wounded by shell splinters in his ‘right chest and axilla’ during the preliminary bombardment heralding this attack, Brockwell had been evacuated, also to the 3RD Canadian Stationary Hospital, at Doullens, where he had died as a result of his wounds on the 6TH of April 1918.
Like those of Lieutenant Hepworth, the remains of Claude Brockwell had been taken to the Communal Cemetery Extension at Doullens, where they had also been interred in Section 6, Row D, Grave 46.
Aged twenty-eight at the time of his death, Claude Brockwell had been married at St Paul’s Church, Margate, to Mildred Maddison, of No.7 Wyndham Avenue, Cliftonville, Margate, on the 26TH of June 1917; however, by the 1920’s Mildred had also died. Claude’s father had also passed away by this time and his widowed mother had been living at ‘The Cottage’, Bradwell Mill, near the village of West Down [located 4-6kms south of Ilfracombe], in North Devon.
Private Claude Butler Brockwell is commemorated on Panel 182 of the Australian National War Memorial at Canberra, and on the ‘Rood Screen’ War Memorial in Scarborough’s St James’s Church. Sadly, for some unknown reason, his name [in 2006] is not commemorated on the Oliver’s Mount Memorial; perhaps this will be altered in the near future.
[1] The Royal Naval Division; Douglas Jerrold; Hutchinson 1923.
[2] George B. Hepworth and Rachel Leek had been married in Scarborough’s
St Mary’s Parish Church on the 20TH of September 1882. At the time of the 1901 Census they had been residing in the town at No.23 Ramsey Street, the family consisting of, George B., 48years old, born Leeds, Rachel, 46 years, Burniston, Mark, 17 years old, employed as a ‘Groom domestic’, Hannah F. M., 16 years, Isabel, 14 years, George, 13 years, Alice M., 11 years, Sidney, 10 years, William E, 8 years, Ethel A.H., 7 years, and Beatrice, 5 years. All the children had been born n Scarborough.
[3] At the time of the 1901 Census the Brockwell’s had been residing in Scarborough at No.54 Westbourne Park. The family had consisted of; Arthur B., aged 61 years born London, Marylebone, Mabel, 46 years, born Norfolk, Norwich, Lionel B., 15 years, employed in town clerks office, born Scalby, Gladys M., 14 years, born Scalby,
Garenth B., 12 years, born Scalby, Claude B, 11years, and Norah M.B. Brockwell, 9 years, both had been born at Scarborough.
[4] A copy of this citation is contained in Claude Brockwell’s service record, which can be obtained ‘on line’ courtesy of the National Archives of Australia.