Synopsis
I interviewed Leonard Baker on the 13th July 1987 at Redbond Lodge in Great Dunmow, Essex. He was then 91 years old and in failing health. He was born at Duddenhoe End, Essex in April 1896 and was working as a farm labourer when war was declared. He joined the 2nd Essex Regiment in September 1914, joining up under regular terms of enlistment and as a career soldier rather than for the duration of the war. He was given the number 10707. Leonard was posted to the 11th Battalion soon after joining up and he arrived in France on the 30th August 1915 on the day that the 11th Battalion arrived as a battalion, overseas. The 11th Essex Regiment formed part of the 18th Infantry Brigade in the 6th Division.
Interview
PN:
Your name please.
LB:
Leonard Baker.
PN:
And when were you born?
LB:
I was born at Duddenhoe End, near Elmdon near Saffron Walden.
PN:
What year was that?
LB:
1896. I shall be 92 next April.
PN:
What was your trade before the war?
LB:
Farm labourer.
PN:
When did you join up?
LB:
I joined up, well, I joined up at Cambridge in 1911 but I didn’t pass. I went up to Whitehall, London but I didn’t pass there so I went home again. They took me down into a room and I had to wait there until four o’clock. I had a captain form the Navy and he come to see me and they wanted me to join the Navy [but] I wouldn’t join the Navy because I wanted to go with my mate. However, I got sent home again.
PN:
And that was 1911 you say?
LB:
That was 1911.
PN:
So that was a long while before the war then.
LB:
Oh yes.
PN:
You wanted to join the army because a friend was joining?
LB:
Yes.
PN:
Why were you at Cambridge?
LB:
Well we was out one Sunday night for a walk and two or three of us there said wed go down to Cambridge and try and pass and join the army.
PN:
Why weren’t you accepted for the army?
LB:
I was accepted at Cambridge but I wasn’t accepted up at Whitehall because my little fingers were [deformed]. I was born like that.
PN:
When the First War broke out, you joined up again.
LB:
Yes.
PN:
What year was that?
LB:
I joined up in 1914.
PN:
Where did you go to enlist?
LB:
I was out to France, up in the Ypres front. Nine months I was up at the Ypres front and then I got sent down. I can’t think of the name of the place now. I got sent right down south.
PN:
When you joined up when the war broke out did you join up with the 1st Essex or the 2nd Essex.
LB:
I joined up with the 2nd Essex when the First War broke out .
PN:
What division was that?
LB:
18th Brigade, 6th Division .
PN:
When did you first go out to France?
LB:
I think I went out to France the beginning of 1915.
PN:
Was it all Essex men in the battalion?
LB:
Yes, it was the Essex Regiment.
PN:
Did you join up at Saffron Walden? When the war broke out lots of men volunteered to join the army didn’t they? And you were one of them. Did you go down to the drill hall in Saffron Walden?
LB:
Yes.
PN:
And then you went out to France? Were you there for the Second Battle of Ypres?
LB:
I was there for the First Battle of Ypres.
PN:
In 1914?
LB:
Yes.
PN:
That was Christmas time?
LB:
Yes, I was out in 1914 .
PN:
Do you remember you number still?
LN:
My number? Ten seven oh seven. [10707]
PN:
And were you a private?
LB:
Private.
PN:
Were you wounded out there at all?
LB:
Well I did get hit in the leg with a bit of shrapnel but I never had to stop anywhere like.
PN:
Did you stay out in France and Belgium until the end of the war?
LB:
Yes. I was up the Ypres front over nine months and then they shifted us down south. I was in the 18th Brigade, 6th Division.
PN:
That was all regular soldiers wasn’t it? A regular division.
LB:
Yes.
PN:
So how did you come to be put into that division because you weren’t a regular soldier were you?
LB:
I joined up with the regulars you see. I was in the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Essex.
PN:
After you were refused at Whitehall in 1911 did you try and join up again?
LB:
Well yes. They refused me just because of my little fingers.
PN:
What I’m trying to work out is whether you joined up as a volunteer after the war had broken out or whether you’d already joined up and were called up as a reservist.
LB:
No, I joined up when the war broke out.
PN:
Where did you do your training?
LB:
Some at Brighton and several different places.
PN:
What were the conditions like when you got out there?
LB:
Poor; very bad. I was out on the Ypres front. I was at Ypres for nine months before I got shifted further south.
PN:
How far south? The Somme front or further south than that?
LB:
I was on the Somme front, yes. I can’t think of the names.
PN:
Do you remember playing Crown and Anchor or any of those sort of games?
LB:
Oh yes. I can remember being paid out one Friday and I went playing Crown & Anchor and I lost all my money that day.
PN:
I met a man last week in White Roding, who’s 95 now, and he used to run a Crown & Anchor board and he was quids in. He came out with a lot of money.
LB:
Me and my friend we used to run a Crown and Anchor board.
PN:
Because only three dice won didn’t they, and you’d take the rest of the money.
LB:
That’s it.
PN;
Did you play housey-housey?
LB:
Oh yes.
PN:
Did you come home on leave when you were out there?
LB:
Yes. I used to have leave every year. The first one I think was seven days and the next one was ten days,
PN:
You said you were in the 1st and 3rd Battalions [of the Essex Regiment] as well. Is that right?
LB:
I was in the 1st and the 2nd. I wasn’t in the 1st in the First World War; I was in the 2nd Battalion and the 11th Battalion .
PN:
What division was the 11th Essex in?
LB:
18th Brigade, 6th Division.
PN:
What about the 2nd Essex then?
LB:
I forget now. I liked the 2nd Essex. I was in the 1st Essex as well but that was when I come back and I was in Ireland.
PN:
So you were in the army for quite a while then weren’t you?
LB:
Yes, I done over seven years in the regulars.
PN:
So from 1914 until 1921?
LB:
Yes.
PN:
So you went to Ireland in 1921.
LB:
I had two turns out in Ireland. The first time I was out in Ireland I was up at… the big station in the north of Ireland.
PN:
Do you remember any places in France? Do you remember Albert and the golden virgin?
LB:
Yes, yes I do remember.
PN:
And when you were in the Ypres sector did you go to places like Poperinghe?
LB:
Poperinghe, yes. I know Poperinghe well. I used to come back for a rest at Poperinghe.
PN:
Did you got to Toc H at Poperinghe?
LB:
Toc H. I couldn’t tell you. I know our headquarters was at Ypres.
PN:
What was it like in the trenches.
LB:
To tell you the truth I was very lucky in a way. A captain come around – and this was before we had tin hats – and I should think there were three or four hundred [dead and wounded] soldiers laid in a heap under a tree. He come round and picked out seven of us and he wanted another one so he picked me out. We was to take these wounded – well wounded and dead, there was more dead than wounded – across to a sunken road where the horse ambulances came and picked them up. I was lucky really, in a way, because we were there at five in the morning when the fighting broke out again and we were kept in the road.
PN:
That sounds as though there was a big battle going on at that time.
LB:
Yes there was.
PN:
What was the food like?
LB:
Well, to tell you the truth, me and my mate had a biscuit between us for two days. We had half a biscuit a day. Then one morning they come round and said you’d have to come down the valley, about a mile down the valley, to pick up some rations. They’d got them down the valley and they couldn’t get them up to us like. I know that what they give me was the fore part of a bullock; you know, the front legs and that, and I can remember I hadn’t had grub for two days, just half a biscuit and I ate a big lump of fat out there. Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t know, I thought I was going to snuff it. I did feel bad.
PN:
Did you move down to the Somme front?
LB:
Yes.
PN:
What was it like down there?
LB:
Jolly rough. I can remember help burying some Germans and well, they were some of the biggest blokes I’ve ever seen. German Guards they were, great big fellas.
PN:
Were you at Passchendaele.
LB:
Yes.
PN:
What was it like there?
LB:
Bad there.
PN:
Where do you think conditions were the worst?
LB:
I can’t think of the name of the place we went. I was up at Ypres and Passchendaele and then they shifted our battalion in the 6th Division, right down south.
PN:
When did you transfer to the 11th?
LB:
Well we had to go where they sent you? You never knew where you was going to?
PN:
Do you remember when you transferred to the 11th? Would that be 1916 or 1917?
LB:
Well it’s a job to remember.
PN:
When you joined up in 1914 they didn’t say anything about your fingers then?
LB:
Oh no. They’d take anybody then. They passed you off, no trouble about that.
PN:
Were you a religious man?
LB:
Oh yes, yes.
PN:
Can you remember the names of any of your officers?
LB:
I know we had one officer by the name of Bartlett. I can’t think of the [other] names now.
PN:
Did you enjoy life in the army?
LB:
Oh yes.
PN:
I suppose you must have done because you stayed on after didn’t you?
LB:
Yes.
PN:
You didn’t want to make a career of it though?
LB:
No. I lost my father and mother while I was in the war.
PN:
What was it like coming home on leave. Was it a relief?
LB:
Oh yes. We had leave every year. I had seven days the first time and ten days the next time.
PN:
How did they do it, by alphabetical order?
LB:
Yes. I was usually first because I was B.
[Ends]
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