240102 L/Sgt Charles Wilfred Wortley, 5th Leicestershire Regiment

Synopsis

All of the First World War men I met had been scarred in some way, and Wilf Wortley was one of four men I met who had lost a leg during the 14-18 war.

He was born in Shepshed, Leicestershire on 13th July 1894 and joined the 5th Battalion, Leicestershire Regiment on 2nd April 1912. His original number was 1370. When war was declared, he was working as a foundry worker in neighbouring Loughborough. I interviewed Wilf at Oxford Street, Loughborough on 18th May 1984, and the following year, he and his wife Evelyn celebrated seventy years of marriage (see above). Wilf Wortley died on 10th November 1986 aged 92. His wife died in July 1990.

Interview

WW:
I joined in 1912 in the territorials. At that time it were two year before the war and war was pretty well talked about and imminent at the time. The company at Shepshed was G Company. There were eight companies and then they altered it and brought it down to four and we had the annual training camp each year around about August time. The first year we went to Aberystwyth and the second year we went to Bridlington and we were there when war broke out. Instead of a fortnight’s camp we were there and back in about a couple of days.

PN:
Did many men join the Territorial Force in those days?

WW:
We did fairly well, but when the war broke out you had to volunteer for overseas' service. If you didn't, and you were in mufti, there were women coming round handing out white feathers. You weren’t safe to walk about really; the women were just mad over this, carrying baskets of feathers. Anybody, if they weren’t in uniform, they’d have a feather stuck on them.

I were put on the recruiting staff and went to the 2/5th Battalion and I were there some time.

[Whilst those 5th Leics men who volunteered for Imperial Service went overseas with the 46th (North Midland) Division (TF), those like Wilf Wortley who were posted to the 2/5th Battalion, eventually found themselves in the 59th Division]

PN:
So did you do much further training in England after war had been declared?

WW:
Oh yes, we trained and we went to Ireland. The 59th Division all went to Ireland for the Easter Rising 1916. And we were there until about, I think it were June 1917 when we went to France

[From The Long Long Trail website: "This 2nd-Line Territorial Division was formed in January 1915, although men were enlisted for the reserve units of the 1st-Line from September 1914 onwards. Men of the 1st-Line who did not undertake the imperial service obligation were transferred to these reserves. Early clothing and equipment for these units was haphazard; many had to train in civilian clothes, and it was only between November 1915 and March 1916 that proper equipment was received. Initially the Division had no currently-serving officers of the Regular Army, and only 12 former officers. From June 1915, the units of the Division supplied replacement drafts for the 1st-Line 46th Division. At the same time the 'home service only' men transferred to the provisional battalions. The division moved to Ireland in April 1916, the first TF division to serve there. It returned to England in January 1917 and in February 1917 it landed in France where it remained for the remainder of the war."]

PN:
When you arrived in France, what offensive were you being pushed into?

WW:
The Somme, we went straight down into the Somme. And there, we had to cross the Somme and they built a pontoon bridge on a very wide part of the Somme. But there it were not quite so deep and all the guns and everything had to get across; we had to bring them across on these pontoons.

And you were up to your knees in slush and filth. You couldn’t get out your trench. One of the first casualties we got over there, he disobeyed that and stood up and wanted to have a look and see, and that was his last look. And that just pressed the point home you see as to what you’d got to do.

I think we were there when the Americans come in there; we were still there in this slurry about a foot deep and you had to wade through it up to your knees. We'd been keeping well down in the trench but when the Yankees come in, they come in Indian file. They walked over the trenches on the top and they paid a price for it, but they’d got to do something different you see.

PN:
Did you manage alright for food? Did the rations get through?

WW:
No. Sometimes they did and sometimes they didn’t. You used to have to get down to your own battalion base and the convoys of Amy Service Corps come in with the [rations] and then you were responsible for getting it up. They had what they called ration parties [and I] had to come to meet them many, many a time. Sometimes they didn’t get up because they’d been upset before they get to you.

PN:
What was the average Tommy’s meal?

WW:
Bully beef and biscuits and tea of course. And you used to carry it up on your backs. They had what they called a Yukon pack and it slung on your back like that, and you had two sticks like mountain climbing. That’s how you used to have to get your food up.

Well then we got transferred from the Somme – that was the hardest part, the Somme – and we had to go to Passchendaele. We marched half the way and half of it we took in lorries. When they got to half way mark they changed over and them that had rode the first half had to march. But we got there – Ypres – and then we went onto the Passchendaele Ridge and there we were subjected to what they called box barrage and creeping barrage. It were more or less all artillery.

PN:
Can you describe those to me, the creeping barrage and the box barrage.

WW:
The box barrage would start on the outside and gradually close in and cover the area; saturate it you see. And the creeping barrage were used when we attacked. That's when the shells kewpt just ahead of the men and as near to the enemy as possible. You’d come up in stages and as the shellfire lifted and come on to the enemy so you went with it. But you lost a lot of your men through your own shellfire; either too previous or too late.

PN:
What were the conditions like at Passchendaele?

WW:
The conditions were better really as far as the trenches and that but the artillery were heavier. It was at Passchendaele where I got wounded in 1917.

W were all in this trench and it were a converted trench which meant that what had been the German parados was now our parapet. It were brought back to front you see which altogether weren’t too good a thing. The Germans shelled us and shelled us hard with their little shells and then put in a big one after they got the distance, and that were nearly the lot. I got blown up and had concussion of the optic nerve and was hauled out of the line. I didn’t know until afterwards when I enquired, but when they took the roll call, there were 16 men left out of 200. Perhaps there might be a hundred or more like me who were put into base hospital.

PN:
What’s it like under shellfire? What sort of feelings go through your mind?

WW:
That’s a hard one. Each platoon were broke into sections but you see, if he directed on one, this whole section would go up you see. At times you’d see lads who you’d had your breakfast with, and suddenly that’s it, that were the end on it.

PN:
I suppose the men were fatalists were they?

WW:
You had to be. You knew you were going over and all that and you prepared the best you could.

PN:
What rank were you when you went out to France?

WW:
If I remember right, it were in Ireland where I got me stripes. I can’t tell you just now.

But you see we had a big bath in Ireland from the Easter Risings. We had to quieten down all the way from Dublin, Belfast, all the way down in Ireland. And I think it was there if I remember right. I think it was at Tralee where I got promoted to corporal.

PN:
You couldn’t have been very old, being a sergeant at Passchendaele. You must have been what, 20 odd; 24?

WW:
Aye, maybe that, may be about right. Then we come from there down to the final in 1918 and back in the Somme area: went to St Quentin, north of the Somme where we were. And that’s where I lost my leg. I got badly wounded there.

When I got back from being wounded the first time, they posted me to the 46th Division.

[In March 1918 the 59th Division was badly mauled on the Somme and then again on the Lys the following month. Casualties were so heavy that, as a fighting force, the division ceased to exist. Battalions were mostly disbanded and surviving men were usually sent, as in Mr Wortley’s case, to sister battalions in the 46th (North Midland) Division.]

That was a senior division and when we attacked there we went over in artillery formation and the first we knew about that was when the Staffords come up the trenches to relieve us and they’d got these lifebelts. We were all issued with lifebelts. We were in close reserve. They made the attack and we were in what was called close support.

We were in small groups to make as small a target as possible. And I’d got two parties in my section; my platoon; I were in charge of the platoon and I was on my own with one group to the left and another group to the right. This one to the right got a direct hit and that were the finish of them. It were no good me stopping with them because they were all down, so I got over to the other section to steady them and I’d no sooner got with them than we got one right in between. That cleaned that.

We had the shell all to ourselves and my leg was smashed in two places- below the knee, above the knee and my boot – I always remember it – was laying across my face. It blowed the leg up and doubled it up you see. I got it and lifted it off like that and it just sort of fell. And I went green and then yellow as my blood slowly drained away.

I think I were about an hour before they picked me up and that were the end of it as far as I were concerned. I got to the hospital and I went to Nottingham here and I had had an American doctor on my amputation in France, and what they did, they didn’t cut off or anything like that because it were already blown off. They just trimmed it. And when I got to Nottingham they’d never seen an American amputation and of course they were quite took with it.

But what it amounted to was they finished the operation on the leg when I’d been in a day or two, perhaps a couple of days. And they stitched me up. I evidently weren’t strong enough for them to give me anything to put me to sleep. They did it while I was still conscious, aye, and the sweat just poured out of me. And I’ll always remember it, the doctor turned round to the nurse and said, “Good Lord, I’ve been working with a broken needle.”

Anyhow as far as France and the army were concerned, that were it: pretty tough, hard life and I come from a family of thirteen. We got eight boys and out of the eight there were five in the services. My poor old mother – two brothers from the Boer War. I think she had got about seven or eight of us all serving.

PN:
Did they all come through the war?

WW:
No, no. One brother were killed going up the line, another [Bernard Wortley - see below] died as a prisoner of war. I don’t know what happened to it but my mother had a letter from some man that were in the German hospital and had sight of him and he died of TB from an infected needle. Course, that didn’t do the old lady any good.

[The 1901 census, taken at Brook Street, Shepshed notes five sons for Henry and Louisa Wortley: John H (aged 9), James A (aged 8), Charles W (aged 6), Bernard (aged 4) and Francis (aged 2).

52426 Private Bernard Wortley of the 15th/17th West Yorkshire Regt died 12th July 1918 and is buried at Tournai Communal Cemetery Allied Extension: grave reference I.L.5. He is noted by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission as the son of Henry and Louisa Wortley, of 13, Chapel St., Shepshed, Leicestershire.

41306 Private James Arthur Wortley aged 25, 2nd KOSB died 26th October 1917 and is commemorated on one of panels 66-68 at Tyne Cot. He is noted by CWGC as the son of Harry and Lois [Sic] Wortley, of Chapel St., Shepshed and the husband of Helena Laura Bott (formerly Wortley), of 35, Oakley Rd., Shepshed, Loughborough, Leicestershire.

Both men are commemorated on the war memorial at Shepshed, Leicestershire.]

PN:
How long were you going to rehabilitation classes for?

WW:
I went to the college here. I were taking up the French polishing at that time and of course it out me all out, my stride were all out and I finished up at Cottons on the machines.