10707 Pte Leonard Baker, 11th Essex Regt

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]

33033 Sgt John Brett, 1st Bn, Essex Regiment

Synopsis

John Brett was born in Southminster, Essex on the 22nd March 1891. I met him at an old people's home in Chelmsford in 1982 and conducted a brief interview with him. I later returned with the then curator of the Chelmsford and Essex Museum - David Jones - who conducted a fuller interview. The transcript below is my edited version of the one that is held by the Essex Regiment Museum in Chelmsford.

At no time during either interview, did John Brett reveal his army number and in all likelihood he had forgotten it. A search through birth and death registers confirms that he had no middle name, and this in turn narrows down the possibilities when it comes to looking at medal index cards. There are two John Bretts with Essex Regiment connections: one of these men also served with the Royal Engineers whilst the second man also served with the Labour Corps. There are two J Bretts but both of these men can be ruled out as their numbers do not fall in the range of numbers issued to Essex Regiment recruits in 1915.

My hunch is that John Brett was 33033 Sergeant John Brett, later 615465 Labour Corps. He says in the interview that he spent three Christmases at home. We know he was at home in 1918 and that he joined up in 1915. I think he attested under the Derby Scheme in November or December 1915 and received his notice to join the Essex Regiment in late 1916. His number, 33033, dates to around November that year. And so he spent Christmas 1915, 1916 and 1918 in England, and Christmas 1917 in France.

I took the photo above of John Brett when I first met him in 1982 and he died in Chelmsford in 1988 aged 97.

Interview

Could you tell me where and when you were born Mr Brett?

Southminster, 1891.

And what did your father do?

He worked with his father on a small farm; sort of labouring or doing anything – thatching or any kind of work with his father.

You presumably went to the village school, did you?

Yes

What was that like?

Alright yes, but I’m afraid I didn’t get on too well with the headmaster. He’d got his favourites. There was a family called Hoad. Their father used to train dogs for Sir Daniel Gooch who lived
In the Highlands and they were favourites of Mr Jonser my schoolmaster. I don’t know why he disliked me because I tried. He’d got his favourites and the Hoad family, there were three boys, they were his favourites.

When did you leave school, how old were you, do you remember?

Fourteen, fourteen years.

And did you go to work with your father then or did you go into another trade?

No, unfortunately my father died when I was only eight – so I don’t know. I forget really what I was doing ‘til the war came.

You would have been what, just over twenty, twenty three when war started?

That’s right, yes.

What was – how did you feel about the war? – You’d obviously seen in the papers about the war – what were your feelings about it? – Did you think it was a right war?

I’m against war myself. I don’t believe in wars. Why should we kill each other. If I were to shoot you Mr Jones, or your comrade, I’d be sent to prison – but when the war comes, they give you a rifle – you can shoot anybody, shoot you enemy. But why? Why can’t we all live happy together?

When did you join up and where did you join up?

1915 at Warley – I went to Warley Barracks – there for a day or two. Then I went to Etaples, in France and done my training there.

I see. When you joined up were you on your own or did you go with some friends?

If I remember, I had notice one morning by letter to attend Warley Barracks. I went by myself.

When you got to Warley do you remember, what was it like, what was your impression of the place? Do you remember anything of the uniform you were given or whatever? Did you have a uniform straight away?

Yes, we were given all our kit at Warley before we went overseas.

What Battalion were you in then?

I wasn’t posted at Warley what Battalion I was going to join – but when I was at Etaples. [It would appear that John Brett when to France as a draft for the Essex Regt, was posted to one of the Infantry Base Depots at Etaples, and then subsequently posted as part of a draft to the 1st Essex Regiment.]

Oh, I see. Were most of the men that joined with you at Warley, were they mostly from Essex?
Oh yes. One fellow from Bradwell–on- Sea, name of Copeland . I remember his name; and a lot of Southminster boys; local lads that I knew, got killed in the war. And you think about them now; all those years have passed, but you still think about them.

Do you remember any of their names?

Yes. Jimmy, Jim Thorogood , Harold Bishop, Mr Coote, seven or eight I remember their names, used to be pally with them before they joined up.

What were the conditions like at Warley? Was it a bit rough and ready?

Well it was new wasn’t it you see. If you hadn’t been a soldier it was all fresh, fresh surroundings. Get up early in the morning and you drill and break for dinner and break for tea, you didn’t get much spare time; not to call your own.You were generally on the go.

Was it generally drilling that you did at Warley?

No, as I said to you just now, I did most of my, of my drilling at Etaples, in France.

How did you get from Warley to Etaples?

By boat from Folkestone.

How did you get to Folkestone though? Did you go by train or did you march it?

We went by train.

Ah yes, and when you got to the other side, to France, what – how did you get to Etaples?

Went with hundreds more, by train. Out there the trains, you could get out of the train and run and catch it up before it got very far. Trains were very slow in France – very slow.

What was the morale of the men like? Were they all, you know, sort of ready to fight do you think?

It’s hard to say, hard to say. Individuals, you don’t know what an individual thinks, do you? I don’t know what you think about now.

So when you got to Etaples then, what happened then? What was the training like?

Oh, that was just hell, the training was terrible. ‘Come here! Come here! Go there! Fall in this lot! Fall in that lot! The sergeants and the instructors were very, very thorough, you know. What was their remark? ‘You won’t be able to play with your Grandmother, you’re here to soldier. Come on here! A lot of red tape. Then we, in the training, we used to, we had this rifle and we had a row of bags stuffed with straw, they represented a German. It was about so far, it was off and the sergeant said ‘Now charge’!. So you stick the bayonet into the bag of straw, pushing it in and out, and off you go again as if to say, ‘Well he’s dead.

So you learnt, did you learn, you learnt obviously, to shoot the rifle? You had practice in that too?

Oh yes, I was a very good marksman with a rifle. Sergeant said ‘You’re good, you’re good’. I used to get a bullseye.

Did you get a marksman’s badge in the end?

I don’t think so.

How long were you at Etaples?

It would take me ‘til tomorrow morning, this time, to tell you all my life of France, out in France.
You would really like to know what? Where I went or……

Well yes. Where did you go when you finished training? What happened then?

I was sent with the draft. I was made a Corporal and I went with seventeen other men and myself made eighteen. We were picked to join 1st Battalion, the Essex Regiment. Well we marched one night, it was dark, like a firework display from the enemy, were shelling and bombing. So we got to this, where the Essex were, they were up in the front line at that time. So we went to that place, had some food and went to bed. We hadn’t been to bed about ten minutes before the Sergeant Major said ‘Where’s that draft that just come in’? Fall in! Fall in! And we had to fall in . Our job was to take petrol, petrol cans full of water, up the line to the Essex Regiment. That night, a lot of firing going on.

What time of year would that have been? Was it summer or winter or what?

That would be about mid summer.

And what happened after that? You got into the line then, obviously?

Yes, we took that water up, the Sergeant major said ‘You don’t know the way Corporal?’ and I said ‘No, we’ve only just arrived’. So he says that another Corporal had just come from the front line and he’ll have to go back again and take you. So he took me and the seventeen men with the cans of water up to the front line where the Essex Battalion was – and they’d suffered a lot of losses the day before.

Do you remember where that was?

Somewhere on the Somme. We went passed Amiens and Abbeville. Went through those villages up to the line, the front line.

And when you got into the line what was the fighting like? What, trenches presumably?

After we took the water we come back and were there at the base several days and then we were ordered up to the front line again and we were going to relieve the Inniskillens and they’d suffered heavy loss. We relieved them and it was a case of getting in a shell hole or anywhere to get a bit of cover. You see – were shelling that particular spot. Well, were there about a week then we were relieved, relieved and the whole of the Essex Battalion came back to -–I can’t remember where it was – and the morning we were relieved we were going to Freshard [?] At a certain place, he had a machine gun on a corner and he knew we’d be returning that way and the order came along ‘Every man for himself’. ‘Down you go’. Went flat down on the ground because he was firing at that particular place and we lost a lot of men through that particular place. So same as you had to turn Corporation Road and turn into Broomfield Road on that corner, well he had the machine gun laid on that corner and you got to pass. You had to go on your hands and knees. Get past it somehow.

Conditions obviously were very bad then. What was the supply situation like? Did you get enough food and so on – water?

It reminded me the other day. We had lovely corned beef here, and chips and peas. Corned beef – I’d never seen so much corned beef wasted. It was piled up, boxes and boxes and boxes, lovely corned beef. That was a sort of home made trench to protect you from the bullets, these lovely, lovely tins of bully beef. They’d cost no end of money now to buy. But we was always glad to get a small loaf. That was perhaps about six men for a small loaf. So you got a little piece of bread, you didn’t get much. Then we always had the hard biscuits. Something like sort of dog biscuits. Hard, hard. But you used to be glad of anything if you were hungry.

Was the food supply better behind the line, when you were relieved? Was that reasonably good?

Oh yes, that was better then.

What, did they have canteens or mobile canteens or something?

Shall I join in? While I was up there I got a septic foot. So the doctor says ‘How long has it been like that?’ I said about six weeks. He says’ Alright’ he says, ‘Get out of it’. So he marked me further down the line, down to base. So there was a lot went down. Some were on stretchers, others were hobbling on one leg, and we went down and we stayed on a camp and during the night I heard a train – engine on a train. Choo-choo-choo-choo. I wished it had of stopped for us. That stopped and somebody shouted ‘Those that can get on the train, go across and get on. ‘Cos there were stretcher cases – they couldn’t go. They had to be took on the stretcher but I – sorry – I’d got the one bad foot but I hobbled on one leg and got on the train. When we all got on I said to the sister, only female we’ve seen for weeks and weeks. I said ‘Where we going?’ She sais ‘You’re going to Le Havre’. So we went to Le Havre, to the Le Havre hospital. I was there three weeks and got this leg, got it healed up. Hot formentations and it got better. After a time I was sent back to Etaples, where I had come from.

What were the hospitals like?

Ah, lovely. They got to heal well, then I was stopped for another week and help with the floors . We used to polish the floors. The hospital’s a lovely place there . Then after three weeks I was sent to a convalescent camp at Le Havre. That was another nice place . Where fellas got fit again after flu and gunshot wounds.

There was presumably no gas at that time ?

No gas, no. Really and truly I could go on telling you but it wouldn’t be interesting. I went back to Etaples so…so when we got back the Sergeant Major says ‘If you’ve got anything to report, report when you see the Medical Officer in the morning. So there was a lot of us – 20 or 30 -went in front of the doctor. He passed some and some he wouldn’t pass. He said ‘ You feeling all right?’ I said ‘Not too good’. The old ticker was not too good. He says ‘Alright you can stop here at Etaples for another week until you get better.

What happened to you after you, you were better again? What happened then?

I went to this convalescent camp and while I was there the Sergeant Major came along and said ‘Brett’ he says ‘I’ve got a job for you’. I said ‘Yes Sir?’ So he says ‘There’s about two or three thousand people want to get across to Blighty, to England – but it was so rough, the weather was so rough. And he said to me he said ‘I want you to go over to that marquee, pick what men you want and make up the bunks and get tea ready for them. But stop here the night’. Because it was so rough for them to come across the water to England. That’s where they were bound for. So prevention was better than cure. So they were there three or four days alright. So I went back again. I was still at Etaples. Sergeant Major said ‘Ah, Brett, I’ve been looking for you.’ He says, ‘Where you been to?’ Well I said ‘ I been here’. So he says ‘I’ve got another job for you’. So I says ‘Right Sir’. So he said ‘Corporal, somebody has done his time in the service’. He was an old soldier and after he’d done his time he would enlist again for the present war’. So he was due to go back to England and he was in charge of one of the dining huts, D Company. There was A,B,C and D – 4 dining huts. So he says ‘I want you to take charge of D Company dining hall. ‘Cos the other Corporal was going home I took his place.

What did that mean for you? What did you have to do?

Order the food or…… Sunday I take two men and go to the cook houses, draw our breakfast, perhaps rashers of bacon, and we used to cut the bread. Get the breakfast all ready, same like dinner, same like tea. I was there six months. I was fortunate.

So that would take you into 1916, wouldn’t it?

Oh yes, well beyond that.

What happened to you after you, after the dining …..?

While I was there I got to know the officer and the colonel.

Who were they? Do you remember?

I don’t know their names now. One was a Scots doctor and the Colonel, I don’t know what he was. They used to come round every Saturday morning inspection. Every man had to be on parade , or he used to come round and inspect the dining hall see if they were all right. The tables had to be scrubbed, soap and water, made look nice, place kept nice. He used to come round. I’ll blow my own trumpet, he said its very clean and neat. So while I was there I got pally with the young lad who worked in the Officers’ quarters, he used to do the Colonel’s cooking. He used to have flowers on the table so when I went they were nearly dead he used to throw away, he used to give them to me . So I used to have flowers ….. on the table. He used to come round and said ‘Very, very nice’

And, to cut a long story short one fella, I’m sorry to say , he got put in the glass house. I felt sorry for him but it was his own fault. See there was six men sit down to a table – 3 each side – had to be. There were six pieces of bread. Well you know what men are, they went for the biggest, biggest piece and there was one small piece left. One fella said ‘I ain’t gonna sit there’ he said ‘and have that lousy bit of bread’. I said ‘You’ll sit there. I tell you to sit there’. ‘I’m not going to sit there’. ‘Alright, I’ll get you another piece of bread’. He sit on another table. So when the officer come round – ‘Orderly Officer, any complaints’? So this fella got up and said ‘Yes Sir’, he said ‘I only had a small piece of bread’. So I explained to the Sergeant Major who was with the officer, I said ‘He refused to obey my instruction.’ I said ‘If he‘d stopped there I’d got another piece of bread’. I said ‘He wouldn’t stop, he sat on the next table what he shouldn’t have done and he got cross’. So the Sergeant Major said ‘Alright’ he said, ‘Fall in two men’. And they took him off and he got three months in the glass house. A silly thing to do , he could have took my advice and sit down at that table. See and he got rude to the Sergeant major, see and the Sergeant Major said ‘Alright, fall in two men’ and marched him off to the guardroom and the last I heard of him he had three months in the glass house. So I felt sorry but there you are. I’m afraid I’m not much help, am I?

Yes you are. What, do you remember what happened next? Where did you go from Etaples? What happened to you after that?

When I went to back to Etaples – before I left that camp – I saw a Scotch doctor and said ‘You ought to rest’ he said ‘You’ve been scrubbing them tables and made your heart bad’. He said ‘There’s thousands of little muscles all round there and you’ve strained them’ he said, ‘You’ve worked them too hard’. So he says ‘I’m going to put you in the rest centre for a fortnight’. So I went in a rest centre. Well the n after that I went back to Etaples. So I saw a Belgian doctor, I think he was. He said ‘ You feel alright?’ I said ‘ Excepting a pain here’. He said ‘ How much do you smoke?’ I said ‘ A packet a day’. He said ‘ You’re a bloody liar’, he says ‘ just look at you hands, you smoke more than your issue’. So to cut a long story short, I went on parade the next morning. I saw this doctor and he said ‘Come to me in a fortnight’s time. Leave off cigarettes, it’ll never get better’.

So I smoked not so much . So I went back again. He wouldn’t pass me. He put me down for the medical travelling board. That was we’ll say eight or nine would be at Chelmsford and we’d have to march say Maldon to Chelmsford for this exam. So there was one poor fella, he had to walk and had an old piece of wood for a walking stick, went in front of me, he could hardly walk. So he went in, so the doctor said ‘ What’s the matter with you? What have you got that stick for? And he kicked the stick away from him and he fell down. I don’t know what happened to him, but he was a sick man. Some used to play on it. See, the doctor didn’t know whether they were genuine cases or not. What you call ‘swinging the lead’. But to cut a long story short, the next morning we went back to the base at Etaples. So the Sergeant major, when we were on parade, so he says ‘ Corporal Brett, George Smith, Tommy brown and George – somebody else – four of us, out of about one hundred men were marked P.B. That was Permanent Base. Then I was transferred to a Prisoner of war Camp, where prisoners came in. I was sent to Abbeville. I was there about a year. I was made up a Sergeant there and the prisoners used to come, thousands used to come some days. Another day there was only a few. So you might as well say I was one of the lucky ones that didn’t see, that wasn’t in the trenches. I was fortunate in that way.

I went to ‘Abbeville’, that was the main cage for the prisoners. They were taken prisoner; the Germans were taken prisoners. We’d dealt with thousands there, and the interpreter was a German. I used to call him ‘Floose’ – Valouse, but I said ‘Floose, I want a thousand men on parade now and they have got to go to Le Havre’. So he used to parade all the men then he would be with me and we would count off a thousand. Then we used to have them at the main gate ready to march off. There was the guard, about twenty men, used to take them to the station to go by train to Le Havre. I must tell you about this ‘Floose’, he was German. ‘One night’, he said ‘ I was on reconnaissance work ‘ he said, ‘And somehow in mistake I got into one of your trenches. Yes’, he said ‘I was very nearly shot’ he says. ‘I got in – where am I? – I must be in the wrong trenches’. So he walked a little further and there was our fella on duty looking across ‘no man’s land’ so he had the presence of mind, he says ‘Wake up! Wake up! He hit him on the back. He says ‘Here comes the officer!’ and he turned round he says, and walked out the same way as I come in. That was his tale. It was true.

You said you were at the prison camp for about a year. Did that take you up to the end of the war?

Yes, yes.

When were you demobbed then?

In Southminster I was the first one to be demobbed.

Really?

Because I was home. I was lucky, I had three Christmas, Christmases at home.

Oh, you’d had leave then, you were able to get home?

Yes, yes. So I was on leave in nineteen hundred and eighteen. I was home….1918 on leave and the Armistice was signed. So the soldiers who were on leave like me, they grumbled, said why should we go back to France, then ship us back there, ship us back when we are already in England. So I used to see the paper and it came out one morning – all men that are home on leave-no need to go back to France.

So you were able to stay there, stay at home then?

At that time I knew a farmer in Kent, so I explained to him. So he said ‘I’ll give you a job’. Said ‘You don’t want to go back do you anymore’? So I said ‘No, I don’t want to go back, I’m already in England. Why go back to France then ship me back again’. See, so it came up in the daily paper, if you’d got a job to go to, report to the Crystal palace. So I borrowed a bicycle and cycled to the Crystal Palace and got me discharge.

One question you asked of me; while I was at the main cage with the prisoners of war the Americans wanted two thousand for Bordeaux. The Americans were putting up big warehouses. They’d come into the war and they wanted these big warehouses made. We’d lend them two thousand prisoners and we went up to Bordeaux. So I got up to Bordeaux and had several months up there. These prisoners, we used to post sentries all round where they were at work. The guard, the British guard, these prisoners would be putting these big warehouses up. The Americans were coming into the war.

3546 Cpl Donald Banks, 4th Lincs - Pt 3

Donald Banks, back in England having been wounded in early 1915, is returning to France.

The photoshows soldiers of the 48th Division on a bombing course at Otley in March 1918. Donald Banks stands third from right at the back.

Narrative

DB:
I got back home and it didn’t take more than two or three hours from Clipstone Camp through Retford back to Lincoln and mother said, “What have you come home for?” I said, “Mother, I’m going back to France. I’m going to fight.”

“Oh,” she said, “you’ve done your bit.” I said, “Mother, I may as you say, have done my bit but I’m going because I feel it’s my duty to go and what’s more I’m coming back. I’ve got enough faith in God that he’ll bring me back for your sake.” Oh, mother wept.

They sent me this time to the 3rd battalion at Cork in Ireland; Victoria barracks up on the hill. They were the reserve battalion and I don’t think they were in any division. They put me on a Lewis gun course at Youghal, that is east of Cork, further along the south coast of Ireland. I was a beautiful little bay with a sugar lump loaf of an island, green island at the entrance to that bay. Beautiful place. I got on alright with the Irish people but I had to be careful because some fellas were deserting. You see when I first joined we were all volunteers. Since then, conscription had come and there were fellas who joined up who were not keen. And furthermore our pay had been raised. My first pay was a shilling a day and a clothing allowance of tuppence a day. I got up to one and six as lance corporal. First of all I was just acting lance corporal, then full lance-corporal then full corporal. Now I had some very good friends in Mansfield and I stayed out late one night. When I got back, the orderly corporal said, “Oh Corp, you’re for it. You’ve been reported.” So I went along - I was undressed - I pulled my trousers half up and staggered along to the guard room and said, “I’m reporting I’m in. I’ve not been feeling well.” Course, I was brought up before the captain the next day and I told him the same yarn and he looked at me and said, “you’re a fool corporal.” He as good as told me that he was going to make me a sergeant and I’d missed out on that.

I was not in Ireland for more than two or three weeks. As I say, they sent me on this Lewis gun course and I was also put on a funeral party and we were trained in reversing arms, funeral procedure and ceremonial. That was all useful experience and then they were going to send me on a musketry course but I said, “look here, I’ve got crossed guns, I don’t want a musketry course, I want to go out.” They all thought I was crackers.

They came to me and said, “Right, you’re down for musketry course.” I said, “Look, I’ve had enough. I came to join the war not to drill. You’d better get somebody else because I’m not going.” They gave me my draft leave and they sent us in the slowest train from Cork up to Dublin. We left Cork about half past nine in the morning and arrived in Dublin about five o’clock the following morning. Then across on The Leinster which was torpedoed a month later. Then I got the boat train to London, London up to Lincoln instead of going across through Crewe, Nottingham, Derby because it was quicker and more comfortable and I’d learned a few things. First time I tried it though, I got caught in a way.

I had a lady friend who was in the Wrens in London. She was a section leader, lived at Leicester and I knew her before the war and wanted to see her. When I left Clipstone Camp at Mansfield I should have gone to Nottingham, Derby, Crewe, Chester, Holyhead which was the direct route but meant a series of changes and so on. Instead I got a ticket home. I remembered they didn’t collect the tickets at Lincoln and I’d got a written warrant to Cork. The fella looked at it, “Cork? Where’s that?” I said, “Oh, it’s out in the west there. I’ve got to go round by London to get the boat train.” I got to Lincoln, had a day or two with mother and then got a train to London with no trouble. I met my lady friend and the following day departed. I went to the railway barrier at Euston and the ticket collector said, “Cork? What are you doing here?” I said, “ Well they said I was to come and catch the boat train.”
“Catch the boat train? You should have gone across...”
“Well,” I said, “I didn’t know.”

He called up the Military Police and said, “Take this fella to the RTO” (That’s Railway Transport Office. I was shaking in my shoes. I got to the railway transport officer and he said, “Well corporal, what’s all this? How do you come round here?” I said, “Well sir, I... I understood I had to catch the boat train and that I couldn’t get across country because there were no connections.” The ticket collector behind my shoulder said, “I think it’s a genuine case sir.” He countersigned my warrant and wrote me a chit, “Now take this up to the YMCA, you’ll get a bed there for the night and then off you go in the morning, eight o’clock.” I got my bed for the night, went to the station in the morning and there was nobody on the barrier, I walked straight onto the train. There was no trouble until I got to Holyhead, got on the boat and got across to Queenstown and by that time it was getting on. There was a train due in for Cork in about ten minutes but it didn’t actually get into Cork until two o’clock in the morning and I didn’t fancy another night journey so I walked round a bit. I found the RTO officer, showed him my warrant and told him I’d missed the train for Cork. He told me to take the warrant up to some barracks nearby where I could get a bed for the night and catch a train the following morning. I went up the barracks, reported in, got a meal, (didn’t have to pay anything) and got a train in the morning. Gosh it was a swift one, best train of the day, and I arrived at Cork at twelve o’clock. I walked up the hill to the barracks and reported at the guard room. Now this was where I was lucky. That transport officer at Euston hadn’t bothered to look at the date. That’s what I was afraid of but I got away with it and course, when I got to Dublin, well I’d just come on the boat, they didn’t know how long it took. And when I reported in at Cork they didn’t say, “You’ve been a long time on the way,” or anything. No trouble at all. I learned a few tricks and I’m not ashamed to say so.

While I was at Clipstone Camp I was given an escort duty twice. Well the first time was to fetch a fella out of Derby jail. Now my girlfriend lived at Leicester. From Clipstone I had to go to Nottingham, Leicester, Derby. There was another train that goes through Trent and avoided Leicester but I wasn’t going to avoid Leicester of course. Now although I hadn’t been told by the sergeant major or anybody else, I was given to understand that you were allowed twenty four hours for escort duties. I took my time, got to Leicester and visited my girlfriend, got a train to Derby and went to the jail. Closed. Closed at seven o’clock. Well what am I to do? I went to the police and they gave me a chit for a hotel. I stayed at a hotel that night and fetched the fella out next morning. I took him to the station and it was a one-ended station so you couldn’t get out the other way. I said, “Look here fella, can I trust you? I want to go and see a friend for an hour or two.” I did. I got back and he’d been having a nice time with the girls on the platform who served refreshments. I’d gauged him right, he was alright, he wasn’t one of those. You can usually tell if a chap’s going to play you. We got back in the afternoon and I was well within the twenty four hours. I took him along to the battalion orderly room and the sergeant said, “alright corporal, dismissed.” He never queried about how long I was away.

Then there was another time when I had to go and escort some men to Bulford camp on Salisbury Plain. I took these fellas on the first train I could catch to London, then to Salisbury and on to Bulford. I remember seeing a place “Trifle, sixpence” and oh, did I like trifle, I’d never seen it for years. Yes, I had my trifle and I caught the next train back to London and I was up at Leicester by early morning. Spent the day at Leicester and reported back that night, I was back within the twenty four hours. The sergeant said, “Alright corporal.” Old soldiers have their ways; you learn ways and means. Maybe it’s deceitful in a way but I feel I’d done no wrong, I’d fulfilled a duty within a specified time and that was my business.

We were leaving Cork to embark for France and we caught a very slow night train, reached Dublin and embarked for Holyhead and the train arrived somewhere about midday in London. We had to wait a good while before we entrained on the South-Eastern Chatham line I think it was. That’s when the railway lines were run by companies like the Great Northern, Great Central, Great Eastern, Great Western. We reached Dover, we had an uneventful crossing and an hour and a half on some form of transport I don’t remember and were then put into a camp just outside of Calais. There we were about a week when our draft was called and we were put on a train and set off. We didn’t know where we were going. Course, nobody ever was told where they were going to be, everything had to be kept secret; only those in command knew. We boarded these box waggons and the train puffed leisurely along. I have one vivid memory of the train going up an incline so slowly that some of the lads got off and helped themselves to apples in a neighbouring orchard as we passed and then rejoining the train. Except one fellow who evidently wanted more than he could manage and just as the train got to the top of the incline and started down I have a mental picture of him panting up on the railroad track trying to catch the train up, which he never did. He did arrive subsequently in another troop train. Course, I never saw any passenger trains. All trains going eastward were troop trains.

Well we rolled on through various countryside. I remember when we came to Achet-le-Grand, Achet-le-Petit, Peronne, Albert and all those places on the Somme. There was very little sign of any village, just rubble and piles of brick. This country had been fought over and over and there was no sound buildings to be seen, just a half wall here and there, otherwise piles of brick and shell holes. The train jolted along and stopped at intervals - we never knew why - in a most desultory fashion. Eventually it stopped, somewhere near Albert I think, and we got out of the train and we were lined up. A man arrived - known as a runner - to take us along. Now the weather deteriorated and it began to pour with rain. We were walking along, squelching in mud, and we acme to a series of little low mounds. These mounds contained dug-outs and we were glad to escape from the rain. Around us was Martinpuich Wood which consisted of a series of shattered stumps, not one whole tree left standing, but stumps from two to six feet all shattered by shellfire. This had been taken and re-taken by both sides several times. And there we slept for the night in these dug-outs. This would be July 1918.

The next morning we set off again, a long wearisome march, and I remember the officer was very strict. When some fellas attempted to avoid the puddles he called out not to break the ranks, keep on marching. It was a long wearisome journey.

We’d been issued this time with the SMLE rifle - short Lee Enfield - and they were much easier to carry with the slings. Of course, we carried enough ammunition. Every man had to carry at least sixty rounds in his pouches and clips. We also had our packs on our back - our haversacks - and course, our entrenching tools - and we stumbled along till at last we caught up with the regiment we were posted to - the 7th battalion of the Lincolnshire regiment. They were one of the new battalions formed, known as Kitchener’s army and were part of the 17th division. I remember one of the units was the Border regiment, I forget what other regiments there were now. It was a peculiar mix up to us. It didn’t seem to be on any regional basis. So there I was with the 7th battalion Lincolnshires and most of them were from the county of Lincoln. They’d just had a spell in the trenches and we had just started to push the Germans back. The Germans had exhausted themselves in their pushes forward and we were now pushing back.

I reported to the sergeant major - again I was in D Company - and he said to me, “You’ll have to take those stripes down.” I said, “Well sir, may I show you these certificates?” and I took out my AB64 - that’s your army pay book - and took out my certificates I’d gained as an instructor in musketry, general NCO and bombing - first class bombing certificate. He said, “Right, I’ll take those to the captain.” Later he came back and said, “alright, keep the stripes up.” And so I was re-appointed corporal but whether that ever went through in course I never knew because we got into a very confused condition. We were preparing for an attack and we were to be the third and final line of the offensive and were to reach the furthest point of our objective. Our objective was a wood, Gauche Wood, to the right of the line off Gouzeaucourt. Beyond that was Menancourt and Villers Guislain and they were in German hands, so was this wood. The NCOs were called together in a group and we were given a rough drawn map of the position. We had to cross a railway track and eventually up various trenches towards this wood. Well, having been primed we were given to understand that there was no desire to take prisoners in view of the fact that some of our folk had been taken prisoner by the Germans and lined up and shot and there was rather bitter feeling about that. I can’t vouch for the truth of it but our captain indicated to us that we’d no desire to take prisoners as they would be an encumbrance in the advance.

While I was with them I remember we had paraded and the boys had got busy with their button sticks and spit and polish, to my amazement. Under those conditions spit and polish seemed to us incongruous. I didn’t bother to clean my boots up, I just brushed the mud off and I certainly didn’t polish any buttons or anything. As a matter of fact I don’t think they did polish buttons then because they were apt to show up and this was the time we wore helmets. Steel helmets had come into use. We’d no helmets in 1915 we’d just the service caps and we were told after a while to take the wire out so that they were floppy. Then later on I acquired one of those caps with a broad band on which I could let down over my head.

Also at this time we were issued with better equipment than we’d had before.

The company paraded and a junior officer came along. I saluted him and he said, “Corporal, I want to inspect these men.” So I called this particular platoon he wanted to inspect to attention, opened ranks and he proceeded to pass along the line. He looked at one man and said, “Dirty boots. Take his name corporal.” In fact I had to take the names of three or four men whose boots were certainly in a better condition than my own but the officer never commented on my condition. After the parade, instead of reporting these men back I conveniently forgot all about them and never heard anything further fortunately because we were going into a big attack.

Well the evening came - I can’t remember the date now - and we all packed ready. Eventually we lined up, formed fours and marched in columns in the darkness, going we knew not where but somewhere towards the battle line. It was ominously quiet. After some two hours we stopped and we were supplied with tea laced with rum; the usual procedure of men going into action. When we’d all had a pretty good drink and were feeling happy enough, we started on the march again.

And then we stumbled into a sort of shallow valley and I was conscious of other people nearby when a whistle sounded and in that moment, hell was let loose. We were in the forward guns position and the barrage was starting and it was continuous, wheel to wheel. The smaller ones were in front, the bigger ones behind and the howitzers behind them, all belching forth shells at the rate of hundreds if not thousands a minute. Fortunately Lloyd George had got us the guns that we’d needed. I was never a real admirer of his and I was never a liberal but I was always grateful for the fact that he organized the war so that we had the guns to back us up and could outrange the Germans. I remember as each gun blazed the flame seared my face and I had to turn away as we went past.

Eventually we came to a gap in the line of the guns, passed through it in the direction they were firing, and soon it was just the whistle of shells over our heads. It was a continuous roar of noise, I’ve never heard the like of it. There were the gunners sweating away, loading as fast as they could and just blazing away. And that continued for at least twenty minutes or more. Where they got all the ammunition from I don’t know. It was wonderful organization to convey all that ammunition up, thousands of shells in one terrific barrage. I heard many barrages afterwards when we were out of the line and it just sounded like a roll of drums, so continuous was the noise: rumble, rumble, rumble. We said, “Now Jerry’s getting another dose.”

Well we went and eventually we reached the first aid post and met the first casualties coming back. One was a sergeant I remember who said, “I’ve got another blighty” and he was glad to be out of it. Now this regiment was of a different character to the territorials. These were men who’d been conscripted and I began to hear unusual words like scrounge and swinging the lead and various other synonyms which astounded me as an old volunteer. No, they were not so keen they’d had to go to war. There were some good fellas amongst them no doubt.

We pressed on in the darkness until we came to a trench. We got into this trench and spread out. On the right, a huge shell ploughed into the trench and there were casualties. The German counter fire was very sporadic. As our guns lifted their range, having shattered the front line pretty well, we got into the first line of the enemy. Then at the appointed time - I think that it was eight o’clock - the whistle sounded and we scrambled up as fast as we could out of the trenches and towards the wire because we had a timetable by which we were to go to various objectives. Some of the wire had been cut and there were gaps here and there but I have a vivid memory of bodies lying on the wire in grotesque attitudes, the casualties of this terrific bombardment.

Then we proceeded on till we came to a low ridge about three to four feet high. We crouched behind it and a fella next to me said, “Just look Corp” and there behind my heel were bullets digging into the ground, just within a couple of feet of my boots from some German concealed machine gun. Course, we crouched and none of us were hit just there. Meanwhile we had then to pass through a communication trench and we got part way when there was a halt and word came back for bombers. They didn’t call for me they just called for the bombs and eventually when we burst through we found ourselves in what was called a sunken road, a shallow valley about twelve yards across at the most. And on the other side of this valley were dug-outs and Germans emerging from them with their hands up surrendering, shouting “Kamerad”. Course, our tendency was to shoot them but I remember an officer waving his revolver saying, “any of you shoot your prisoners, I’ll shoot you.” But I never saw such a scene of bodies left and right. Evidently the Germans had gone down into these deep dug-outs when the barrage started and then emerged as the barrage lifted and passed beyond them to meet the oncoming enemy. And as our people emerged from the trench they were just mowed down one after another until somebody got the idea of bombs. And the regiment on our right - The Border regiment - came in and enfiladed them from the other end.

Then up through another trench we passed; a communication trench leading to this Gauche Wood. Course, it wasn’t continually straight, you can imagine all these trenches were zig-zagged to prevent enfilading fire, and we came eventually on the edge of the wood. And as I crouched on the edge of the wood there was a sharp crack overhead from a shrapnel burst and bullets scattered around. The man next to me got one in his right arm and one in his left leg near the knee and there were others who were also hit, I don’t know how many got wounded there.

We pushed on into the wood and there was a deep dug-out which we went down into and dressed this fella’s wounds till he could be taken back. Then we went along a trench in the right side of the wood until I came to a corner and one of our men said, “Jerry’s round the next corner.” I said, “alright, we’ll rest a moment.” The next moment, I saw some men on my right, way beyond there and my chap said, “What about it corporal? I said, “I’ll make them put their heads down” and fired a shot at them. They disappeared. Whether I hit them or not I don’t know. Well there we stayed and then we retreated back into the communication trench because on the left of us, about fifty yards from the wood, was an old British tank which the Germans were obviously using as a sniper post. One of our fellas happened to be passing a part of the trench where the parapet had been knocked away and he was shot in the head and died shortly afterwards. So after that when running the gauntlet we had to duck that particular point but there was no chance of reaching those fellas in the tank and I think they evacuated when darkness set in. Meanwhile we were told to stay in this communication trench and there we were.

Now A Company had gone in the lead and were on the left and had got part of the wood but we hadn’t got the whole wood. So later on there was a call for reinforcements and we withdrew temporarily while our artillery opened up again and our attack went forward. The next thing I remember was an officer shouting, “Look out here comes Jerry” and a whole body of Germans advancing down the trench. There was only one thing to do and that was to retreat. I retreated down the bottom of the trench, got mixed up with some other regiment and warned them that the Germans were coming through. I learned later that they were prisoners but there was no escort in front to indicate that they were not active combatants.

That night I got into a sort of artillery position. There were three or four slit trenches on the edge of a small copse and every now and then a shell would come and clip a branch off and fall unpleasantly near. I remember getting severe cramp. There were two or three other fellas - artillerymen and what have you - and we crouched there until daylight. Then I moved down the slope towards some trenches and came up with a regiment and they were just cooking their breakfast. They seemed to be alright and said they’d escort me back to my lines. I was escorted down a valley and up the lines and our boys were then also getting breakfast so all was serene and quiet after a very uncomfortable night.

We were there two or three days and things quietened down. Then word came through that we were to reinforce the front line at ten minutes to seven. I remember the time distinctly. We’d no sooner moved up into the wood along to our left when a terrific barrage opened by the Germans at seven o’clock. I dived into a dug-out where there was an officer and his batman and other fellas attempting to come in were warned off by the officer saying, “ If we’re hit there’s no good you all being killed. Find shelter somewhere else.” Where they did I don’t know but there I crouched as shells were bursting all around and fortunately one did not land on our dug-out. But it was a most terrific experience not knowing that the next one might be our last because the shells were coming down like hail all over the wood. That communication trench we later found absolutely shattered; limbs and bodies here and there.

Meanwhile, as the German barrage continued, eventually an orderly came running and said to the officer, “The SOS has gone up sir.” Now the SOS was signalled by Very lights. You fired a red, green, red light and when our artillery saw it they opened up. And did they open up! And there was nothing sweeter than to hear the sound of our artillery shells come swishing over and it so stopped the Germans.

Meanwhile I rushed down to the front of the wood and there we all fired as hard as we could go. I fired three rifles until they were too hot to hold, at the advancing enemy and he never reached our trenches. And then we settled down. Now I remember carrying two extra bandoliers of ammunition and a machine gunner calling out, “Any more ammo?” I said, “Yes, you can have this bandolier.” He stripped them off the clips and put them in the long clip leading to the machine gun and we certainly stopped the Germans re-taking the wood.

Then things settled down for a couple of days. Things were fairly quiet except for occasional gunfire in the distance and then blessed relief. I remember it was another battalion of the Leicesters that came quietly at midnight and relieved us. We were taken back into reserve about a mile back, into some trenches. The countryside around us was all bombed, shell holes, churned up fields and what have you and we lay down and slept for twenty four hours after a jolly good drink of tea from the dixies.

I never learned what our casualties were but I know that more than half the battalion was lost in that attack. I don’t remember it had any particular name but it was part of the general advance on the Somme when we started to drive the Germans back. It was the last battle of the Somme I should imagine. To right and left of us were various regiments advancing, some a few yards, some by half a mile or so. The thing was to keep coordinating with the people on your left and on your right to provide no gaps for the enemy and the runners were continually busy in that respect. And of course, by this time we had a system of telegraphy: hand microphones, wires all over the place - sometimes cut by gunfire or other reasons - but there were means of communicating with the rear apart from the Very lights.

We then slept for two or three days and then German heavy guns stared up and we had to move because they got unpleasantly close but I don’t think we had any casualties. I remember in our move we came across a dead German sergeant major and I remember that they took his name and all his papers, wrapped them up in a little parcel and sent them back to headquarters to be forwarded to the Red Cross so that they would forward them on to his relatives who would know that he had been killed and where he’d been killed and the date. We did inform one another in that respect.

Then came word that we were to go back into action. This time it was between the wood and Gouzeaucourt and the regiments on the left of us had taken half the St Quentin redoubt.

We had to cross a railway line which was an embankment built up on piles of stone and granite and our boots made a rare old clatter as we climbed up over this bank. The line of course, had been cut in various places and there were no trains running on it. It ran parallel to our trenches but it definitely came from Gouzeaucourt originally but where it led in the other direction I never knew. Well then we were guided up into a trench and there was another trench leading out of our new front line trench into the German trenches. I was instructed to take my bombing squad along and occupy this position ahead of our lines. There was one deep dug-out and a fire platform near it on the right and half a dozen boards set at angles across as a sort of barricade so I posted sentries, one on the fire step to keep an eye on the right and the other one to look down the communication trench. I got my entrenching tool and scooped out the side of the trench so that he could be half hidden with his rifle resting on the boards down the trench. And then I retired round the bend, hollowed out a place for myself and told the others to dig in. We all dug our own little shelter in the side of the trench and by that time I was very weary. I thought I’ll just take a few minutes rest and I squatted down and I was just dosing off when bang, bang, bang and I heard one boy say, “He’s got me Corp” as he dashed past me. The other fella I never found. I dashed out and I started picking up bombs and throwing. Now we had some new type of bombs called egg bombs. They were about the size of a duck’s egg and on one end was a stud which you banged on something hard and that set the fuse going before you threw it. I was throwing these as hard as I could and I looked round to find that I was alone. They’d all forsaken me and fled. I was pretty mad. I ran back down the trench to the front line and told them what exactly I thought about them and their ancestors and telling them to follow me, I led the way back to my position with my rifle at the ready.

Incidentally I had a small revolver my father had given me which I kept in my left hand pocket; so my rifle’s ready and I had to just dive into my pocket - and I kept it loaded. I got the revolver out and carried the rifle - with of course, the bayonet attached - and regained the position. Up came an officer and asked me what the trouble was. I said, “They’ve just shot the sentry sir. I’ve posted two more but something will have to be done.”
“Alright, we’ll see in the morning.”
Later on the chaplain came up and said, “I hear you had a bit of trouble here” I said “Yes sir”. He said, “You’ve done well to hold the position anyway.” Well I never thought anything else. I never thought of retreating. If the Germans had come on I’d have used my bayonet. But they’d evidently been reconnoitering in the dark and I think that those two sentries of mine had been talking and while talking had evidently moved and so they’d been shot. I warned the new sentries to keep a very low profile and keep their eyes properly skinned and we’d no further trouble that night.

In the morning the captain came up and I made my report. Then along came a junior officer and he said, “Corporal, let’s have a look, se what’s happening here.” We went over the barricade and along the trench and of course, he being the officer, I didn’t lead. He led and his batman behind him and then me. We turned three or four corners then all of a sudden he turned and bumped into me and said, “Run Corporal, we’ve run slap into Jerry.” I was carrying my revolver in my left hand, my rifle slung over my shoulder and a grenade in my right hand. I couldn’t do anything else, he was in front of me and I couldn’t fire and he’d knocked me over. I picked myself up and he and the batman and I ran back. Fortunately the Jerries had not set a watch. Being broad morning they hadn’t expected anybody to suddenly jump on them or I wouldn’t be here now. As we ran along we passed another trench on the left and the Germans were just beginning to file down that trench but we got back safely. Course, the officer reported to the captain and the captain brought along two Lewis gun teams and a team of orderlies proceeded to build up a sandbag barricade, knocked the bottom of an ammunition box out, put that in and sandbagged around as an aperture through which the Lewis gun team could fire up the trench. The other fired over the right bank and he also gave me a stokes gun team posted at the deep dug-out just behind us and things settled down.

Then the Germans began shelling and using gas shells and we were laying there for hours with our gas masks on. The folk on the left got a packet of it but we fortunately escaped that. Then things quietened down again but I can tell you it’s no fun lying there for hours with a gas mask on, the smell of these fumes around. Eventually when the order came “All clear” and we took our gas masks off we had to be pretty careful.

Time passed and eventually again we were relieved. This time it was a clear evening when the relief arrived and we’d been together about fifteen days in action then. The sky lit up, a clear starlit night, and we waited at midnight for our relief to come, all with our packs and equipment ready to go as soon as they came. In the distance we could hear a German band playing their troops up to the reserve line. Often our bands would play us up to within a mile or so of the trenches to cheer us up. Then the relief arrived. We filed down the communication trench, out into the open space behind, and then started to cross the railway track. And did our boots rattle in the still night. We hadn’t gone very far before swish, crack, swish, crack: shrapnel coming. The Germans had heard us alright and they sure let us have it.

Well we ran until we dropped - I managed to keep going - until eventually we turned right parallel to our trenches and out of range. Fortunately for us the German range was just too long. The shells bursting over our heads spread the shrapnel just beyond us. If it had burst short of us we’d have got the shrapnel. We were weary and worn, what was left of us, and we marched on and on and at last we met our field kitchen. And did tea ever taste sweeter? I gulped and gulped tea because our throats were parched with the fumes of the cordite and powder as well from running.

We started off again and eventually we arrived at a shattered place where boards lay against what were left of walls - there was no building sound - and we lay and slept for two or three days, just waking and having tea and going to sleep again, we were so weary.

Then we began to get organized again and I began to take my bombing squad in hand for more training in warfare; training in the warfare of trench bombing. There was rifleman number one and bomber number one. Bomber number one threw his bomb and the rifleman dashed round the traverse ready to bayonet anybody still alive. Number two then threw his bomb and number two rifleman followed up. There was a certain drill that I had learned and I had to practice this particular drill in taking trenches as well as developing their muscle power and their knowledge of explosives. We were using the number five or Mills grenade which proved a very satisfactory bomb.

We went into rest and then we started some football and there were boxing matches and then we started off again for the next attack. This time Gouzeaucourt had been taken and our big heavy guns were on the St Quentin redoubt. We’d heard during the night in fitful dreams the dull roll of drums. Really those were terrific barrages as series of attacks, one after the other, pushed the Germans back.

We went through Gouzeaucourt into country that was less spoilt because we were getting beyond our original positions that had been fought over and over. Then we ran into a trap and there were more casualties and I got one on the leg. I picked up a stick and could just hobble along but I couldn’t keep up with them and what happened then I don’t know. Whether it was a piece of shrapnel or what I don’t know but it messed my leg up on the thigh and I couldn’t walk. I tried to keep up with the lads but eventually I had to desist and they took me in an ambulance back to a rest camp and after some days, down to the railway. I was taken in the train this time near Boulogne. My leg began to improve but I couldn’t do much without a stick. I’d cut a stick out of a hedge and fastened a cross handle to it and staggered along.

Then I was sent to Cayeux convalescent camp at the mouth of the Somme not far from St Valery. The town was about five miles form the camp but there I was given a job as a librarian. Then, as my leg got worse, I decided I should report sick and that’s where I think I made a mistake. I was still pretty lame and yet acting as librarian at the church army hut, playing the organ for the services. A partition separated the little chancel from where we operated and there was a little fella named Cowie from Plaistow in London, a real cockney fella who was my companion and help. We didn’t get much news, letters began to come.

Meanwhile I figured I’d got to get better somehow and that I couldn’t go on like this so I reported sick and was taken to the sick bay. There I remained all day, wondering what was going to happen. The orderly kept saying that the ambulance would come soon then word came through that the war had stopped, it was armistice day. And everybody was in high jinks: there free drinks, free everything. All except me, stuck in that little stubby hole alone until in the evening an ambulance arrived driven by some WAACS. They put me on a stretcher and started off. After an hour they stopped, they got out and I heard them arguing. Eventually I called one of them and said, “Where are we?” They said, “We’re back where we started from, we got lost.” They’d been enjoying themselves evidently.

Well eventually I arrived at Abbeville and I was taken to Number One Australian Hospital this time. There I found things very lax. Occasionally they tended to me and a nurse came and said, “Well, I don’t know what to do about your leg.” We were allowed to keep our uniforms and after lights out we used to stroll down into town. I remember there were some very good films and that’s the first ones I saw of Charlie Chaplin; I saw some most laughable films. Usually the boys would say to me, “You going down? Bring us back a bottle. Here’s ten francs for champagne.” Well, I never saw anybody the worse for it. It was most irregular but apparently the Australian people had a different technique or understanding of things because you couldn’t possibly have done that in an English hospital. The doctor only came about once a week and things seemed very lax and then I was sent back to convalescent camp. Back on the train to Noyelles and then from there a little gauge line ran to Cayeux, a little narrow gauge with open carriages.

By the way, when I got to the hospital everybody was in bed. They’d had a fine old day, they whooped it up and I was too late. I went into hospital ion the wrong day alright, especially when they told me about the free chocolate. It wasn’t the free beer that attracted me, I was no boozer. I, by that time, was smoking a pipe and they issued us with a tobacco called White Cloud which I’ve never heard of since. I don’t know who made it but none of the other fellas seemed to want to smoke it so they passed it on to me and I acquired quite a few. When I went into Abbeville I took these with me and if I met a French soldier I asked him, “Desirez vous tabac Anglais?” “Ah, oui. Combien?” “Deux francs.” I made a little bit of money out of it, they were satisfied and so was I. The other fellas all smoked cigarettes and I never did like cigarettes. The money I spent on chocolates and sweets.

At this convalescent camp things began to move. Various units suddenly disappeared and I’m sorry to say that some men woke up to find all their money and possessions gone. We were in big long barrack rooms and during the night somebody had skipped through and rifled among possessions. Fortunately for me I wasn’t troubled because I slept in the little room attached to the chapel with Cowie on the floor, we’d not proper beds of course. But it was very unfortunate. I can’t mention any particular regiments but things sure disappeared and though there was consternation you could do nothing about it.

But I remember while I was in the barrack huts, before I got this job again, I met some very interesting characters there spinning yarns late at night before the lights went out. Lights out would be about ten o’clock to quarter past ten. The usual regulation would be first post - by which time we had to be in - at half past nine, last post at ten, lights out at quarter past ten. There were the usual jokes about fellas meeting the ladies with their dogs & being used.

Now the chaplain there was a very good chaplain and he’d bring in a pile of letters for me to frank. I didn’t have to read through them I just had to stamp them : “passed by censor”, and he’d come and just scribble his initials all over them when I’d done that and off they went. There was really no need for any further secrecy. Padre Heywood was his name he came from the North, from, from - I think - Darlington, somewhere in Durham, and he was a very good padre. I remember on one occasion he said, “Corporal, when’s that leg of yours going to get better?” And I was rather startled and surprised and stammered out, “Well I haven’t decided yet sir.” And he burst out laughing and all around him at my unusual reply. You see, if you got this post as a sort of orderly or at these various jobs you could be sure of staying at the convalescent camp for six weeks and people were glad to get hold of these various jobs as there were only a few going. Being able to play the organ was an advantage to me and being a churchman, I suppose, too. Anyway, the padre and I got on very very well together and I was sorry to see him go.

And then eventually the came when we were half empty, Christmas came and there were great festivities in the church hut. Meanwhile I’d been given a lovely pair of Canadian leather mitts and I remember that I was so busy serving, preparing, working that I hadn’t time even to eat myself; as these fellas came in and enjoyed themselves. And I left my mitts on the top of the piano and never saw them again. I regretted those lovely mitts, they really were warm.

After Christmas things settled down and various units began to appear and disappear and I still continued with my studies in Greek although my pal was taken away for evacuation. I don’t know how they decided who to take, whether it was by unit or division, but the time came for the rest of us to entrain and we had to march down to Noyelles, a five mile march. We rolled greatcoats, carrying them across our shoulders in the fashion, and it came on to snow; heavy, wet, thick snow , a real blizzard. We took our coats off but they got wet and sodden. Eventually we reached the little station and got on these carriages which had no windows and were open to the winds and the weather. After an hour the little train started and rattled on into Abbeville. We had to get out then because it was only single track and get into big forty men or eight horses vehicles, big vans. I crawled in wet, sodden, exhausted and got severe cramp. I got up and tried to stretch myself but it was agony. I also got terrific toothache but eventually the train started. Now we each had a batch of NCOs and officers on and eventually we arrived at Le Treport. The officers came along and said, “Now, you’ve got an hour here you fellas so you’d better get our and enjoy yourselves.” Course, we’d had no food or anything, no rations, and we were desperate for something to eat and drink. So the fellas disappeared and I went with the other NCOs when sergeant came round and said, “Say,, that train’s going in ten minutes and I can’t find the officers.” We never did find the officers. We rounded all the men up, got them back on the train and it started off.

In the darkness we arrived at Dieppe and reported to the railway transport officer. He didn’t know anything about us or our officers, he didn’t know anything about them. They’d missed the boat and so had we because he said he’d no word about any camp ready for us. After kicking around for an hour or two there was a funny little train - I’ve never seen the like before or since - a double-decker train. We climbed up steps at the end, sat on seats facing outwards, and this little old train set off for St Marie-Eglise. We arrived at St Marie-Eglise and I don’t know how long it took because it wasn’t an express by any means and it was pretty cold sitting up there. Some fellas managed to get in the carriage below with the civilians but I was stuck up at the top. We eventually arrived at this little station and it appears our officers had gone to St Marie-Eglise because they knew that was the camp we should go to. We’d gone past it into Dieppe and then we had to come back. Of course, the train stopped at the far end of the camp and we had to march right round two sides of this big camp before we could get in. Then we were billeted in bell tents on a very steep hillside and there was more than one man had a broken leg through sliding and falling down that hillside.

Well in that bell tent I suffered agonies. I woke up with blood streaming from my mouth from this tooth giving me trouble. For meals we had to line up and they dished up through a little sort of pigeon hole a bowl of hash into your billy tin. There was a little shop nearby and occasionally a little batch of biscuits might appear and you were lucky if you happened to get in on those. I never saw such a mess.

At intervals the officer or a sergeant would come out and call out a list of names, telling them to be ready in half an hour. Then they were lined up and marched off. I waited in vain for my name to be called. Another night set in, another day of starvation. But I do remember there were two fellas there and a piano and these fellas just rolled off operas and Beethoven’s sonatas when I suggested they play. They were absolute professional musicians those two and that was the one comfort of that camp.

Well, I got into such a condition that I reported to the orderly office and they sent me down to a dressing station where here they told me that I’d got an awful temperature and sent me to a little hospital for the Chinese coolies who were working around the camps. Our beds consisted of what were called biscuits: three padded slabs and a blanket. I begged the orderly to give me something and he got some carbolic acid and cotton wool and I jammed that into my hollow tooth. Then a day later an ambulance happened to come by and I was taken into the hospital at Dieppe.

When we got to Dieppe we were put on a funny little steamer and of course, there was no accommodation and you just lay on the deck. After an hour, the little vessels chugged out into the harbour and at the edge of the harbour she stopped and down went her mud hook as we called the anchor. Rumours: captain’s drunk, crew’s drunk, tide’s wrong, nobody knew and the only thing was to lay down and sleep. Eventually an hour or so later we started off. I was dead tired and when I woke up it was morning. And there were the white cliffs of Dover. Hooray, we’ll be there soon. But no, we didn’t go to Dover. We turned parallel to the coast and went round by Deal, Ramsgate, Margate and out into the North Sea and then we turned westward into the mouth of the Thames. What a sight. Sticking up all around were masts and funnels of ships that had been torpedoed and our vessel wound its way between them and up the Thames until in the afternoon we arrived at Tilbury. There the tenders came alongside and took us off. We were then escorted into a room and given a sandwich and a hot cup of tea. Oh wasn’t that wonderful! Back into another room; more sandwiches and tea and we were told that the train would be going in about an hour and we were shown to the train. Things moved smoothly once we were this side. Well the sandwiches were just wonderful: real ham, real bread. No more bully, no more biscuits, no this was the real stuff this was.

No more ration parties. When I used to think of when we were in the trenches hoping to be on the ration party which went out to back to meet the fellas bringing up the rum and rations. The Army Transport Corps brought them up the rear of the trenches and a squad was detailed to collect them and bring them to the quartermaster’s store where they were dished out. And no more Tickler’s jam. I’ve never understood how that firm started. I know it was based at Grimsby and folks since around there have told me that there were field s and fields of turnips put to use. Anyway, Ticklers’s jam provided something. There was machonochie as well and you were lucky if you got a tin of machonochie. Sometimes we were alright, other times it was in short supply. But you see, I was never a vegetarian. I wasn’t keen on the vegetable part and all I wanted was the meat. However, I survived.

There was a different attitude in 1918 to the one in 1915. I never heard talk about scrounging and swinging the lead and dodging the column and various things like that in the early days. We were all volunteers, keen to do our part and there was a camaraderie which wasn’t so evident at the last part. I met some good friends but I only kept in touch with one person form the last battalion after the war. There was a lot to be said for the territorials because coming from the same territory they were pals often before they went into the army. And coming from the same district they spoke the same language and had the same customs. It was very different.

Also see:

Donald Banks - Narrative - Part 1
Donald Banks - Narrative - Part 2

Donald Banks - Introduction and War Diary - England 1915
Donald Banks - War Diary - France 1915

And see too, my posts on my Army Service Numbers blog regarding the Lincolnshire Regiment:

3546 L/Cpl Donald Banks, 4th Lincs - Pt 2

The continuing narrative of Donald Banks. Read Part 1 for the story so far. The photo above shows Donald (fourth from right, back row) and members of the 87th TRB at Clipstone Camp.

In Part 2 of his narrative, Donald is wounded and back in a hospital in England:

Narrative

At this hospital they issued the usual smokes. No, I didn’t want smokes. “Oh,” said Sister, “we’ll give him some chocolate.” They’d some lovely big blocks of chocolate which I surely enjoyed. Gradually I began to revive, able to eat and then a few days later, put on the train and arrived at Calais. We were taken off the beds of this ambulance train on stretchers to the quayside and the stretchers were placed four at a time on this big board which was hoisted up and swung over the dock onto a big private yacht. And there we lay on the top deck. Those that were able to walk were taken below and the yacht sped off across the channel to Dover. There we were put on the hospital train - I was back on my stretcher and then on the hospital bed - and we travelled all night and eventually arrived at Sheffield at what had been Wardsley Home for mental people but had been turned into a war hospital and was known as Whardale War Hospital number 4. I was beginning to recover then and in the middle of the ward - there’d be about eight beds, it was more like a large room and not a long hall - there was a small billiard table. A fellow was there and I was allowed to get up. He said to me, “Do you play billiards?” I said, “Oh no I never have.” “Well” he said, “come on” and he proceeded to teach me how to play billiards. Well eventually some well known people invited us out to their home, gave us a right good meal and they had a little billiard table and I could do nothing wrong. They were some kind folk, I wish I knew the names of those people who kindly took us. Then back to the hospital and then wonderful news came round; the king was coming. Oh were we excited.

Well by that time I was on my feet and we all had to assemble outside. Those in bed were placed on stretchers and taken down and spread around. And there stood the king within three or four feet of me. I’ll never forget the dignity he showed as he thanked us for what we were doing for the country and he shook hands with everybody in bed but we were standing up and well, it was a bit too much to expect. But I was proud of that, of our King George V. I was later to see his funeral in 1936 and I sat in the street outside Paddington station.

The King went and then all of a sudden in walked my father. He’d cycled over - it was only about fifty to sixty miles - an he walked in there. I can’t remember what he said but naturally we were pleased to see each other and then he cycled back home.

It came on wet and dreary and I took a walk outside at the back of the hospital, the first time except when the king had come, I’d been out. And there were three or four lime trees there and it was dank, dripping, leaves falling, Autumn. And a robin sang; such a lovely song, a lovely song after the guns.

Time came when they decided I should go home, so I was sent home, given a warrant and found my way down to the station. I had to walk, there was no ambulance or anything. I got to the station, found a train and got home to Wragby.

When I got home, of course my mother and people were glad to see me, I had five days leave. I don’t remember very much about it but I think I had five days’ leave. Before I went to France I had one weekend leave and one three day leave, that’s all the leave I had; they were very short periods of leave in those days.

However, this time it was five days at home, roaming the familiar fields and woods. And then I had to report to the 3/4th battalion at Belton Park camp near Grantham. I went to Belton Park camp and I was posted to D Company again. This time old Clacky had been wounded and he was there and one or two other folk I knew, and I was posted as a clerk in the office.

Well a short while after this, word came through, more reinforcements wanted and I didn’t feel I could face another ordeal for a while and so my father claimed me out of the army on the score of under age and I’ve got a certificate that I was under age. And the very next month I joined the RAMC at Lincoln hospital. I was accepted at 17 when my father made a special application because I wanted to be in the army. I didn’t want to be out of it but I didn’t feel ready to go back to fight just then, I’d been badly shaken.

PCN:
So when was this that you joined the RAMC?

DB:
January 1916. I was posted as an orderly to Ward 17b and my job was to scrub floors, to fetch the meals, to fetch the medicines and dressings and to prepare men for operation. I remember one of my first patients, he was due for an appendicitis, another for varicose veins, another for cartilage of the knees. We’d two famous doctors: Dr Brooks, Dr Brothers who were specialists in that. And I had to take these men, after preparing them, to the theatre, stand by while they were putting them under anaesthetic and hold them down if they reacted - as sometimes they did. Sometimes when they were coming round, certain chaps were violent, others would come round naturally. Course, there was the old gas mask of ether and chloroform business and see these operations performed. Also there’d be other operations held in the arched theatre of the grammar school at Lincoln. I was up there last week and I saw that building again and thought of what I’d seen there. I remember them sawing a man’s leg off at the thigh there. The fellow was sawing away, the leg eventually taken and thrown into the furnace of the boiler which supplied water to all the various wards. Huts had been built on the playing fields and there were twenty four wards. The officers’ section was in the building itself and I got on very well with all the nurse and sisters. It was a funny thing. I was in ward 17b and the orderly in the other half of the ward was also named Banks but no relation to me and he was not very popular.

Well after a year there it consisted of going down to the station, often in the night, with convoys due. We’d get word, “Convoy due”, a convoy of wounded coming and they always arrived in the middle of the night at the station and we had to be on duty at six o’clock the next morning just the same. In addition we had guard duties once a month, three hours on and three off, from six at night ‘til six in the morning and still carry on with our duties. They were a grand lot of chaps I worked with and we had a very good football team. The fellow who slept in the bunk under me - George Beal - was an exceptional fellow and when we played a team from Orient, one of the fellas asked if he’d go and play and he went and played for Arsenal. They wanted to keep him but the army wouldn’t release him. After the war he played for Burnley when Burnley won the division one championship two or three years running: 1921, 1922, 1923. He was a wonderful footballer that lad, I never saw anything like him. I played chiefly on the wing. I remember playing on Sincil Bank ground when word came through a convoy was coming and we couldn’t field our full team. The fellow we put in goal was cross-eyed. He let seventeen goals through and we were playing the Staffords of all people. Well we swallowed our pride but we won most of our matches.

Well eventually I was taken off this and put into the dispensary because I’d been keen on chemistry at school and had started an apprenticeship as a chemist. I was instructed in how to make and bottle up black jack and carol dakin solution and various other stock medicines. With the sergeant and the colonel’s daughter who was also acting as a dispenser, I was the third person.

Meanwhile I was itching to get back and then I put it off, I thought the only way I could do it was to apply for a commission. Word came through in June 1917, I’d been at the hospital then nearly eighteen months. Word came through that I was to report to the 87th Training Reserve Battalion at Catterick camp up in County Durham or North Yorkshire rather, so I said goodbye to my pals and comrades and I set of by train up through Doncaster right up to Darlington. Then there was a branch line ran to this Catterick camp.

Well there were really three camps. One was called California camp and ours was called Borden camp, I forget the name of the other one. At any rate, near the station in the centre was a big German prisoner compound surrounded by wire and they were surrounded by troops being trained. I remember the South African artillery had a camp near us.

It so happened I was called up before a board and questioned and sent back. A week or two later I was appointed lance-corporal. Now most of the fellas there were from the Durham Light Infantry so I adopted the Light Infantry badge though the rank and file were only allowed to wear a button. There was little Company Sergeant Major Hulha who’d been a jockey.

We had colonel Cheviot, he was a parson. ordained and the first thing you had to do was sit on a box while the clippers went over your head. You weren’t allowed a tuft of hair and there were frequent inspections. Oh we did chafe about this haircut business, we looked like convicts.

I attended course and I passed out on a musketry course and I also passed out on a general NCO course. And I remember too that the commandant of that course was an Irishman who’d been sergeant major at Lichfield barracks and had been appointed commissioned rank and captain and made commandant. And he was very much of the old order of sergeant majors. I remember him addressing us. “Now,” he said, “those leather pouches there. You’ll spend an hour at least over those.” Oh, spit and polish, spit and polish.

PCN:
Did you like army life in general?

DB:
Well, it’s not that I disliked it, I fitted in with it, I adapted to it. I expected to face up to all this kind of thing.

I’m going back for a minute to the RAMC. We had a bugler there his name was Swales. And I remember on the Order of the Day it said, “The Orderly Officer, The Orderly Sergeant, The Orderly Corporal, The Orderly Burgler.” Somebody had put an ‘r’ in: Orderly Burgler Swales. Course, we didn’t half tease him about that; he was the orderly burgler. But the old boy could certainly sound the half hour and quarter hour and the fall in. You see our duties in the morning were an hour and a half in the ward then back to our huts to make up our beds. We had bunk beds, palliases and two blankets and they were arranged in squares. Oh they were a grand lot. Old Kirky I remember and Brothwell. Brothwell became a good singer after the war, he became a printer. But there, I mustn’t digress, I could name various fells, Quartermaster Babbington, he was pretty good. We’d two sergeant majors: Sergeant Major Grey was one, quite a young regimental sergeant major whom I disliked, I got into trouble with him once when he ordered me to stand to attention to him and he’d never been out in the war. By that time we were wearing these stripes for wounds and I got seven days jankers for that although it didn’t amount to anything at all.

At Catterick we went through the usual drill and then we went out onto the ranges over the heather. There was a Scottish officer there I had a great admiration for and he seemed to have a soft spot for me, we got on fine. And there I fired my part three course and I recorded the highest score of a hundred and fifty two in part three. In the mad minute I got twelve bulls and three inners. In the ten rounds rapid I got ten bulls and I remember little Hulha lying beside me counting them as the disc came up, “another bull, another bull, two, three...” he got quite excited and I’ve still got my little book somewhere with the scores in.

PCN:
What was the mad minute?

DB:
The mad minute was load and fire fifteen rounds in one minute. The targets would pop up and down. Later I was to assist in the actual range work helping to place the targets in the trenches. There were two targets and the one went up as the other went down, like two screens. And when the one came down we’d got pots of brown and green paper strips to stick over the holes and put them up again. And after each session of firing they’d start at a hundred yards group and they used the round bull for that target, the familiar black round bull. But these other targets were a silhouette really of a man’s head and shoulders. Oh I remember marching over those Yorkshire moors, over the heather. I wish I could remember the name of that Scottish officer, he was a fine fella.

Well I was then sent on a bombing course to the Northern Command Bombing School at Otley; a three week bombing course. And I’ve got my handbook there now, full of notes and diagrams and what have you, still upstairs and showing the different types of grenade.

I perhaps should have said this. In 1915 when I was first out there we had no grenades. We used to fill the jam tins - Tickler’s jam; they’d hold about half a pound of jam, we’d fill them with powder, usually from some unexploded shell, and we’d stick a bit of fuse in. We had a brassard on the arm and a fusee which was a kind of match box with matches with extra long heads on that fizzed. You struck it on the brassard, attached it to the fuse and then threw. You’d have five inches of fuse, that would be the usual, and it burned at the rate of an inch a second so you’d five seconds to throw. We had a few stick grenades. The Germans then began to get their stick grenades - tater mashers we called them - and they were noisy things but they didn’t inflict the same damage as ours because the casing was thin sheet metal and ours was thicker - the jam tin bomb. Later the Mills was a big improvement. In fact I learned a lot more about explosives and things on this course and I’ve got a whole lot of pictures.

At any rate, I got a first class certificate. The previous NCOs that had been sent had never come out with a first class certificate for some time so I was put on the bombing squad.

PCN:
Were you still lance-corporal at this stage?

DB:
Yes, I was still lance corporal. It was in December that we entrained by the way. Before that there’s an incident I should record. Word came through of a terrible train disaster and on my period off I took a walk right down that line and I saw a sight I ‘d never like to see again: splintered wood carriages of the train that had got derailed. The train had been standing in the station and there was no engine attached to it. The troops, who were the Royal Scots Fusiliers, had entrained and their weight was just enough to set this train in motion and it started to move. Folk in the train didn’t realize there was no engine on and there was nobody to stop the jolly thing and it gathered speed going down the grade till it reached a bend and had then acquired such a momentum that it wouldn’t take the bend. It left the rails and the carriages smashed into one another and a lot of the fellows were killed, there were a lot of casualties. And they’d already been in the Gretna Green disaster, some of these fellas, where there was another smash some time previous, but my word that made a terrific impression on me.

Incidentally, we had some very good officers there. Iremeber seeing a diusplay of tent pegging that was wonderful to me. To see these fellas coming along with their lances and picking up these pegs and them twirling round in the air. Tent-pegging; real good old army stuff, very exciting to me.

One other thing I do remember. There were two churches there and at one we had a very good chaplain, Captain Canadine. He was a Canadian from Nova Scotia and I played the organ for him for his services. I remember playing the organ very nervously when colonel Cheviot was due to preach. I was a very nervous lad in those days. At any rate, Captain Canadine eventually got married - I’ve got a picture somewhere of him - and he arranged debates and I took part in them. And I remember the subject of one debate he was particularly pleased with me over and that was ‘Does death in war ensure salvation?’ And II chose the text ‘Not by works but by faith are ye saved’ and he commended me on that and the debate raged to and fro. It was very useful having these debates and Canadine was an excellent chaplain. We enjoyed the church parades.

PCN:
How did the church reconcile the war with Christianity?

DB:
We felt we were doing our duty in defending ourselves and that question I don’t remember arising then.

PCN:
But as a Christian, the first rule is thou shalt not kill isn’t it? And then you become a soldier but you’re still a Christian so how do you reconcile the two?

DB:
We felt justified and while the church took a sort of mutual attitude - we prayed for our enemies as well as for ourselves - but at the same time who was to be killed, us or them? We felt we were doing our duty in order to end hostilities. It was to be a war to end war we all hoped. I can’t go into a lot of detail on the theological side now but I met some fine chaplains and I was always ready to take part in the services. I remember taking a communion on the morning before I was wounded that first time, in the open, kneeling on that ridge along with the others. Yes, never thinking that that day I should be a casualty myself. We seemed far away from it all. However, that’s near Hellfire Corner as they called it.

Going back now to this matter of grenades. Yes, I learned a lot about this under the Chevin, that big hill overlooking Otley which I’ve meant to and never climbed. Anyway, I got a first class certificate and I was posted to the staff and I got a second stripe, a corporal. This was after our removal.

We had a clergyman and he was evidently from Leeds. I say evidently, I heard that he had been the vicar at Leeds who came and gave us some talks while I was at the NCO school at California camp church and he made a great impression upon us. I remember a fella saying, “I can’t listen to that fella for long enough.” He was away from the usual, he knew how to interest and talk to men. Yes, we paraded. The Church of England men fell in and marched to church. The others were in the minority and they went to their various churches. Church parade was, I suppose, compulsory.

PCN:
Were most men Christian?

DB:
No man liked to be though of as a heathen or a non-Christian. Some had little idea of it it’s true and I don’t remember much of those open air church parades of the theology of what was preached, it was a formal type of service.

At Catterick camp there was that particular clergyman and one other incident. The weather turned very cold. Now our ablution rooms were open at each end, there were no doors. There were long metal benches and pipes with taps running along and by Jove, you wanted to get out back as soon as you could. Anybody who tried to dodge it soon got told by his pals. No fella dodged his ablutions there but you were jolly glad to get in out of those moors. And the weather suddenly changed and we woke up to find snow; three or four inches of snow and the leaves were still on the trees. It was a grotesque appearance of them bent down under the weight of the wet snow. I’ve never seen the like since; an early snowstorm in September I guess. It might have been October but at any rate the leaves were on the trees and I can remember the branches bending under the weight of the snow.

Well that soon passed but my goodness we were glad when in the middle of December word came that we were to be moved,. We entrained and the train set off we knew not where. We got to Darlington and we went I guess, south somewhere but where I never knew except this: looking out of the window I looked down on my home from an embankment of a railway track that runs the south of Lincoln, designed for freight trains and goods trains. And it passes right by the school which my father had taken charge of at Boultham in South Lincoln. In fact to reach the school and the house they were right below this forty feet high embankment. And there was a road nearby that was bridged and a co-op store the other side. And then a twelve foot wide drain and beyond that, Roston and Proctor busy on manufacturing, Clayton and Shuttleworth, the industrial part of Lincoln. And further beyond up there were Robeys making the first tanks. The first tank was made at Lincoln by Robeys. And at the back of the school playground a high fence was built and my parents told me later they could hear weird sounds from the tank factory.

We were en route from Catterick camp to Clipstone camp near Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, that’s where we eventually arrived. Again there was a spur line running into the camp and a camp station and there were the 85th and 86th and 87th TRB regiments. The 86th were the Northumberland Fusiliers chiefly and I remember they had a drum and fife band. We had a good brass band there and Friday mornings during inspection, the band would be playing selections while a full inspection was being taken of the whole battalion.

By this time we had a change of colonel. Cheviot went and Grant came. He’d been taken prisoner by the Austrians and they’d released him on account of his age, making him promise he’d take no further part in hostilities. Well he couldn’t resist it and went to the War Office. They said, “all right, you go and take charge of that training camp.” Of course, he never went abroad, he was too old, too past it, but he was too useful to them. But he was so old fashioned. Now by this time we were issued with the new PL14 rifles; heavy brutes to carry about but they were pretty good and accurate in firing and I fired another course there.

What I remember about that particular camp was in the morning there’d be the bugle call of course fro reveille, the cookhouse and then eventually the half hour and the quarter hour. I stepped forward because I was right marker for A Company. I assembled with the five other markers from each company. We stood at ease with our rifles and the regimental sergeant major came along. “Ready. Atten...shun! Slope up!” and we sloped arms. “Markers, right and left turn.” I turned to the right, the others turned to the left so we were back to back, the others all facing the other way. The sergeant major moved round on my right and then gave the order “Quick March”. I stood still and the fella behind me would count fifty paces, tap the next fella, stop and turn round. The sergeant major would just motion him in line and each in turn stopped at intervals like that, turned round. The sergeant major, having got us all in line like that would then give the order, “Markers steady. Stand at... ease!” We stood there. We’d all turned left then of course and then the companies marched in on us and lined up with a marker for each company. There’d be the five minute, the fall-in, the quarter hour, half hour, five minute fall-in and they’d march in on us.

Now this Colonel Grant was one of the old school and determined he’d introduce some real physical training. First of all the whole battalion were given the order, “Right incline” so that I was at the peak. “Right Corporal Banks, fifteen paces, march”. I marched out fifteen paces in front and they had to take their time from me. Rifle drill consisted first in swinging your rifle up and catching it horizontally, then raising it up above your head then bending down. “Steady, steady” right down to the ground and then up again six or seven times. Then we were ordered to return tot he order and then swing over with the rifle horizontally from side to side. But the most exacting one was when we were given the order, “Standing, load”. You’d come up to the loading position then aim. Then, “Right arm extend” One, two, three “steady there”, you’d hear somebody fall crash. “Return, left arm extend.” Now you hold a heavy P14 rifle by the small and hang onto that for fifteen or twenty seconds and you’d soon know it. Well in the end they told me the medical officer got after him because too many men were falling out about it, but I had to endure it. I longed to let it go faster but no, not with Colonel Grant watching there. He came up to me once and struck me behind the shoulder, “Straighten up”. Oh he was a brute.

The soldiers there were bits and pieces from various battalions and what they were aiming at I just didn’t understand at the time. They were given instruction and parade drill, rifle drill, the rudiments of bombing and gas drill and then posted to a machine gun establishment. This was the formation of the Machine Gun Corps. We’d realized that the Germans had been very successful with machine guns so they got busy making these Maxims and what have you. Their badge was the crossed machine guns but they needed this infantry pre-training before they specialized in the machine gun training and tactics and we were the ones to give it to them.

There was a training programme set out and after the morning parade we were divided up and sent to our various training positions. Number one platoon bombing, number two rifle practice with the little target things; triangle of error. Another one would be bayonet work. There was a whole curriculum set out for training. Now I was attached to the bombing squad and we used to go over to some waste moorland in which there was a big dug-out and some trenches set up for live bombing practice. Well first of all these fellas came up by platoon with an officer or sergeant in charge and our officer would divide us into sectors, each instructor being given a squad to take. Well of course there were rudimentary throwing positions, practice them in dummy throwing. Course, there were a good many fells who turned to throw round arm instead of overhead and you had to teach them that the accurate way was overhead and you also had to teach them how to gauge the distance. I used to give points and praise up the fella who could throw the furthest and the fella who could throw the most accurately. And of course, they had to develop those muscles by continuous practice in throwing.

As a matter of fact, when I had charge of the Home Guard here I only ever once went live throwing and the other fellas shirked it. I took them out to Great Easton and did some live throwing.

So we instructed these fellas in bombing and I was on the specialist staff when the Germans started their big push in March and I got concerned. I sat down and thought the matter over and went to see the sergeant major. I said, “Sir, I want to see Captain Walker. I want a transfer.”
“What for?”
I said, “I want to get back to my regiment.”
“Why?”
“Well,” I said, “there’s a struggle going on out there, I feel I ought to be in it.”
“Well you’re a fool you know, you’ve got a good job here.”
I was with the 85th Training Reserve Battalion all this time, preparing them to go into the Machine Gun Corps and I could have stayed there.

By the way there were three Americans who joined us, three real nice fellas, I got quite friendly with them. They were not the ordinary kind of fella, they wanted to join in the war before America came in so they decided to come over and join the British army and they did. Well of course, unfortunately our fellas were not keen on the Americans staying out of the war and they were ostracized to some extent. I felt sorry for these fellas and one day they said to me, “Would you like to go to the United States and join the army there, you know you’d get good pay?” I said, “No, I don’t think so.” and looking back they were tempting me because they just suddenly disappeared, posted missing. I feel sure what they did was to beat it up to London, got to their US consul and say, “Look we tried to serve with the British army, get us back into the States” and that they went back to the States to become instructors. And if I’d gone with them I’d have been an instructor earning a lot more money, but I couldn’t be disloyal to my country. I wasn’t going to be a deserter, oh no, oh no. Deserters were shot anyway. No, looking back, had I been of a mercenary type wanting to make it, seize my chances, I could have gone with them and I’d have probably got to some good rank in the States, goodness knows. Anyway, that’s all supposition.

Anyway, I went to the Sergeant Major as I say and he took me before the captain. The captain thought I was crackers too. “However,” he said, “you can go before the colonel.” I appeared before the colonel and he was a new one, it wasn’t Grant. The colonel said, “Why is it corporal, you want to get back to your regiment?” I said, “Well sir, there’s trouble going on out there and I feel I ought to be with it; I want to have another bash at the enemy.”
“Well,” he said, “I commend you. You know if you transfer that you lose your rank and have to revert to the ranks but I’ll recommend that you be re-appointed.” And the old boy he gave me his blessing and I set off.

To be continued.

Also see:

Donald Banks - Narrative - Part 1

Donald Banks - Introduction and War Diary - England 1915
Donald Banks - War Diary - France 1915

And see too, my posts on my Army Service Numbers blog regarding the Lincolnshire Regiment:

The 1st & 2nd Battalions, The Lincolnshire Regiment
The 3rd (Special Reserve) Battalion, The Lincolnshire Regiment
The 4th Battalion, The Lincolnshire Regiment
The 5th Battalion, The Lincolnshire Regiment
The Lincolnshire Regiment - Service Battalions
The Lincolnshire Regiment - 10th Battalion - Grimsby Chums

And also: The Lincolnshire Yeomanry