by Ken Tout
Individuals within regiments also found themselves destined for unexpected roles. Trooper V.D. Siddons was studying for the Methodist Church ministry whilst attending pre-war parades and camps with the NY. Early in the war he was commissioned and eventually qualified as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps. He was sent to the Hejaz at the time when Lawrence of Arabia was collaborating with the Arabs against the Turks and, when required, Siddons (later MBE, DFC) acted as Lawrence’s pilot. Another NY Territorial, Trooper Acland, transferred to the Royal Engineers and thence also to the Royal Flying Corps where he rose to the rank of flight lieutenant.
Arch Whitehouse was born in England but went with his parents to live in America, and on the outbreak of war he returned and joined the NY. He became disillusioned when at one point, doing dismounted work, he and his unit had to hand over some of their fine horses to the 4th Punjab Horse. He decided to undertake a machine-gun course and upon hearing that air gunners were needed he immediately volunteered. Issued with flying kit still stained with the blood of the previous owner, he was taken up in a plane by a Captain Clement and ordered to shoot the machine gun at a ground target while flying. To everyone’s surprise he hit it. ‘Holy smoke!’ bawled the Canadian Clement, ‘they certainly train ruddy good gunners in that Yeomanry outfit!’ Arch was shot down within five hours of his first battle take-off but survived his full tour of fifty flights.
Among the most unfortunate Yeomanry units must have been the regiments who were still mounted and brigaded as cavalry, but were drafted as infantry into the ill-starred and cruel Gallipoli campaign. This was the brainchild of a Yeoman, Oxfordshire Hussar Winston Churchill, now First Lord of the Admiralty, aiming to open up the Black Sea and force Turkey to surrender. One historian points out that this was no longer a war of primitive technology:
It was the first major amphibious operation in modern warfare using such novelties as aircraft (and an aircraft carrier), aerial reconnaissance and photography, steel landing craft, radio communications, artificial harbours and submarines. Its lessons were studied by British planners for Normandy and for the Falklands assault of 1982.4
In one of those bad jokes inflicted upon human beings by the gods of war, General Sir Ian Hamilton, commanding the operation, might have reflected sadly on a remark he made years earlier. After inspecting Yeomanry battalions in 1908 and reporting very favourably, he regretted that he had not had the opportunity to command such fine men. Now his command included a Yeomanry brigade in an operation fatally flawed in planning and extremely costly in execution.
The young Winston Churchill as a Yeomanry (Oxon) officer.
Another outstanding historian was sympathetic to Ian Hamilton:
He had only four British divisions and one French division – actually inferior in strength to the enemy in a situation where the inherent preponderance of defensive over offensive power was multiplied by the natural difficulties of the terrain, the Turks holding the commanding heights … the stagnation of trench warfare set in. They could not go on and national prestige forbade them to go back.5
In such a situation the Yeomanry brigade went ashore in a flank landing at Suvla Bay, the first time in which such a large Yeomanry formation entered modern battle conditions. Whilst the beaches were stormed, the heights beyond provided a further area of difficult terrain and savage defensive positions. In a typical encounter the Queen’s Own Dorset Yeomanry using bayonets took a Turkish trench. Advancing further, ‘the Dorsets were cut down by fire from a flanking position that another Brigade had failed to take. They withdrew to the first enemy trench, having suffered severe casualties, many of whom lying in the fire-swept no-man’s-land suffered cruelly for want of help.’ A day attack having stalled, a night attack was planned:
Led by Colonel Troyte-Bullock, the QODY moved forward across the open plain under artillery fire as dark settled over the battlefield. Advancing through the burning bushes and scrub, stepping over dead and dying infantryman and heading up Scimitar Hill the Yeomanry surged on. In a ‘forlorn hope’, men fell, struck by tracer rounds, but the enemy’s front line was captured … Having lost virtually all the officers and sixty per cent of the soldiers the QODY were temporarily amalgamated with the remains of yet another Yeomanry regiment to make a viable unit.6
In impossible weather conditions the Devon Yeomanry reported their predicament:
The night of 26th/27th November was marked by a terrible storm, followed the next day by heavy snow. The trenches were flooded, destroying the parapets and making them untenable. Many men were completely submerged in water, half drowned. Blankets, waterproof sheets, kits and equipment were washed away. The Regiment soon dug an emergency cover trench on Yeoman’s Knoll, in the biting wind and snow, lying out in the open at night. On 28th ‘C’ Sqdn of the 1st West Somerset Yeomanry arrived as reinforcements.7
The entire Gallipoli operation was soon called off and the Yeomanry units evacuated to Egypt, having proved the merits of Haldane’s Territorial Force. Perhaps the most eloquent tribute to the Yeomanry came from a Syrian military interpreter watching an attack by the Royal Gloucestershire Hussar Yeomanry. The surgeon of HMS Euryalus off the beaches recorded:
Towards evening the yeomanry – dismounted – advanced in close formation to make a last desperate attempt to capture Scimitar Hill. Before they deployed the enemy high explosive and shrapnel found them and – as if on parade – they opened out in a slow and dignified manner wonderful to see. Our Syrian interpreter, deeply moved, turned to me as we watched them and said, ‘I know the armies of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Turkey; nearly all my life I have seen them fighting but I have never seen men of such fine physique as these, nor with such bravery under fire’.8
Meanwhile, back in France, the Northants lads were being briefed for the Battle of Neuve-Chapelle, which began on 10 March 1915. The trench lines of late 1914 had now been consolidated and the Allied generals had to find a way through them, as there was no way to go round them. The initial plans for this almost experimental ‘push’ have been commended as ‘original and well thought out’. A relatively brief bombardment (thirty-five minutes) of the enemy front line was followed by a further bombardment with lengthened range, which ‘dropped a curtain of fire to prevent reinforcements reaching the enemy’s battered trenches’. Initial success was marred by shortage of artillery shells and by command delays, followed by a belated ‘press on regardless’ order once the enemy had already been able to reorganise. The ‘regardless’ meant high, unnecessary casualties for the fighting men. For a time the NY plugged the gap between the battered 7th and 8th divisions.
The individual Yeomen knew little of the higher machinations but much of the personal pain. They knew even less of the wider political machinations:
The British had been slower than the Germans to awaken to the scale of munition supply required for this new warfare. Deliveries fell far behind contract, owing largely to the handicap imposed by trade-union rules. These could only be modified after long negotiation and the shortage of shells became so obvious in the spring of 1915 as to lead to a public outcry. Apart from labour difficulties the immediate fault lay largely with military shortsightedness, which manifested itself in a constant tendency to underestimate needs and underrate novelties.9
A dismounted Yeoman reading his local newspaper in a Gallipoli trench. (Keep Museum, Dorset Yeo)
Much has been written about casualties, both physical and psychological. Not so much is said about the emotional impact on the individual surviving soldiers who might have been hardened to mud, anonymous body parts, rats and lice, but were in no way hardened to the loss of fighting partners with whom they had shared the most intimate of lives. Cyril Day’s diary entry of 12 March 1944 illustrates this point:
Went to the funeral of an officer and a trooper. This was the first Officer of our Regiment to be killed. He was much respected by all who knew him. Was shot in the head while in the trenches. Again I was overcome by the solemnity of death. We had about 30 casualties duri
ng the battle. We were all very sorry to lose one of our own troop, Frank Doggett who was killed by a shell at RHQ. He was a favourite with all the troop.10
There were many tiny tragedies occurring within the overwhelming statistical disaster of total losses. Once again Cyril Day was the observer:
Went out filling sand bags with bricks and rubbish to finish the big redoubt a few hundred yards behind our lines. We were shelled very soon after getting at work and had to get into the redoubt for shelter. One of our fellows named Pentlow of Huntingdon was killed by shrapnel. His younger brother, who was also in our troop, was the first to go to him and find him dead. Naturally it was a ghastly shock for the younger Pentlow who needed our arms around him. How these things bring us to see that our life is uncertain and that death is sure.
Even in the midst of death, soldiers were bothered by mundane discomfort, as Cyril confessed at that time: ‘Had a boil come on my arm, had to go to the doctor to have it dressed and was put off duty for the day.’ And later: ‘We had a foot inspection. My feet were badly affected through being so long in the mud without having a chance to take my boots off and was told to stay behind to attend to the horses.’ Foot problems were endemic and George Dixon’s troop were ordered by Lieutenant Wartnaby to ‘grease our feet and wear two pairs of socks to try and prevent frost-bite, a cause of many casualties at that time’. Accidents were frequent, especially with loaded rifles: in the mud Trooper Peter White pulled his rifle cover off; the rifle fired as the cover caught in the trigger, the bullet going through Peter’s hand. The large numbers of horses also led to incidents; for example when a shell fell near Tom Harper’s team of wagon horses and the large draught horses bolted, knocking over and injuring Tommy and his mate. Corporal Cecil Knight referred to another fearsome and frustrating hazard: ‘three more killed, R. Barnwell, H. Garratt and Wilson and several wounded by our own shrapnel dropping short. Had to shift out of our own trench because of that shelling.’11
Writing with the benefit of hindsight, George Dixon tells graphically of an alarm and also of the long years of suffering which could await the soldier responding to such an alarm:
One night my pal and I were asleep in a Belgian wagon. We had just got fitted in when the alarm went, and we had to turn out and dress outside the wagon. It appeared the Germans had broken through near Ypres and used gas for the first time. The first patrol went out under Lt Collier (later Mayor of Northampton). Two were wounded and taken prisoner and Lt Collier’s horse was shot from under him. One of the prisoners was Sgt Barrett who died later in Germany. The other was Trooper Wilford of Clipston, who was badly wounded in the thigh and spent three years in a prison camp and about one year [under a Red Cross scheme] in Switzerland. He finally returned to England and for many years visited various hospitals. This was due to the lack of care taken in the first place and, even today, after 57 years, he still has to dress the wound daily. He says it might have been better to have had it amputated at the beginning, but nevertheless he is very cheerful.12
Dixon also deals with a subject known to soldiers, but viewed with some cynicism by those who ‘were not there’ – that is to say, premonition of death:
A few days before the battle we had a supper, with parcels from home and poultry prepared by the farmer’s wife where we were billeted. Lt Wartnaby gave us a talk on the forthcoming battle and told us that on no account were we to expose ourselves above the parapet out of curiosity, we should be doing no good and might possibly stop a bullet. It was ironic that he should have given us this warning when it was he who was killed in that way. He appeared to have a premonition, for one of my pals told me he well remembered him saying after the supper ‘Well, good night men. If we don’t meet again on this earth, we will meet in the hereafter’. 13
The circumstances of their troop leader’s death, although typical of the situation, came as a great shock to his men, as George Dixon attested. They had all gone to camp together, sailed for France together, and there worked, eaten, slept, suffered the rats and lice together with little distinction of rank:
They had been looking through field glasses at the Germans who were rushing through gaps in the trenches made by our artillery. A sniper with telescopic sights fired and killed Lt Wartnaby instantly and also put a shot through the cap of the sergeant who was next to him. I was in the next traverse when I saw the woollen beret worn by the Lieutenant fly across the back of the trench. I knew he must have been killed, We lost not so much an officer as a great friend, a real British gentleman. It was a loss we felt for some time, not only ourselves but the whole regiment. We buried him next to a trooper killed at the same time, with the usual R.I.P. cross. The next day we were given another officer but he, too, was killed, and by our own shells.
Cyril Day, skilled rider and lover of horses, also had moments of sadness of a different character, but equally disturbing:
June 9th: Sixteen of us went burying horses between our trenches off the Zonnebie road. The church at Vlamestinge was set on fire by shells and this lighted the countryside. The body of the church had just fallen in and the tower was a mass of fire when we came by.
June 12th: Were up digging again at night. Had to bury a lot of artillery horses close to a village East of Ypres. These must have been dead for over a fortnight. It had not been safe to bury them before on account of the enemy shelling. The poor brutes had their harnesses on and were tied up. They must have all been killed whilst standing meekly in their lines. A very sad sight indeed.
Aug 1st: I fetched green clover from the fields for the horses, and was pleased to notice that most of the peasants round there were keeping the Sabbath.
In spite of all the horrors and tribulations the typical British Tommy remains cheerful and makes do with minor pleasures, especially the ability to scrounge a good meal. Among the lesser duties that Cyril Day’s troop undertook when mounted were police patrols around Ypres to check for deserters and also to direct returning soldiers safely to their units across the featureless countryside outside the city:
We went up to Ypres on Police duty. John Scrambler had prepared an extra good dinner of stewed meat, new potatoes dug from ruined gardens round the town, boiled rice found among the ruins of a French hospital and stewed pears which were gathered from an old orchard nearby. In the evening we were back in the trenches close to Hooge and collecting equipment that had been left after the battle where the Germans had been using burning liquid. We came into contact with gas shells still remaining unexploded but damaged and leaking. It turned several of our fellows over, fainting before we could get our gas helmets on, it made us all quite queer, but soon got over it and continued on our way.
As distinct from the normal infantryman, who manned his trench, then went back into reserve, then came back to resume trench duty, the NY varied between pioneer work, such as digging trenches and erecting barbed wire, mounted patrols of one kind or another, and also normal infantry manning of trenches. This latter stint occurred temporarily where casualties had reduced the infantry battalion to a state where it could not maintain its appointed length of trench duties until permanent reinforcements came up the line. There was no cinematographic glamour in such moments for George Dixon:
When we first had to occupy a front line trench in a normal infantry role, we walked up a communication trench, in places up to the top pocket of my tunic in water and mud. My first night was spent in a dug-out about six foot square and a foot of water. Next morning spent looking over the parapet with the aid of a periscope into No Man’s Land. In between our lines and the Germans’ there were several unburied bodies. At that point we were only about eighty yards from the Germans. The sun must have glistened on my periscope for it came clattering down, shot by a sniper. At night expeditions were made across No Man’s Land and listening posts formed to try to get information. At one point there was a derelict house which was visited by both sides. Sometimes in the morning you would hear the Germans shout: ‘How is so-and-so in England?’ and they would sing
English songs.
When not in the front line itself the boredom could be excruciating and the monotony is caught again and again in Cecil Knight’s diary, which he must have thought rather futile as he made his entries:
June 6th: Filling sandbags at Chateaux
June 7th: Trench digging at night
June 8th: ditto
June 9th: Trench digging. Taylor wounded
June 10th: Trench digging. Orderly at night
July 4th: Trench digging for signal wires
July 5th: Trench digging at Hazerbroig
July 6th: Trench digging. Night stable guard with horses
July 7th: Trench digging at Vlomersdel
July 8th: ditto
Over a period of four months Cecil’s diary ran on in the same way. His only digressions were comrades wounded, exceptional weather, fetching up stores on a wagon, or guard and orderly duties. As the regiment included a large number of farm men from the fen country who were used to working in flooded areas, the regiment obtained a not too desirable reputation for dealing with trench drainage problems.