They also served: Siamese Troops on the Western Front

For all its faults Wikipedia is an excellent first stop for information. One subject where I relied on Wikipedia was for notifications of deaths of WWI veterans. My posts on the passing of these veterans has now finished as there are none now left but I was interested to see a list called Last Surviving World War I Veterans by Country A while ago I noticed that Siam was included on this list. I had not realised that Siam had supplied forces to fight the Central Powers.

The last Siamese veteran, Yod Sangrungruang, died on 9 Octoer 2003. Ashort obituary in the Taipei Times says this:

Thailand 's last surviving veteran of World War I, Second Lieutenant Yod Sangrungruang, has died at the age of 106, reports said yesterday. Yod, who was a recipient of France's Legion d'Honneur award, was just 20 years old in 1917 when he joined 1,284 Thai soldiers in volunteering to fight with the Allies in France. He served as a mechanic in France before returning to Thailand in 1919 and was awarded a medal for his services from Thai King Rama VI. In 2000, French President Jacques Chriac awarded Yod the Legion d'Honneur, France's highest decoration.

Siamese Troops on Parade in France in 1919.

An article on firstworldwar.com  provided more information. 

Although Thailand had remained neutral since the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914 King Vajiravudh (Rama VI) and his nation enjoyed friendly relations with Germany, the King recognised the political value of throwing in his lot with the Allied Powers.

The monarch was convinced that participation would be an "…an excellent opportunity for us to gain equality with other nations."  Thailand had suffered from the imperial designs of both the British and French, particularly the latter, losing control of Laos and Cambodia and ceding four southern provinces in the years between 1889 and 1909.

Additionally, Thailand was forced to accept the imposition of extraterritorial rights for the citizens of nations such as France, Britain and the United States and King Rama VI was hopeful that Thai participation in the war would allow a revision of these unequal treaties.

Therefore, on 22 July 1917,  King Rama VI declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary.  The Thais immediately interned and later seized as war reparations no less than 12 ocean-going ships of the North German Line.

Thailand sent a small expeditionary force consisting of 1,284 volunteers under the command of Major General Phya Pijaijarnrit  to serve with the British and French forces on the Western Front.  Included was a contingent of the Army Air Corps. Thy in 1918 and the air personnel began training at the French Army Flying Schools.  Over 95 men qualified as pilots. It is not absolutely certain whether the pilots  saw active service: some sources indicate that they made their first sorties in the final weeks of the war; although others claim the Thais finished their training too late to take part.

There was also a medical unit which included nurses and it is claimed these were the only women to serve in the trenches of the Western Front.

The Thai contingent marched in a victory parade in Paris on 19 July 1919 and arrived back in Thailand on 21 September 1919.  A war memorial was erected in honour of the troops and stands in Sanam Luang park in Bangkok (above).  Inscribed are the names of the 19 soldiers killed in action on the Western Front.

Thailand also participated in the Versailles Peace Conference and in January 1920 it  became a founding member of the League of Nations.Later that year the King's decision to go to war was vindicated when the United States ceded her extraterritorial rights.  France, after five years of extensive negotiations relinquished her rights in February 1925 while Britain signed a treaty to the same effect in July the same year.

This  site has more information on the Siamese Expeditionary Force, including some excellent photos. I cannot find any substantial information on the active service of the army contingent.

In military terms the Siamese contribution to WWI was insignificant but the poilitical capital it earned the country was inestimable (do not think I am belittling these men and women for a single moment).   

Christmas Truce 1916

"Here we are again as the song says. I had quite a good Xmas considering I was in the front line. Xmas eve was pretty stiff, sentry-go up to the hips in mud of course. … We had a truce on Xmas Day and our German friends were quite friendly. They came over to see us and we traded bully beef for cigars. Xmas was ‘tray bon’ which means very good."

These words were written by Canadian soldier Ronald Mackinnon (above) in a letter to his sister. But this was not written during the famed Christmas truce but in 1916

According to research by Dr Thomas Weber, of the University of Aberdeen, cease-fires continued to take place in 1915 and 1916. But because of military action (artillery, machine gun, and sniper fire) the truces were on a rather smaller scale and and more localised than the events of 1914.

"…soldiers never tried to stop fraternising with their opponents during Christmas. After the battle and after the adrenaline had gone, remorse tended to set in and there are many incidents recorded where soldiers tried to help injured soldiers from the other side.” Dr Weber said

Private Mackinnon was killed during the battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917.

Hitler didn’t have any balls at all?

Today’s Grauniad has an interesting on Hitler and his relationship with his army comrades.
Unpublished letters and a diary written by veterans of Hitler's wartime regiment are among newly unearthed documents that challenge previous notions about how the conflict shaped the future dictator's views.

The documents overturn Hitler's subsequent portrayal of his unit, the List regiment, as united in its intolerance and antisemitism, with Hitler "a hero at its heart". They challenge long-held views on Hitler's supposedly brave war record, revealing that frontline soldiers shunned him as a "rear area pig" based several miles from danger. The papers also disclose that List men saw Hitler as an object of ridicule, joking about him starving in a canned food factory, unable to open a tin with a bayonet. He was viewed by his comrades in regimental HQ as a loner, neither popular nor unpopular.

Perhaps no other individual has been more scrutinised than Hitler, but research on the List regiment by Dr Thomas Weber, lecturer in modern history at Aberdeen University, has unearthed new evidence.

Within the Bavarian War Archives, Weber discovered papers undisturbed for almost nine decades. Elsewhere, he found unpublished letters and Nazi party membership files, and traced Jewish veterans of the List.

Hittler served as a runner but, armed with new evidence, Weber realised that historians had not distinguished between regimental runners, a relatively safe job, and battalion or company runners, who had to brave machine-gun fire between trenches. Hitler was the former, a runner at regimental HQ, several miles from the front, and living in relative comfort.

Speaking of Hitler's famous first-class Iron Cross – the second class was a relatively common award – Weber said that this was often received by those in contact with more senior officers, typically those posted to regimental headquarters, rather than combat soldiers. Drawing on an unpublished diary by a Jewish List soldier, the documents also indicate a lack of widespread, virulent antisemitism.

Hitler's Iron Cross was recommended by Hugo Gutmann, a Jewish List adjutant, but Weber discovered that when Gutmann was incarcerated by the Gestapo in 1937, List veterans enabled him to survive. Gutmann referred to a prison guard who took risks to help him, saying: "As a good Catholic he despised the Nazis." Another List ex-comrade helped Gutmann to escape to America.

Weber also unearthed evidence to show that "the veterans of the List regiment did not – as maintained by all Hitler biographies – unanimously support Hitler after the war. Weber found that few frontline List soldiers became Nazis, whereas several regimental HQ staff became prominent in the party.

Weber concludes that Hitler, who worked for a leftist government after the war, became violently nationalist and antisemitic after Germany's postwar and post-revolutionary economic and political crisis.His research will be published next month in Hitler's First War, by Oxford University Press.

I know that Hitler’s life and times have generated a humungous biographical output but this book sounds like it has found a new and genuinely interesting angle on one of history’s greatest (and well documented) monsters.

As for Hugo Gutmann, that is a story worth a post or two in its own right...

Henry Allingham RIP

Henry Allingham has died at the age of 113. He was the world’s oldest man,the last survivor of the Battle of Jutland, the last surviving member of the Royal Naval Air Service and the last surviving founder member of the Royal Air Force.

Tributes were paid to Mr Allingham by the Queen, Prince Charles and The Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Mr Allingham served with the Royal Naval Air Service in WWI, later transferring to the Royal Air Force at the time of its creation.

Dennis Goodwin, founder of the First World War Veterans' Association and a friend of Mr Allingham, said: "Henry was truly a gentleman - his strength of character, his purpose.He left quite a legacy to the nation of memories of what it was like to have been in WWI,"

First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Jonathon Band said: "Henry will be remembered with great fondness for his strong sense of humour and joy of life, and he was an inspiration for all those serving in the Royal Navy." Air Chief Marshal Sir Glenn Torpy, Chief of the Air Staff, said his passing was a "milestone in history. Henry was an inspiration to many and his thirst for life, cheery disposition and a desire to help others was his mark," he added.

His nephew Ronald Cator said his uncle looked "very, very frail. He went downhill in the last few months. He used to sleep a lot at the end. He wanted to pass away, poor old boy."

A young Henry Allingham

For decades, like many other war veterans, Mr Allingham buried his memories of the war, avoiding reunions and refusing to tell his family about his experiences. But, in recent years, he started making public appearances to make sure new generations did not forget the toll of war and went on to tell his life story in a book which was published last year.

His death means there are now only four WWI veterans still alive: Britons Harry Patch, 111, and Claude Choules, 108(now living in Australia) American Frank Buckles and Canadian John Babcock, who both live in the USA
RIP Henry

Photo Hunt - From New York and Niue to a grave in Hornchurch

The theme for this week's Photohunt is in memoriam. I still have not had the chance to head off out to take new photographs (except in the garden) so here are some reposted photos of gravestones in Hornchurch. There will be a lot of wordage as these gravestones do deserve to have the back story told.


This is the grave of Raimund Sanders Draper was born in 1914 to a wealthy American family (interesting his was the nephew of Anglo-American comedienne Joyce Grenfell). While the USA was still neutral he came to the UK to join the Royal Air Force and was commissioned as an Officer in September 1941. After serving in various locations as a fighter pilot his squadron moved to RAF Hornchurch in March 1943 ( RAF Hornchurch was an important fighter station. Its squadrons had fought with distinction during the Battle of Britain).

On 26 March Sanders Draper took off from RAF Hornchurch. Whilst approaching the the nearby Suttons school his engine failed. He had the decision of baling out and to let the aircraft hit the school or to save the school by staying with the stricken aircraft . He chose the latter but he was killed in the ensuing crash and explosion. In the early 1970s Suttons School was renamed Sanders Draper who gave his life to save the lives of others.



These are the graves of four men from the Pacific island of Niue who died in hospital in Hornchurch during WWI. This is their story. It is based on an article written by Margaret Pointer in the New Zealand Herald.

The military parade in Auckland's Queen on February 4, 1916 was unusual: among the 1500 men that day were 140 from Niue. The men were part of the 3rd Maori Contingent who were recruited to maintain the Contingent which had suffered heavily during the Gallipoli campaign the previous year.

Niue had become a New Zealand Protectorate in 1901. When war began in August 1914, the island had a population of around 4000, including 30 Europeans. The Europeans felt the need to make some sort of war effort and they suggested a Niue regiment and arranged the recruitment of men and their drilling on the village greens.


The 140 men brought to New Zealand had never left the island before. Over four months the Niue Islanders underwent training. In February 1916 the Niue Islanders were ready for service and were sent initially to Egypt. but soon the order came to go to Northern France to provide support on the Western Front.

The Niueans were part of a Pioneer Battalion working at night to maintain a network of trenches. They suffered terribly from illness and by late May 1916, 82% of them had been hospitalised. The army authorities made the decision to withdraw the Niueans from Northern France and assemble them at the New Zealand Convalescent Hospital in Hornchurch, England, where they could be cared for before sailing to New Zealand. The people of Hornchurch still tend the graves of the four Niueans who are buried there.

Bill Stone dies

Bill Stone, one of the last veterans of WWI, died on 10 January at the age of 108. Stone joined the Royal Navy on 23 September 1918. He was still in training at the time of the Armistice but while serving on HMS Tiger he witnessed the scuttling of the German Grand Fleet at Scapa Flow in 1919.

Stone also served in WWII. He participated in the evacuation of Dunkirk which he described as: ” the worst experience of my life ... I saw hundreds of people killed in front of me. Some had no clothes on and were shot and bombed as they swam out to boats. There were oil tanks burning, ships sinking and hundreds of soldiers lined up on the beaches” He also served on the Arctic convoys and participated in allied the invasion of Sicily. He left the Royal Navy in 1945 and set up a barber’s shop.

Stone made his last public appearance on 11 November 2008 (the 90th anniversary of the end of WWI) when together with fellow veterans Henry Allingham and Harry Patch he laid a commemorative wreath for the Act of Remembrance at The Cenotaph.

His daughter described him as a "very determined character “ and “a man of great faith”

There are now just seven WWI veterans alive

The last eight veterans of WWI

This time last year there were 23 known World War I veterans alive. Today there are just eight still alive. 2007 saw the deaths of all three central powers veterans, the last French, the last Italian and the last Jamaican veterans (click here for a full list).

The Wikipedians tracking the last veterans of WWI count anyone who was in uniform at the time of the armistice. This means that it records those who may not be considered a veteran by their country. However it does provide a consistent baseline.

Australian

John Campbell Ross. Ross enlisted in February 1918 and served as a wireless operator. However, he never left Australia or saw active service so he is not recognised as a veteran by the Australian government

Canadian

John Babcock Babcock attempted to enlist in 1915 (aged 15). He was placed in a Young Soldiers Battalion in August 1917 and was then transferred to the UK where he continued training until the end of the war. He therefore never saw active service. He has lived in the US since the 1920s.Tthe Canadian government has authorised a state funeral for him should he accept it.

American

Frank Buckles Buckles enlisted in the US army at the age of 16 and saw service in France as an ambulance driver. He has been approved for burial in Arlington Cemetery. Buckles survived Japanese internment in WWII

British

Henry Allingham . Allingham is the last survivor of the Royal Naval Air Service and of Jutland, the last surviving founder member of the Royal Air Force and the oldest ever surviving member of the British Armed Forces

Harry Patch Harry Patch is the last fighting Tommy and the last survivor of the Western Front. He served in the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry seeing active service at the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917.

Claude Choules Now living in Australia, Choules enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1916 and served on the Battleship HMS Revenge. He witnessed the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet at Scapa Flow in 1919. Choules also saw service in WWII in the Royal Australian Navy.

Bill Stone Stone enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1918 but was still in training when the war ended. He also served in WWII.

Netherwood Hughes A driver, Hughes was called up in 1918 but was still in training when the war ended.

In addition there are two others who may have served in WWI but their service is unverified:

• Ukrainian Mikhail Krichevsky claims to have been called up in 1917 seeing active service on the Austro-Hungarian front;

• Briton Doug Terrey claims to have joined up in 1917 serving as a dispatch rider.

A post for Armistice Day

Wordless Wednesday follows

This is taken from an article by John Lichfield in Saturday’s Independent. It seems so appropriate that the first and last British casualties of WWI are buried close together.

In a beautiful, wooded cemetery at the end of a suburban lane in Belgium, the body of John Parr, from Finchley, North London, rests a few paces from the body of George Edwin Ellison from Leeds. Between their graves there lies seven yards of lawn and, chronologically and metaphorically, the bodies of all the other British soldiers who died in the Great War.

Private Parr, 16, a bicycle scout, and Pte George Ellison, 40, of the Royal Irish Lancers, were, respectively, the first and the last British soldiers to die in combat in the First World War. Pte Parr was killed on 21 August, 1914, the day before the first rearguard action fought by the British Expeditionary Force near Mons on the Belgian-French border. Pte Ellison was killed on the morning of 11 November, 1918, 90 minutes before the armistice which brought the industrial-strength slaughter of the first modern war to a close, 90 years ago next Tuesday. Both died within a couple of miles of the spot where they are buried. Their memorial stones face each other across a narrow strip of grass in a cemetery which contains more than 500 British, Irish, Canadian and German graves.

When you visit the Saint Symphorien cemetery (check out teh photos. It is such a beautiful cemetery), just east of it seems obvious that the placing of the two graves was deliberate. It is a wry and moving tribute to the fact that, for the British Army, the Great War, "the war to end all wars", began and ended in the same place. The fact that John Parr and George Ellison lie facing one other, overlooked by pine trees and surrounded by rose bushes and cotoneasters, is a poignant and macabre accident of fate.

"It is a pure coincidence," said Peter Francis, spokesman for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. "John Parr's body was placed where it is now by the Germans in 1914. George Ellison's body was brought to the Saint Symphorien cemetery from a temporary burial place after the war. Our records suggest that Pte Ellison was simply buried in the next available space. It was not then realised that he was the last British soldier to die in combat. Nor was the fact that Pte Parr was the first British soldier to die established until later."

Both men were regular soldiers and part of the original British Expeditionary Force (BEF) of 120,000 men – a "contemptible little army," according to Kaiser Wilhelm II – which was shipped to France in August 1914. John Parr is listed in the cemetery register as 20 years old. Recently unearthed evidence suggests that he was just 16. He had lied about his age when he gave up his job as a golf caddy at the North Middlesex Golf Course in Friern Barnet Lane and joined the Middlesex Regiment a year earlier. The caddy's war lasted less than a day. Pte Parr never fought in the Great War. He never knew the First World War of trenches, of barbed wire, of mud, of poison gas or aircraft and of tanks. He never knew the kind of fighting in which 29,000 British soldiers could be killed in one day (the first day of the Somme). He never even wore a tin helmet (first issued to British troops in September 1915). He was shot by advancing German troops as he scouted, on his bicycle, ahead of the deploying British Army on 21 August 1914. No picture of him has ever been found.

George Ellison, a former miner, married with a small son, was old enough to have been Parr's father. He was already 36, and had probably been a regular soldier for more than a decade, when he was posted to France with the BEF in 1914. He survived the retreat to the Marne, where the French and British finally blocked the German advance. He was among the first British troops to fight in trenches in late 1914. He may have witnessed the first use of poisoned gas by the Germans near Ypres in April 1915 and fought in the battle of the Somme, in which the first tanks were used, in July to November 1916. He is believed to have been wounded at least once but survived to take part in the collapse of trench fighting and the Allied advance to the Belgian border in the summer and autumn of 1918. Very few of the original foot-soldiers of the BEF were still alive and fit to fight by the time the Armistice was signed at 5am on 11 November 1918. Pte Ellison was one of them.

Pte Ellison, who had survived so much, was one of them. He was shot by sniper while part of a patrol scouting on the edge of Mons – about two miles from where he is now buried – at about 9.30am on 11 November. Did he know that the war was just about to end? Did the sniper know? Almost certainly, both did. Word of the approaching armistice had gone around the fighting troops like wildfire. They, nonetheless, carried on fighting, in some places ferociously, to the end.

In Mons, the shooting and shelling had almost finished by the time that Pte Ellison died. There were, however, further casualties among the Canadians who were fighting a little to the west. Pte George Lawrence Price, 25, of the 6th Canadian Infantry Brigade, was shot through the head at 10.57am, the last British Empire soldier to die. He is also buried at the Saint Symphorien cemetery, only 20 yards from privates Parr and Ellison.

The cemetery is deeply moving for other reasons. It was begun by the Germans after the fighting of August 1914. They buried German and British soldiers in groups, side by side, in a maze-like spiral, with a stone memorial to both the armies on top. (Nothing so magnanimous would have been possible later in the war.) Saint Symphorien is rare in having almost equal numbers of German and British Empire troops buried there (284 German and 229 "British", including many Irish and Canadian soldiers.) They include one of the first British VCs of the war and the first German soldier to win an Iron Cross. Pte Parr, according to the commission records, was buried by the Germans where he now lies, close to the cemetery boundary, in August 1914.

For many months, the British Army failed to report that he was dead or even missing. His mother, Alice Parr finally wrote a letter complaining that she had not heard from her son for months. The War Office replied gruffly saying that it could not help. It was not until after the war that a soldier who had been on the same bicycle scouting mission confirmed the time and place of John Parr's death.

Pte Ellison was originally buried in a small battlefield cemetery near the spot where he died. During the 1920s, many of these small cemeteries were converted to permanent memorials and their wooden crosses were replaced by the now-familiar, engraved tablets of white Portland stone. Other bodies were, however, moved to larger cemeteries nearby.Thus, Pte Ellison, "the last casualty", was placed, opposite Pte Parr, "the first casualty", some time in the early 1920s.

And so it is that John Parr and George Ellison, the first and last of so many, have lain together ever since. Purely by coincidence.

Address to the Irish POWS at Limburg, May 15th, 1915

Irish POWs taken in the early part of WWI were concentrated in a camp at Limburg - almost certainly including my grandfather who was captured at the Etreux rearguard action during the British Expeditionary Force's retreat from Mons in August 1914. Roger Casement made an attempt in 1915 at recruiting an Irish Brigade. It was an utter failure. Let's say that they failed to be stirred by Casement's words (From Searcs web guide). I wonder what my grandfather thought of it.

"You have been told, I daresay, that I am trying to form an Irish Brigade to fight for Germany; that I am a German agent; and that an attempt is being made to suborn you, or tempt you to do something dishonest and insincere for the sake of the German Government and not for the welfare of Ireland. Well, you may believe me, or disbelieve me (and nothing I could say would convince you as to my own motives) but I can convince you, and I owe to yourselves as well as to my self to convince you that the effort to form an Irish Brigade is based on Irish interests only, and is a sincere and honest one, so far as my actions with the German Government is concerned and so far as their action in the matter goes.

An Irish Brigade, if it be formed today, will rest on a clear and definite agreement wherein the German Government is pledged to aid the cause of Irish independence by force of arms, and above all, to aid Irish men to themselves fight for their own freedom. The agreement that is the basis on which an Irish Brigade is one now in my hands, and which I will read to you. It was signed on 28th of December last by the duly authorized representative [under Secretary for State] of the German Government and is an honest and sincere offer on the part of a great European Government to help Irishmen to fight their own battle for the freedom of their country. It is the first time in history that such an offer has been made and embodied in clear straightforward terms.

Hitherto, in the past, Irish Brigades have existed on the Continent but they were, in every case, formed to fight the battles not of Ireland, but of France, or Spain or of Austria. The foreign governments who took Irishmen, and formed them into a fighting force, did so, in all these cases not for the sake of Ireland but for the cause of these foreign governments.

When Patrick Sarsfield died at Lauden in Flanders in 1691 he said on the field of his death: 'Would that this blood were shed for Ireland.' He was giving his life for France in the battles of France, not for Ireland. Today the case is different and if any Irish man in the Irish Brigade today loses his life he can at least say that he is giving his blood for Ireland. The agreement leaves no doubt that he is pledged to one cause only and that the cause is not of Germany but of Ireland...

Your Oath binds you to serve your king and country. Now a man has only one country and he cannot have a divided allegiance. The only country that can claim an Irishman's allegiance is Ireland. The king you agreed to serve is, in law, King of Great Britain and Ireland. There is no such person as the King of England in law. How have these sovereigns discharged their duty to their Irish subjects? For remember these obligations are mutual. Our Kings, whose sole title to our allegiance is that they are Kings of Ireland, as well as Kings of Great Britain, have not once in all these centuries performed their duties to their Irish people or fulfilled any of the sacred obligations laid upon them by the title and the allegiance they claim from their subjects.

I could cite many instances: I will give only two here. King George III was as much King of Ireland as he was King of Great Britain. He drew every year from the pockets of the Irish people the sum of £145,000 for his own purse. He never performed a public act for the welfare of his Irish people; he never set foot in Ireland, but he hired foreign soldiers, and Germans even, to come to Ireland to cut the throats of his Irish people and to burn their houses and devastate their country. That was in 1798, when the grandfathers of some of us were alive and were fighting for Irish rights. King George III of Ireland, as much as of Great Britain, paid £2,400,000 to hire foreign mercenaries to murder his Irish and his American subjects and the public accounts are on record showing who received this money - some of which was money from Ireland. That was one view of a King of England's duty to his people in Ireland.

In 1848, the granddaughter of George III, Queen Victoria, who was also Queen of Ireland as much as Great Britain, regretted very much, in a letter to her uncle the King of the Belgians that the starving and disarmed Irish people did not openly rebel, so that her ample army in Ireland might have a good chance of shedding Irish blood and teaching 'the Irish a lesson'. That was her sovereign view of her duties to the people she called her subjects - she only regretted that they did not come up to the scratch to give her well armed troops a chance of shooting down unarmed and starving men. I do not know what moral claims such sovereigns have to the loyality of the people they thus treat as enemies and have never regarded as having any claim upon their consciences. I am not the only Irishman who holds this view.

Others before us today, when it came to the question of fighting for Ireland, have not hesitated to break the Oath of Allegiance that bound them to such false Kings as these.

Lord Edward Fitzgerald in 1798 was an Officer in the British army and had taken that form of the Oath of Allegiance. But he did not hesitate to break it and to lose his life fighting for Ireland. So with Smith O'Brien in 1848. He had taken two Oaths of Allegiance to the Crown - first in Parliament as Member for Clare, and also as a magistrate for that county. These men were not afraid to risk their lives for Ireland: They were brave enough to know where their duty to their country lay, and to try at all costs to discharge it.

If an Irishman serves another country then he is not loyally doing his duty to his own. It is idle to talk of Irish liberty if we are not men enough to fight for it ourselves. We are told sometimes that Ireland will be made free by acts of others; that if Germany were to win the war there would be a free Ireland. If Irishmen men themselves are not prepared to fight for Ireland and to risk their lives in that cause then it is idle to talk of Irish liberty, and cowardly too. To expect Germany or others to free our country when we are not prepared ourselves to risk anything for it is cowardly and contemptible in the extreme.

Germany has already publicly declared her goodwill and good intentions towards Ireland and has given every proof in her power of her wish to see an independent Ireland.

She declares formally, and in binding terms, that she will assist Irishmen with arms, and military help to secure Irish independence, and that she will recognise that independence if gained and do all that she can to secure it."

A Must buy - Len Smith’s war journal

The publication of Len Smith’s war journal was widely reported in the press during the week. This post is largely lifted from the Guardian article. Having read this and other articles I’m definitely purchasing a copy (see below)

During WWI Len "Smithie" Smith was to be found by day in a shell hole in no man's land with pad and pencil - or perhaps poking his head out of a British trench to make a quick sketch. Later, in a candlelit cellar, he would painstakingly produce detailed images that were designed to help the top brass plan their war strategy, but would not have looked out of place as works of art on a general's drawing room wall.

Smithie’s story is being told for the first time after his diary, complete with hundreds of vivid illustrations, was published on Tuesday (7 Oct). His journal recalls daring missions, such as when he produced a detailed sketch of an oak tree just six metres from enemy lines so engineers could produce an exact copy - with a built-in observation post - that was swapped for the real thing. But it also describes more ordinary but moving tasks he was commissioned to undertake, including painting the names of fallen comrades on simple wooden crosses or scrubbing out German street names in northern France and replacing them with the French originals. Remarkably, even in the heat of battle he produced work that was not merely functional but beautiful.


Before the war, Smith had a fledgling career as a commercial. At the age of 22 he enlisted as an infantryman. He hid his notebook and pencils in his leggings and kept an illustrated diary. Smith started off sketching his friends. He drew his pal Sam reading the letter informing him his son had been born. He sketched caricatures of friends after the regimental barber had shorn their hair. Smith also produced images of British and German equipment. On one page a rudimentary British grenade - explosive packed into an old jam tin - is juxtaposed with the much more professional German equivalent.

Smith's skill with the rifle and the pencil were noticed after a year and he was made a sniper and an observer. Delighted at no longer having to hide his pencils and paper, Smith spent whole days hidden away in no man's land making sketches and taking notes until the evening mist fell and he could crawl back home. In 1916 he was ordered to make a detailed sketch of the German lines at Vimy ridge in northern France. Despite constant shelling from the Germans he produced a two-metre-long image of the enemy's position. "I had to scramble all over the shop making rough pencil notes," he wrote. "Real risky work." The brigadier-general was clearly impressed with the work's artistic merits as well as the strategic benefit. Smith recalls that he declared it "very cleverly executed ... but above all infinitely useful".

His most startling job involved sketching an oak tree stump that stood within the barbed wire six metres from German trenches. Engineers then produced a copy of the tree in iron and steel, complete with ladder running up through the hollow centre. "Scene shifters" removed the real tree and replaced it with the fake one by night, "praying that Jerry will not tumble the game". They didn't and, amazingly, a man was able to scramble through tunnels to the tree and observe what the enemy was up to.

War ended, and Smith's final sketch is of a one-way ticket back home that reads: "Blighty route. Single to England-home-beauty."After he returned, Smith had a successful career as a commercial artist. He never spoke about the war but tried unsuccessfully to get his diary published. He died in December 1974 at Bexhill-on-Sea, East Sussex, at the age of 83, believing his diary would languish forever in a cupboard. But his great-nephew, Dave Mason, has published it by putting the collection online at greatwarartist.com.

The journal can be purchased as an e-book for £9.95. Money well spent in my view!

WWI veteran roundup -Last female veteran dies

According to the Wikipedia list of WWI veterans Gladys Powers,the last female WWI veteran died on Friday aged 109.

Gladys Powers was born in Lewisham in 1899 in 1915, she volunteered as a barracks waitress for the WAAC, later she transferring to the WRAF. In 1920, she married Edward Luxford, a Canadian soldier and moved to Canada. She was the last WWI veteran alive in Canada.

In a statement Greg Thompson, Canadian Minister of Veterans Affairs said “The First World War was not won by one country alone. Allied forces from around the world came together and fought alongside one another for a common goal," "This year, as the world marks the 90th anniversary of the end of the First World War, and as the number of Veterans from the First World War grows smaller, we unite once more with a common goal -- to never forget."

June saw the death of the penultimate Italian veteran. Francesco Domenico Chiarello died on 27 June aged 109. He was the last the last soldier in the world to see action in both World Wars.
Called up in 1918, he spent three months in training and then served as an infantryman at Cosenza. First sent to the front line in Trentino he was later sent to Albania. He was called up again in 1940 but discharged after six months.

April saw the death of Stanley Charles Stair , an infantryman in the British West India Regiment, He was the last known Jamaican veteran.

At present there are 12 known surviving veterans, three or which have been added to the list this year: Frenchmen Fernand Goux, (who was called to service in April 19, 1918 but excluded from French government lists as it only counts those with more than three months of combat service) and Pierre Picault and Briton Ned Hughes who was in training when the war ended.

The Wikipedia list of surviving veterans seems as good any to useas it strives to be as comprehensive and accurate as possible. It counts anyone who was in uniform as a veteran regardless of whether they saw active service or not.

Family history and changing the direction of the Poor Mouth (a little)

I’ve been looking back at some of my earlier posts and to be honest I think some of my earlier posts were far, far better than I produce these days. It’s not that I am ashamed of the Poor Mouth as it stands and I don’t plan to devote as much time to party political matters as I used to – suffice it to say that I am a Labour Party member and I have no intention of shifting political allegiance, even if Brown dismays me. But I digress. I intend to devote more time to some of my favourite subjects, most of which concern the footnotes of history. To kick things off this post (which anthologises a number of posts from 2006 and 2007) concerns tracking down my grandfather’s involvement in WWI

In 2006 I knew very little about the history of either side of my family, a fact not helped by the early death of all of my grandparents (Only my maternal grandmother was alive when I was born and she died before I was old enough to take an interest in such matters) and my parent’s own rather fragmentary knowledge.


What I did know about my family beyond my parent’s generation is this:


- A maternal great uncle was a fairly successful middle distance athlete at the turn of the 20th Century. He was all Ireland 880 yards champion. Some of his medals still exist and I hope will be placed in the Millstreet museum in the not too distant future


- A maternal cousin fought in the IRA during the original “Troubles” (1919-21) and then in the ensuing Civil War. Less than 20 years later he was in England working on radar development!

Grandfather

- My paternal grandfather served in the Second Battalion of the Royal Munster Fusiliers (2nd Munsters) and was apparently taken prisoner at the battle of Mons in 1914. That he survived that terrible conflict is probably down to his spending over four years in Germany as a “guest” of the Kaiser! The only photograph I have ever seen of him was taken in a POW camp in Limburgnot far from the Dutch border

Grandfather was in the BEF

All in all this was not an awful lot to show for two fairly sizeable families. Virtually every document or personal item that would help me trace my family history has vanished over time. In May 2006 I searched the WWI service medal database at the UK National Archives website and I was delighted to find a medal record for a private in the Munster Fusiliers bearing the exact same name as my grandfather who arrived in France on 13 August 1914.
This piece of information placed him in the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) at the start of WWI. It is a matter of record that on 23 August 1914 the BEF engaged the German First Army around Mons but the 2nd Munsters were held in reserve and did not participate in that battle. In addition the 2nd Munsters did not participate in the battle of Le Cateau on 26 August.

The Munster fusiliers cap badge

The 2nd Munsters’ contribution to the Mons Campaign took place on 27 August at Etreux. At the time the BEF was in retreat and in extreme danger of being surrounded and destroyed by advancing German forces. Three companies of the 2nd Munsters under Major Charrier along with a troop of the 15th Hussars, and two guns of the 118th Battery, R.F.A., held off a full German Corps for a day taking appalling casualties in the process. This action allowed General Haig’s I Corps to put twelve miles between itself and the front almost certainly ensuring its survival as a fighting force.


The Action is a tiny footnote in a conflict that took millions of lives but it is a textbook example of the function of a rear guard force. The medal record placed my grandfather in the BEF but I could not prove that he fought or was taken prisoner there. However it was a “definite maybe”.

Grandfather was at Etreux

James O’ Sullivan has an excellent site about the Munsters (see below). His father served in the first battalion, which saw action at Gallipoli before transferring to the Western Front in 1916.In 2007 James for provided me with a clipping from the Times dated 23 March 1915, which lists members of the 2nd battalion that had been taken prisoner. One of them is my grandfather. He also confirmed that there is no record of any members of the battalion taken prisoner between the Etreux rearguard action of 27 August 1914 and the publication of the list.

The conclusion is that my grandfather was one of a just a few hundred soldiers that held up a whole German corps for a crucial twelve hours and thus helped ensure the survival of the British Expeditionary Force in its retreat from Mons to the Marne.

Grandfather avoided numerous chances to get his head blown off

All in all I am bloody lucky to have been born in the first place! Had he not been taken prisoner at Etreux he would have had plenty of chance to spill blood between then and 11 November 1918:

• In May 1915 at the Rue du Bois battle where the 2nd Munster's suffered many losses to friendly artillery fire. Before engaging in battle, absolution was administered to the battalion by their Chaplain Francis Gleeson and is subject of the famous (well famous to me) painting by Fortunate Matania. 22 officers and 520 men went in to battle, 3 officers and 200 men returned.

• In September 1915 during Loos sector battles.

• In June 1916 during raids on German lines at Lievin

• In July 1916 in the attack on the village of Contalmaison.

• In September to December 1916 in the defence of Martinpuich and the Somme offensive.

• July 1917 in the Nieuport defence.

• In November 1917 at Passchendale

• In March 1918 in action at Epehy, Tincourt, Doingt, Chuignolles and Mericourt sectors.

• In October at Le Catelet, Foret de Mormal and River Selle sectors.

The second Munsters were wiped out several times over during WWI. A POW camp in Limburg in Germany was probably the safest place for him!

This list was taken from James O'Sullivan’s site

Further reading

There are two excellent websites concerning the history of the Royal Munster fusiliers:

James O Sullivan’s Royal Munster Fusiliers website;

Tadhg Moloney’s Royal Munster Fusilier Association website;

Both carry the account of the Etreux action from The 2nd Munsters in France by Lt Col H S Jervis;

Wikipedia entry on the Battle of Mons

The last survivors

At the end of 2006 Wikipedia listed 53 verified surviving veterans of WWI. A year on and the number has fallen to just 19. 2007 saw the death of the last known serving officer (Philip Mayne), the last Romanian veteran (Gheorghe Panculescu) and the last Scottish veteran (William Young).

These are the known surviving veterans:

Henry Allingham (British) - at 111 the oldest living WWI veteran

Harry Patch (British) - the last surviving British soldier to fight in the trenches on the Western Front

Bill Stone (British)

Claude Choules (British)

Syd Lucas (British)

Glady Power (British)

Lazarre Ponticelli (Italian)

Delfino Borroni (Italian)

Francesco Chiarello (Italian)

Frank Buckles (USA)

Harry Landis (USA)

Raymond Cambefort (French)

Louis de Cazenave (French) - the last surviving French veteran of the Western Front

Franz Kunstler (Hungarian - ethnic German) Last surviving veteran of the Austro-Hungarian army

Erich Kastner (German) - Last known German veteran

John Babcock (Canadian) - Last known Canadian veteran

Yakup Satar (Turkish) - Last known veteran of the Ottoman Army

Stanislaw Wycech (Polish) - Served in the Polish Military Organisation. Last known Polish veteran

John Campbell (Australian) - Last surviving Australian veteran


In a few years there will be none left. France and Canda will hold state funerals for the last veterans. In Britain there will be a national memorial service in Westminster Abbey.

A small piece of family history for Remembrance Sunday

My Grandfather was a regular soldier who went to Flanders with the 2nd Battalion of the Munster Fusiliers in August 1914. He was one of a few hundred Munsters (plus a small number of cavalry and artillery mend) who fought a desperate rearguard action at the village of Etreux on 25 August 1914. The actions of this brave band ensured that the safety of the British Expeditionary Force in its retreat from Mons to the Marne. My grandfather was fortunate enough to be taken prisoner. Like other Irish POWs he was held at a camp in Limburg near the Dutch border. It is almost certain he was addressed by Sir Roger Casement who, before his ill fated attempt to ship German arms to Ireland in 1916 (and for which he was hanged), attempted to raise a brigade of Irishmen to fight on the German side. a grand total of 55 men volunteered for this brigade. My grandfather was not one of them. He spent the latter part of the war working as a labourer on a nearby farm. I understand he remained in contact with the family until his death in August 1927.

This list of men taken prisoner at Etreux was printed in the Times in 1915. My grandfather's name is among them. He was very fortunate to have been taken prisoner. It is very likely he would have been killed during one of its subsequent engagements: the 2nd Battalion was wiped out several times over during the course of WWI

Photo Hunt - Two

The theme of this week's PhotoHunt is Two. I returned to a favourite stamping ground for photographs, the churchyard of St Andrew's in Hornchurch, and noticed that there were a number of war graves with two occupants.


I have no idea who the Farrants were but looking at their age they must have been brothers. They died after the end of hostilities in November 1918. How sad to live through a bloody conflict like the Great War then die just after.

Mr Bruce died during WWI, his wife who also died just after the end of hostilities is buried with him.


The story of the men from Niue who served in the Maori Pioneer battalion is very sad. See this earlier post for more information

Last veterans of WWI

At the start of the year there were 53 known veterans alive across the world. Just seven months later, if the Wikipedia listing is to be accepted, there are just 22 veterans alive. There are from the UK(6), France(2), Germany(2), US(3), Italy(6), Germany, Canada, Poland and Australia(One each).

Of the Britons, Harry Patch is the last to have fought in the trenches. At 111 Henry Allingham is the oldest living veteran.

In a few years all will have passed into memory.

If I should die, think only this of me--- Wordless Wednesday

That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever

Niue

America

Czech

(From the Soldier by Rupert Brooke) These gravestones are this week's Wordless Wednesday entry.

The first photo shows the grave stones of four WWI volunteers from the Pacific island of Niue who served on the Western Front and who died in 1916 at the New Zealand Convalescent Hospital in Hornchurch. This earlier post tells their story.


Raimund Sanders Draper was an American pilot serving in the RAF. He sacrificed his life rather than crash his Spitfire into a Hornchurch school. The school's name was changed from Suttons to Sanders Draper in the 1970s. This post from last year provides more information about "Smudge" Draper.

I know nothing about Elzalel Konvalina except that he would have served with the RAF's 313 (Czech ) Squadron which was based at RAF Hornchurch at the time.

All of these men are buried in or near St Andrew's Church in Hornchurch. All of them gave their lives frighting in wars far away from home.

Stalin: Royal Engineer and banjo player

The history books would have us believe that Stalin spent much of the period covering WWI n exile in Siberia. This photograph proves otherwise. Not only is it clear that he served in the British army during WWI but he was a musician too!

Actually I was copying some photos taken during WWI of the not-wife's great grandfather and this fellow just stood out.

More family history

James O’ Sullivan has an excellent website about my grandfather’s regiment, the Munster fusiliers. His father served in the first battalion, which saw action at Gallipoli before transferring to the Western Front in 1916.

I am very grateful to James for providing me a clipping from the Times dated 23 March 1915, which lists members of the 2nd battalion that had been taken prisoner. One of them is my grandfather. There is no record of any members of the battalion taken prisoner between the Etreux rearguard action of 27 August 1914 and the publication of the list in the Times.

The conclusion is that my grandfather was one of a just a few hundred soldiers that held up a whole German corps for a crucial twelve hours and thus helped ensure the survival of the British Expeditionary Force in its retreat from Mons to the Marne.

Lucky to be alive!

It is Memorial Day in the United States. Here it is the late spring bank holiday. It's cold and it has been pissing down. I have been planning to write a some historical posts on the Munster Fusiliers, my grandfather's regiment in WWI and the RAF Pathfinder Force (my father served in 109 squadron). I will get around to them over the spring and summer.

What does strike me is that I am bloody lucky to have been born! My grandfather was captured during the Etreux rearguard action on 27 August 1914. Had he not been taken prisoner he would have had plenty of chance to spill blood between then and 11 November 1918:

Cap badge, Munster Fusiliers

• In 1914 in the Ypres Salient offensive and the Festubert battle.

• In May 1915 at the Rue du Bois battle where the 2nd Munster's suffered many losses to friendly artillery fire. Before engaging in battle, absolution was administered to the battalion by their Chaplain Francis Gleeson and is subject of the famous (well famous to me) painting by Fortunate Matania. 22 officers and 520 men went in to battle, 3 officers and 200 men returned.
  
  
  The last Absolution by Matania
  

• In september during Loos sector battles.

• In June 1916 during raids on German lines at Lievin

• In July in the attack on the village of Contalmaison.

• In September to December in the defence of Martinpuich and the Somme offensive.

• July 1917 in the Nieuport defence.

• In November at Passchendale

• In March 1918 in action at Epehy, Tincourt, Doingt, Chuignolles and Mericourt sectors.

• In October at Le Catelet, Foret de Mormal and River Selle sectors.

The second Munsters was wiped out several times over during WWI. A POW camp in Limburg in Germany was probably the safest place for him!

I am grateful to Jams O'Sullivan and his superb Munster Fusiliers site for this infiormation