Bedford Soldier Dies of Flu in France

Old Town Hall, St. Paul’s Square, Bedford 1904 [Z1306/10/58/6]

Thursday 12th December 1918: Mr. and Mrs. Walter Grant of Rose Mount, Clapham Road, Bedford, have received the sad news their son Charles Alfred Richard Grant has died in France of pneumonia brought on by influenza. He joined a Mechanical Transport Company of the Army Service Corps in 1915, served for three years without being wounded, and was expected home for Christmas. An old boy of Bedford Modern School, he was an expert swimmer and played regularly for the Bedford Rugby Football “A” team. After joining the Army he became honorary secretary of the Mechanical Transport Rugby Club and arranged a match against an Australian XV which raised a large sum for the Lewisham Red Cross Society. Before the war he worked for nine years as assistant auditor in the Finance Department of the Bedford Corporation. In a letter of sympathy the Town Clerk writes:

“By his death the Corporation have lost a good and faithful servant, and I a valued friend. His work at the Town Hall left nothing to be desired. His painstaking, careful, and accurate work stands recorded in the books of accounts at the Town Hall for many years, while his courtesy, strict attention to his work, and  his willingness to assist anyone who needed help or advice endeared him to all in the office. His example was always for good, and he maintained strictly the good reputation of the Town Hall staff. Such a man will be hard to replace indeed. He will always be remembered by the whole staff with affection and esteem.”

A memorial service will be held for him at Holy Trinity Church this afternoon.

Source: Bedfordshire Standard, 13th December 1918

Sailor Adrift in Red Sea for 101 Days

Steamers at Perim Harbour c.1910 [Wiikimedia Commons]

Tuesday 29th October 1918: After fire broke out in the engine room of his ship Second Engineer Edward Banks, the nephew of Abel Bunn of North Street, Leighton Buzzard, spent 101 days adrift in the Red Sea. In a letter to his uncle he describes the experience: 

“The fire in the stoke hole burnt for six hours. After a struggle we managed to get it out, but that was not the end of our trouble; the fire burnt a pipe from one of the sea cocks and slowly filled the stoke hole and engine room with water. This put the damper on us for getting steam from the main boilers, so we had to set to and convert the donkey boiler (which is in ‘tween decks) from oil to coal. When we got this finished there was 25 feet of water in the engine room, but after a struggle and plenty of wading, about up to our necks in oil, fuel and water, we managed to get one of the pumps going, and pumped the engine room and stoke hole dry. What a mess things were in! We had to set to again and clean up a bit and to get the fires away again. This took us about six days and we drifted 90 miles out of the track of shipping and had some very narrow escapes of going on to the rocks. The dynamo was destroyed by the fire and water so that we could not send out a message by wireless for help. 

After a few days and nights of work we managed to get all ready to make for the nearest port, but just two hours before we were ready to start another fire broke out in the stoke hole, more fierce than the first, and burnt for 48 hours. And, by jove, it did blaze: some parts of the engine room were white hot. Even the ship’s sides in places were red hot, and the decks you could not walk on. It was a good job we were not loaded with benzene (as we have been) or we should have gone up.

This fire eventually died out: we could not do anything but just let it burn. When we were able to get down to the engine room the damage was so great that we could not do anything to get into port under our own steam … When we found we could do nothing the Captain asked for volunteers to sail in the small boat into the track of shipping and hail one of them to come to our assistance; we all volunteered to go, but only four were chosen. The first night they were out a strong gale sprang up and they had a pretty rough time of it. They managed to get to an island (with a lighthouse) in a very exhausted condition, and to the first steamer they passed they signalled, asked the Captain to wireless the position to the gunboats who were looking for us. It was not long after before one of the gunboats came alongside us and towed us to Perim. He was just in time as we had only two days water left, and we had been on our whack for some time. I am pleased to say I am none the worse for my experience.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 29th October 1918

Last Messages from Dying Soldiers

Corporal William Hart

Friday 11th October 1918: News of her husband’s death came as a great shock to Mrs. Elizabeth Hart of Caddington. Her husband, Corporal William Hart of Caddington, was badly wounded in the left arm on Sunday 22nd September. His arm was amputated to the elbow, but he was able to write a message to his wife with his right: “My love to all; keep smiling”. However, he succumbed to his injuries and died in hospital at Rouen on 1st October. A former stoker at the Luton Gas Works, Corporal Hart had joined the Army in October 1914. He was invalided home and spent a year in a London hospital. He had only been back in France for eleven weeks when he received the fatal wound.

Twenty one year old Private Bernard Bone of New Town Street, Luton, has also died of wounds. Before the war he worked for Messrs. Kent and was a member of the Territorials. He served with the East Anglian Royal Engineers until a recent transfer to the Cheshire Regiment. He had been wounded three times and had suffered from trench fever. The chaplain of the Canadian Casualty Clearing Station where he died wrote to his mother: “He was struck by a shell from the enemy causing bad fractures of both legs, and his hands and face were slightly wounded. The fearful shock to his whole nervous system was an alarming factor. He was quite cheerful at first. Everything that the best surgeons and nurses could do was done for your dear boy … When I asked him what message I should send to you he simply said, ‘Give her my love and tell her that I did my duty for God and country, and if God sees fit to take me I am not afraid of death.’ … He saved others; himself he could not save.”

Source: Luton News, 17th October 1918

Landlord Refuses to Rent House to War Widow

24 Cardiff Road, Luton, with two children at the gate, 1910 [Z1306/75/10/7]

Saturday 28th September 1918: A soldier’s widow has written to the Luton News describing the difficulty she has encountered in trying to find accommodation for herself and her two children. She signs herself “the insulted one”, and it is clear that her situation reflects disgracefully on landlords who refuse to rent property to the widows of those who have given their lives in the service of their country:

“I am the widow of a soldier who was killed in France little more than a year ago. Since his death I have put my furniture in store and have been living with my friends. But there is nothing like a home of your own, however kind one’s friends may be, and lately I have been trying to find a house so that I could have a place to myself once more. On Saturday last I heard of a house to let which would meet my need, so I called on one of the most reputed house agents in Luton and made application for it. Having stated my reason for calling, the agent asked, “Where does your husband work?” I relied that he did not work anywhere. He died in France. “Oh,” said the agent “That’s enough: I shouldn’t let my property to a soldiers’ widow!”  I produced my former rent book to prove my respectability, but he would not even look at it. He then asked, “Where do you work?”  I told him. He then said “If you can get your master to take the house, and he cares to sublet it to you, he can do so, but I shouldn’t care to let it to you!”  I leave it to your readers to judge the quality of the person who can talk like this while he pursues his business and enjoys the comforts of his home unmolested only because brave men have sacrificed their lives and the comfort of their dependents. But what I want to know is this: Am I and my two children, and every other woman and her children, to be debarred from having a home of their own simply because our husbands have fallen in the country’s cause? If so, our husband’s death is our disgrace, and instead of dying to make a bad world better they have made it worse for those they loved most. I do not deny the right of any landlord to let his property to whom he will, neither do I object to him trying to secure himself in his rent; but when the sole ground of his refusal is that one is a solder’s widow, it is surely time to protest, not only for oneself, but for the thousands of others who hear a like reproach.”

Source: Luton News, 26th September 1918

Four Luton Brothers Meet in France

First World War novelty postcard [Z1306/75/16/41]

Monday 17th June 1918: Bert Groom of Luton has written to his father at 52, Lea Road, describing how he met his three brothers in France, where they are all on active service: 

“Just these few lines to let you know I am quite all right … I found John again, and took him to see Albert, and Albert took us to see Stan, who is only about ten minutes’ walk away from himself, and all the four of us were together for the first time for so long. And I think we were very lucky, for the very next day we had to shift, so now me and John are over fifty miles away from Albert and Stan.”

The brothers’ father, Mr. Arthur Groom, is himself an old soldier; he served in India, and retired from the Army last year.

Source: Luton News, 20th June 1918

Leighton Buzzard Soldier has a Narrow Escape

Friday Street, Leighton Buzzard c.1925 [WL800/2]

Saturday 4th May 1918: Bombadier J. Pool of Friday Street, Leighton Buzzard has sent home a French Testament as a souvenir of the war. This volume, which is around an inch thick, contains a piece of shrapnel which passed through one cover but not the other. Bombadier Pool was carrying the Testament in his breast pocket at the time it was hit, and he is in no doubt that it saved his life. A handkerchief which was in the same pocket now has four holes where the shrapnel passed through the folded fabric.

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 7th May 1918

A Luton Soldier's Narrow Escape

Wardown House, Luton 1914 [Z1306/75/8/2]

Wednesday 17th April 1918: Drummer J. W. Hyde, of 32 Ridgway Road Luton and a former member of the Salvation Army Band, has written to the Luton News from Wardown Military Hospital where he is now a patient:

“Sir, - You will remember me asking, through your valuable paper, for a cornet (about a year last Christmas). Well, I got one all right. I am very pleased to be here, as it is just like heaven, although it was hell that I went through to get here. I was with my battalion just before Wancourt, a few miles to the right of Arras, but our flanks dropped back, compelling us to retire immediately behind Wancourt. Well, I shall never forget a fortnight yesterday. “Jerry” opened out his barrage at about 3.15 a.m. and kept it up until 3 in the afternoon – that is, when I left, as he was right on the top of me by then. So we got ready and destroyed all our letters etc., as best we could, although I think he got the mail and everything, including a nice large parcel I had received and not even opened. But, as Providence would have it, I saw one making a dive for it, so I ran with him. Ah! I shall never forget that run from Wancourt to Neuville Vitasee – all open ground, and I ran through a barrage of machine gun fire on my left and right front, and also behind (because, as I say, both our flanks by this time had dropped back and we did not know it), and also a heavy barrage of all kinds of shell. Although the bullets whistled through my legs and by my head and all around me, nothing touched me, only that I got gassed and had shell shock. But I managed to bring a wounded man down with me for about four or five miles, and we were shelled all the way, with about fourteen Boche planes over our heads firing at us also, so the shooting could not have been very good. I landed at the base after visiting about three hospitals, was taken to Cambridge, and now they have kindly sent me to Wardown, and I am being looked after lovely; in fact, as I have already said, it’s like heaven. I have heard from one of my unit, who didn’t happen to be in the trenches at the time, and he tells me that I and one more (who is wounded and in “Blighty”) are the only two left, so you will see how lucky I was.”

Source: Luton News, 18th April 1918

Sinking of the Aragon

RMS Aragon, 1908 [Wikimedia]

Saturday 2nd February 1918: Warrant Officer J. Watson of the Royal Engineers, an Old Boy of Bedford Modern School was on board the troop ship Aragon when it was torpedoed and sunk outside the harbour at Alexandria on 30th December. On 1st January he wrote a letter to his father at Bedford describing his experiences that day:

“Sent you a cable yesterday saying that I had arrived safely, but it is after swimming for my life, and I had lost everything I possessed except the clothes I stood in. I never thought I should tramp roads without boots on, but I did last Sunday. The scenes I have just gone through have been awful and most heart-rending. We were torpedoed in sight of our destination, and after those thousands of miles safely. I thank God I am safe with a whole skin. I was twice torpedoed, first on the transport close to which I stood, and again on the destroyer which I mounted to the deck.[1]  After the destroyer was torpedoed I waited a bit, and then dived over the heads of a large number of fellows already struggling in the sea. I thank God for my powers of swimming, which I think saved my life. I swam 100 to 150 yards with all my clothes on except boots, but it seemed like three or four miles. I selected a trawler, and managed to arrive in an exhausted condition, but recovered after a time, and gave a hand to help the trawler men, who were hauling the poor chaps in, but some of them did not survive.”

Source: Bedfordshire Standard, 8th February 1918

[1] Many of the Aragon’s passengers were rescued by the escort destroyer HMS Attack, which was itself torpedoed. Of 2700 men and women aboard Aragon, 610 were lost, including the ship’s captain and twenty five men on their way to reinforce the 5th Battalion of the Bedfordshire Regiment. 

Luton Man Captured in France

Prisoners of War in Germany [Beds Times]

Wednesday 16th January 1918: Mrs Davies of 9 Bailey Street, Luton, has received a letter from her brother, Private H. J. Broome of the Middlesex Regiment informing her that he was captured on November 30th and is now a prisoner of war in Germany. He writes:

“There is no need to worry about me, as I am quite safe and looked after well. I am not alone by many hundreds. Do not send any parcels as I have already received one, and we often get one from the Red Cross … I was not with the battalion when I was captured, but with the Royal Engineers on fatigue. We are all together in one camp for a month’s rest, and do not do any work, but just look after our own huts and cots. We do have a good night’s rest in comfort and peace – no “whiz-bangs” and “coal-boxes” flying about and knocking pieces out of us. Well, sister, it is worth pounds to be in a clean, warm bed and not in danger, but being away from home and everybody we know well, there it is. Let us hope the war will soon be over”.

Before the war Private Broome was employed on the Luton Corporation Tramways.

Source: Luton News, 24th January 1918

Luton Man with the United States Army

Fred W. Cannon [Luton News]

Wednesday 9th January 1918: Fred W. Cannon, whose father lives at 54 Cobden Street, Luton has written to the Luton News of his experiences with the United States Army in California:

“Since leaving Luton eight years ago my experiences have been many and varied. Starting in as a railroad man, I have been successively farmer, dining car cook (between Chicago and Buffalo, New York, and later through the Western States), hotel clerk, steel worker, miner, travelling salesman, and, last but the most important, a soldier in the grand an glorious Army of the United States. The last-named is the greatest experience of all. Whilst working in San Francisco last June President Wilson’s clal for volunteers was sent forth, and with hundreds of others I heard and went. Joining in this city on June 30th, I received my first insight into Army life, and was sent to a receiving barracks called Fort McDowell. This fort is situated on an island in the San Francisco Bay, and commands a wonderful view of the world-renowned Golden Gate, which is the entrance to the bay. A little to the east of the island in the Island of Alcatraz. This is nothing more than a rock pile, out in the bay, but upon it stands an imposing stone structure. This is the military prison, or, as it is termed here, Disciplinary Barracks.

After two weeks spent at Fort McDowell, I was sent to the Presidio of San Francisco, and there assigned to a field hospital. Then my real instruction began, and we were all kept pretty busy for eight hours a day. After being given foot drill for about two months we were started on litter, or in English, stretcher drill and first aid. About this time we received orders to move, and needless to say, we were all greatly enthused over the prospects, as we thought, of going to Europe. Imagine our chagrin, then, when it became known that our destination, instead of being to some Atlantic port, was another camp in California. However, this is an ideal spot and an ideal climate. We are living in tents that are lighted by electricity and heated by little stoves, which make them very comfortable. A few months ago, where this camp now stands were flourishing ranches, but now it is a regular city, with accommodation for about 40,000 men. This is but one instance of America’s gigantic preparations, and I am sure she will continue them until the victory is complete and German militarism is a thing of the past. Profiting by the mistakes of England in not using conscription until her fighting men were greatly reduced in numbers, she is building up an Army of millions, and when American troops get started I am inclined to believe that von Hindenburg will retract his statement that ‘America need not be reckoned with’.”

Source: Luton News, 10th January 1918

The Last Great Cavalry Charge

Bedfordshire Yeomanry, High Street, Leighton Buzzard 1914-1918 [Z1432/3/20/4]

Friday 4th January 1918: Further news has been received of the action in Palestine during which Lord Rosebery’s younger son, the Honorable Neil Primrose M.P., was killed and Major Evelyn de Rothschild of Ascott House fatally wounded. During this war the tradition of charging the enemy on horseback has largely disappeared, but the two cousins were killed in what must surely be one of the last cavalry charges in the old style.* Captain John Douglas Young M.C. of the Royal Bucks Hussars writes:

“We have made two charges, which are being talked about all along the line. We charged in line over two miles of perfectly flat plain, swept by shells and machine gun fire. Our men and horses were mad with excitement. The enemy, about 3,000 strong, were in an almost impregnable position, on top of a long and very steep ridge, 200 feet high. We went straight to the top and into them. We captured all their machine guns, enormous quantities of ammunition, two guns, and 1200 prisoners, and we never stopped to the count the dead.”

During the second charge  “We went part of the way dismounted, and then led our horses up, and charged again. Probably if we had not we should have been wiped out, as they outnumbered us six to one. But they hate the sight of our swords, and just as we reached the crest of the mountain (at least it looked like a mountain) they cleared. It was a wonderful sight. Neil Primrose was killed in the last charge, and Evelyn Rothschild (since dead) was dangerously wounded in the first. We buried poor Neil this morning. He was a very gallant fellow.”

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 8th January 1918

* The charge of the 6th Mounted Brigade at El Mughar in Palestine on 13th November 1917 was indeed the last great British cavalry charge, although later charges took place in Syria in 1918 with Indian and Australian troops. 

Bedfordshire Regiment Comforts Fund

Lt-Col. Reginald Le Huquet © IWM (HU 124051)

Thursday 29th November 1917: Colonel Tilly, the Honorable Secretary of Lady Ampthill’s Comforts Fund for the Bedfordshire Regiment received the following letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Reginald Le Huquet, written on 25th September:

“Dear Colonel Tilly, You were asking me whether I had any suggestions to make about Christmas presents for the men this year. Last year I was with our –th Battalion, and the arrangements you made then were excellent in every way. If you are able to do the same this year I think you will find it very difficult to improve on these arrangements. The gifts were distributed on Christmas Day, and the men were told that they were presents from the people of Bedfordshire, and I can assure you these gifts were very much appreciated. Very many thanks for your offer of footballs and cigarettes. We could do with six footballs if you can spare this number, with a few extra bladders, and cigarettes are of course welcome at all times.”

The Fund was able to fulfil his wishes and Lt-Colonel Le Huquet has sent a further letter in which he thanks Colonel Tilly and requests a large number of socks:

“The footballs arrived the day we came out of the line, and today I have given, as a first issue, 50 cigarettes to every man in the Battalion, saying that they are from the Comforts Fund, Bedford, and I can assure you they are very much appreciated, and on behalf of all ranks I thank you very much indeed for your very kind gift. Football at present is in full swing, and your gift of footballs was more than acceptable. We all appreciate more than I can say your kindness to us all, and if funds are available, and if I am not asking too much, do you think you could manage to let me have 600 pairs of socks? The winter is more or less on us now, and we have the mud and water to contend with. My aim in the trenches is always to be able to give every man of an evening a dry and clean pair of socks, and if I have an extra pair a man this would make things very much easier.”

Source: Bedfordshire Standard, 30th November 1917

A Call for Food Rationing

Potato queue at Kingsbury Farm, Church Street, Dunstable in April 1917 [Z50/36/142]

Tuesday 27th November 1917: Mr. T. A. Foster of 12 Cromwell Road, Luton has written to the Luton News arguing forcefully that the time has come to introduce food rationing in the face of the current “miserable scramble for food”. Continuing to appeal to the better nature of “food hogs” is pointless; meanwhile the responsible members of society are short of almost all necessary foods. He says:

“The greedy part of the community care nothing for talk or warnings. Nothing but drastic action will ever move them. Let us share and share alike, and thus avoid this most humiliating hunt for food. In the name of common sense, why – if the food question is a matter of life and death to the nation – is it still being tampered with? How ludicrous is the position. On the one hand we are being warned and threatened by the Food Controller that we shall have to have compulsory rationing all round, if we are not more moderate in the use of foods. On the other hand we have the great mass of the people everywhere looking forward to compulsory rationing as a relief. Indecision is, and has been throughout the war, our greatest enemy. We see it in every conceivable direction … When, oh when, will our “wobblers cease from wobbling”?

Source: Luton News, 28th November 1917

Luton Brothers Wounded

Saturday 10th November 1917: Two Luton brothers who were wounded in a recent battle in the Ypres area have both written to their parents at 132 North Street describing their experiences. Private Albert Anderson told them:

“We went up on the 20th, and went ‘over the top’ on the 21st, and I think we can say we have been in one of the biggest battles of this war. We had to go through a wood to get to our objective, and the wood was simply swarming with Germans. They were all round us, sniping us, and what with bullets and shells and things, it was a perfect hell. We took our objective, though, and took a lot of prisoners, too. I think the Germans had a lot more casualties than we, although we had a great lot. I got slightly wounded in the shoulder with a bullet, but it is nothing serious. I didn’t trouble to go to the dressing station with it, and it’s getting on very well.”

The British soldiers dug themselves in and cleaned their muddy rifles, but when attacked by the Germans they were forced to retire under a barrage of fire. Private Anderson “gave up hope of ever getting out of that lot alive”, but now feels it is “certain this old war cannot last much longer by the way things are going on – the Germans can’t stand it, I’m sure”.

Signaller Horace Anderson, who was more seriously wounded than his brother, has sent a letter from the Royal Victoria Infirmary at Newcastle:

“I am in good old ‘Blighty’ once more, and, by jove! It is a perfect treat to be out of that lot for a while, and I thank God that I came out with my life. The day before I got hit was the hottest time I have had in my life, but I came through all right, and then the next day was not so bad. I was just returning to the battery after being forward, and I had got within about two yards of shelter when over came this big one, and, of course, I was ‘napoo’ for a while. But it gave me a nice little ‘Blighty’ one. I have a gunshot wound in the right leg just below the knee.”

Before the war Signaller Anderson worked for Messrs Kilby and Sons, but moved to Davis Gas Stove Company to work on munitions before joining up in April 1916.

Source: Luton News, 8th November 1917

Edgar Mobbs

Edgar Mobbs [Image source: Wikimedia]

Monday 15th October 1917: Donations of £1,800 have so far been received from subscribers to the memorial fund set up following the death of former England Rugby international player Lieutenant-Colonel Edgar Mobbs on 31st July. An in memoriam souvenir booklet published for the benefit of the fund includes the following interesting letter written by a fellow old boy of Bedford Modern School, 2nd Lieutenant N. Spencer, with the heading “How he charged to certain death”:

“I was F.O.O. in the stunt, and went over the top and saw Mobbs. Perhaps I was one of the last officers he spoke to. Anyway, my last sight of him is something that will be worth remembering of him in the old Bedford Modern School. We had waited three hours for the time to come, and the rain, mud, etc., well, the papers tell you all this. Then the minute came – forward through seas of mud and terrific shelling … I was right behind Mobbs, introduced myself to him just before the hour as an old B.M.S. boy, and talked about Rugger and R. C. Stafford. In the tornado of hostile shelling he got ahead, and, seeing a number of his men cut down by an undiscovered machine gun strong point, he charged it to bomb it – certain death under such a terrific hail of shell – and he went down. I have seen men, and good men, but for a man of his standing and his rank it was magnificent. I sat down afterwards in a captured dugout, and instead of that picture, I saw the old three-quarter in his own “25” get the ball from a crumpled up scrum and go clean through scrum and on. The same man, the same determination, a born leader.”

Source: Bedfordshire Standard 12th October 1917

Mouth-Organ Wanted

Manchester Street, Luton, with Luton News offices on the left, c.1930 [Z1306/75/10/40/9]

Tuesday 18th September 1917: The Luton News has received the following letter from Private B. Walters, currently serving in France:

“Sir. – I should be greatly obliged if you could find space in your local paper (being one of the old Luton boys) so that we could obtain a musical instrument of some kind, such as a mouth-organ, so as to pass the nights away. It is very dreary now the long nights are coming on, and it would cheer the boys up. We have tried all the canteens, etc., and cannot obtain one of any description. I have been out here sixteen months and am pleased to state I have received your paper every week ever since I arrived in France. Best of luck and wishes from the old Luton boys, and wishing your paper every success.”

Source: Luton News 20th September 1917

Bedford Nurse Treats Dying Bedford Soldier

Gunner Herbert Brooks

Saturday 15th September 1917: Gunner Herbert James Bartlett Brooks, the only son of Mrs. Brooks of St. Martin’s Dairy in Foster Hill Road, Bedford, has died of wounds received while fighting with the Heavy Battery of the Royal Garrison Artillery. Before the war Gunner Brooks was an enthusiastic Conservative and the honorary secretary of the St. Paul’s North Branch of the Bedford Unionist Association. Coincidentally, while in hospital in France he was treated by Sister M. J. Branson, the daughter of Mr. Branson, who some years ago was also a prominent member of the Conservative Party in Bedford. Sister Branson wrote to Gunner Brooks’ mother that:

“Your son … died in this hospital at 1.30 a.m. on September 4. He passed quietly and peacefully away, and was unconscious at the end. He had a very bad gunshot wound in the thigh, with fracture of the bone, and a gunshot wound in the arm. It will be some slight comfort to you to know that he suffered little pain, and also it must be a comfort to know that one you loved best bravely did his duty.”

However, a letter from Gunner Brooks’ commanding officer gives a different account of his injuries, stating that he “died from a penetrating gunshot wound of the abdomen”. He has been buried at Wimereux Cemetery near Boulogne.

Source: Bedfordshire Standard, 14th September 1917

News from Salonika

Music hall artiste Vesta Tilley [Wikimedia]

Monday 13th August 1917: A Bedford soldier, Corporal A. S. Kilbourn, has written home from Salonika describing the conditions faced by British troops there:

“No doubt people in Blighty consider this front very cushy, and I believe Vesta Tilley or some actress sang a song about ‘If you don’t want to fight go to Salonique.’ I need not tell you what the boys here thought of it. There certainly isn’t a lot of fighting on now. It’s the killing climate that is one’s greatest enemy. If the people of England only saw what the boys went through last year soon after arriving in the country, and what they are going through now, they wouldn’t sneer twice. They talk of Salonika as if that place is where we are at the town itself. Appranetly they don’t know that there are scores and scores of miles of mountain ranges, swamps breathing foul fevers, mosquitoes injecting fevers and sores into one, and millions of filthy flies which worry one’s body and soul in summer, to overcome, before one reaches the firing line, and that the roads aren’t tar macadamised and steam rolled, but consist of native mule tracks hardly visible, or else roads made by the troops themselves as they advanced, hewn and dynamited out of the mountains, and all under a boiling sun. They know little of the early difficulties of supply transports, especially when winter descended and turned everything into seething mud, rank swampy fever-stricken mud, which it took all one’s strength almost to get out of. Or of the boys rolling up with the fever, helpless, their blood teeming with it, and my God, it makes one’s blood boil to think of some people’s ‘gratitude’. I’d like an hour or two on a platform in England with some such people as audience.”

Source: Bedfordshire Times, 17th August 1917

Eggington Vicar's Son Killed in Action

Eggington, c.1910 [Z50/42/3]

Saturday 4th August 1917: Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred Joseph Elton Sunderland of the Devon Regiment, the eldest son of the Reverent James Sunderland, Vicar of Eggington, had been killed in action. Colonel Sunderland was born in 1875 and joined the Devon Regiment in 1895. He served in the Boer War, where he took part in the relief of Ladysmith. As a result of his actions in South Africa he received the Queen’s medal with six clasps and the King’s medal with two. He was gazetted Major in September 1915, and temporary Lieutenant-Colonel in March last year.

A Toddington man has been more fortunate. Herbert Alfred Nicholls has written to his father to tell him that he has survived a gas attack but is now in hospital in France. He wrote: “I was coming out of the trenches when Fritz put over a barrage of shell gas. I put my gas helmet on when they sent over shrapnel and high explosives, and it came down and destroyed my gas mask and never touched me. I thought my time was up. I got my handkerchief and water bottle and soaked it, and put it over my mouth when they started dropping gas shells all around me. I made a dash for it as best I could. All I remember is being in the dressing station, and then in the Red Cross train, having had 10oz of blood taken out of my arm to kill the gas in me … I am feeling too weak to write any more.”

Source: Leighton Buzzard Observer, 7th and 14th August 1917

Remembering a Luton Sailor

HMS Vanguard 1915 [Imperial War Museum under IWM Non Commercial Licence]

Sunday 29th July 1917: One of the men lost in the sinking of the HMS Vanguard at Scapa Flow earlier this month was Luton sailor Charles Johnson, the son of Mrs. Johnson of 24 Ash Road. Able Seaman Johnson had been with the Navy for seven years and saw much active service abroad. More recently he had been drafted to the Home Fleet, serving first on a torpedo boat destroyer, and then on the Vanguard for the past seven months. At the time he was killed he was expecting to be sent on leave. His friend, Leading Seaman George Tarton, writes:

“I have been fortunate in serving with him aboard H.M.S. --- in two campaigns, both in the Dardanelles and in German East Africa. Under the most adverse circumstances, he has been the life and backbone of the party, fearless in action, and straight as a die. I myself owe my life to his resourcefulness and courage, but he made me promise to say nothing of it. On one occasion, I remember, we had been through some exceedingly rough weather, and the wind was still high and the sea rough. The ship’s company’s pet, a minor bird, was blown in to the water, and without hesitation, the late Seaman Johnson dived in and saved it, though he had to make three attempts, for he was not a strong swimmer then. I am sure the deepest regret will be felt by the members of the old ship’s company at the news of his death, and they will join me in extending the deepest sympathy to the bereaved family.”

Source: Luton News 2nd August 1917