Trench Lincs 19th July 2026
- 7 days ago
- 26 min read
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Good Morning,
I am very pleased to report that the WWI ANZAC biscuit bake off went down very well at the Lincoln WFA meeting last Monday.
There were six entries and the winner by a public vote was Keith Burrell who was awarded the Star Baker accolade. However, the best result of all was that by the end of the meeting, all six contestants had little or nothing to take home – thus proving that all the biscuits on show were very tasty and a delight to eat.
Thank you to everyone who took part.
As ever, we have a wide range of topics for you to delve into, and one thing that I enjoy is when I can provoke some debate and make some of you get your thinking caps on. Alan Hicks has written a superb piece which I am pleased to share below.
We also have news from Texas thanks to my daughter, Amy.
Can I also remind you that I will be in France from 1st to 4th September touring the 1915 battlefields. If you and friends want to put a car share together and book a channel crossing and accommodation near to Loos en Gohelle, I would be delighted to let you have the itinerary so that you can join the tour each day. Please do let me know.
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FORTHCOMING EVENTS.
Next Meeting - Lincoln & North Lincolnshire Branch, WFA - 2026 - Doors open 7.00pm for 7.30pm start - Royal Naval Association Club, Coulson Road, Lincoln, LN6 7BG. (No speaker event in August)
Next Event - Lincoln & North Lincolnshire Branch - Western Front Association - SUNDAY, August 16th, 2026 - Annual Memorials Tour led by Branch Chairman, Mike Credland
Lincoln Branch Chairman Mike Credland will once again be leading our Annual Memorials Tour on Sunday, August 16th, which this year will start from THE LINCOLNSHIRE POACHER, BUNKERS HILL, LINCOLN, LN2 4QT. Please arrive at 10.45 am for an 11.00 am start.
These tours are always very interesting, calling as they do at a selection of local memorials, chapels and churches where Mike, who as we all know is extremely knowledgeable on the subject, will regale us with stories of their creation, and the life and times of selected people commemorated on them. Wary as we are of the increased cost of fuel, this year's tour will be more compact than those of previous years, covering fewer miles while still cramming in some interesting locations along the way. Route maps and directions will be issued to participants on the day, and the tour will finish at approximately 2.30 pm. We very much look forward to seeing you on the day.
Please note that, as is our long standing tradition, there will be no lecture at the RNAC in August; our next lecture will be on Monday, September 28th, when Nick Shelley will present a brand new talk on "Motorcycle Despatch Riders in 1914".
Everyone welcome.
Digby Village memorial.
I have also recently received from Peter Garland, confirmation of the Lincoln WFA meetings until the end of the year.
September 28th - Nick Shelley presents: "Motorcycle dispatch riders in 1914".
October 26th - James Handley presents: "SMS Seydlitz; the ship that refused to die".
November 30th - Dr Scott Lindgren presents: "The Coastal Raids of 1915".
December 3rd (Thursday) - Annual Show n' Tell Evening (in partnership with Friends of Lincoln Tank). Attendees are invited to give 10 minute presentations on items of interest relating to The Great War. Free event, followed by a XChristmas Buffet Supper.
December 21st - Jonathan D'Hooghe, MA, presents - "The Ottoman Empire in World War 1".
Please note that speaker events are all Monday nights as usual. It is just the shared Show n’ Tell evening with FoLT that will be on a Thursday.
Finally, the Lincoln WFA Annual Christmas Lunch will be held on Saturday 12th December at the White Hart Hotel - £25pp. A three-course meal excluding drinks.
17 out of 25 seats are already booked. Drop me a note without obligation at this stage, if you would like to attend this always excellent event.
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The next meeting of the Friends of the Lincoln Tank Group will be held on Thursday July 30th at the Royal Naval Association Club, Coulson Road, Lincoln, LN6 7BG at 7.30pm.
The speaker on this occasion is Steve Baldwin, whose innovative talk will be ‘A Virtual Tour Around the CWGC Plot at Newport Cemetery, Lincoln.’
"The talk will start with a quick overview of the creation and development of the cemetery itself and its CWGC section, moving on to talk about some of the graves it contains. Some of the “residents” will be mentioned in passing and some others will be covered in more detail. Both World Wars will be covered to some extent but it is impossible to cover everything in the time available. This journey will be one of History, ancient and modern, with a little bit of Geography thrown in."
Everyone welcome, especially new faces. You do not need to be a member of FoLT to attend meetings, but members of FoLT pay just £10 a year and receive £250 of membership benefits from Ancestry and the British Newspaper Archives. It is well worth joining.
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Next Event - Spalding & South Lincs Branch, WFA Thursday 23rd July at 7.30pm.
Spalding & South Lincolnshire Branch WFA continues to meet at the Spalding Baptist Church, Swan Street, Spalding, PE11 1BT. Meetings continue to be held in the evenings of the fourth Thursday in the month, and doors open at 19.00 hours for a 19.30 hours start. Meetings are held in a pleasant main room of the Church and there is ample - unrestricted - on street parking in front of the building. Free refreshments are served at the end of the meeting. Finally, please note that, for security purposes the main double front doors are kept locked as we cannot monitor them from our meeting room, therefore, you may need to ring the doorbell located on the single door to the right of the main double doors in order to gain entry.
Next Meeting - Spalding & South Lincolnshire Branch - Western Front Association - Thursday, July 23rd - Spalding Baptist Church, Swan Street, Spalding, PE11 1BT - Grant Cullen presents "Quintinshill, 22nd May 1915 - Britain's Worst Railway Disaster" - Doors open 7.00 pm for 7.30 pm start.
Don't be put off - as we suspect some were when Grant gave this talk at Lincoln in June - by the fact this talk is about railways and not a great battle or similar story. This talk is about Britain's most shocking railway disaster of all time which had a profound effect on those travelling in the troop and freight trains involved, witnesses and signalmen. Grant sets the scene as follows:
"This disaster, the worst accident in the history of Britain’s railways, resulted from the behaviour of railway signalling staff not following regulations. Responsibility for Quintinshill signal box rested with the stationmaster at Gretna railway station who, on the day of the accident, was Alexander Thorburn. The box was staffed by one signalman, on a shift system. In the mornings, a night-shift signaller would be relieved by the early-shift signaller at 6.00 am. On the day of the disaster, George Meakin was the night signalman, while James Tinsley was to work the early day shift. In the early part of the 20th century, managing the movement of trains was simple in theory: one signal box would contact the next signal box to ask permission to send (or ‘offer’) a train; the principle being that only one train was allowed on the stretch of track between signal boxes at a time. If clear, then the train could proceed uninterrupted. If the track was not clear, or if there was a faster or higher priority train coming behind the current one, then the train could wait in a loop until the line ahead was clear. There were occasions when it was necessary, such as when the loops were occupied, to perform ‘wrong line’ shunting (transferring a train onto the opposite running line to permit another to pass). At the time of the accident, normal northbound traffic through the section included two overnight sleeping car expresses from London to Glasgow and Edinburgh respectively, which were due to depart Carlisle at 5.50 am and 6.05 am. They were to be followed by an all-stations local passenger service from Carlisle to Beattock, which was advertised in the public timetable as departing Carlisle at 6.10 am but which normally departed at 6.17 am. If the sleepers ran late, the local service could not be held back to depart from Carlisle after them because precedence would then need to be given to the scheduled departure of rival companies’ express trains at 6.30 am and 6.35 am. Also, any late running of the local train would cause knock-on delays to a Moffat to Glasgow and Edinburgh commuter service, with which the stopper connected at Beattock. Therefore, in the event of one or both of the sleepers running late, the stopping train would depart at its advertised time of 6.10 am, and then be shunted at one of the intermediate stations or signal boxes to allow the sleeper(s) to overtake it. On that morning the local train comprised just three carriages and a milk van. The train’s locomotive was No. 907 of the CR 903 class, which was damaged beyond repair in the accident. At Gretna junction, just south of Quintinshill, the local train stopped and picked up (against regulations) the signalman, James Tinsley, who was about to start his shift at the Quintinshill signal box. He and his fellow signalman, George Meakin, had come to an arrangement that enabled the man starting work at 6am to arrive half an hour late. This was to be hidden by the ‘Train Register’ (the book detailing all trains and events) being left blank between 6 and 6.30, and for it to be written up by whoever arrived at 6.30. Arriving at the Quintinshill signal box on the (northbound) local train at 6.30am, Tinsley would have noticed nothing unusual: a goods train was in the northbound loop. This was the loop into which the local train would have ordinarily been shunted. To enable the express trains to pass, the local train was shunted across and backed onto the southbound main line, where it would be held until the two express trains had cleared the loop. Tinsley entered the signal box at 6.32am – over half an hour late. In order to cover this he had to write up the Train Register in his own handwriting. Shortly after Tinsley’s arrival, a message came from the north that a troop train had passed Lockerbie. The significance of this was lost on those present, no doubt due to the confusion over who was on duty, and an ongoing conversation about the latest war-news between Tinsley, Meakin and a brakeman from the local train called Ingram who was also now in the signal box. The Gallipoli Campaign, the land offensive of which had been launched on 25th April, had not started well and reinforcements were needed. As a result, the Territorials of the 52nd (Lowland) Division were ordered to proceed to the Dardanelles. One of the battalions of this division was the 1/7th Royal Scots -largely recruited in and around Leith - who were travelling on the troop train, destination Liverpool, where they were to board the HMT Aquitania; destination Gallipoli. They never arrived".
Having set the scene, we now encourage you to attend the lecture where you will hear how the event unfolded, with terrible consequences for the men of the 1/7th Royal Scots, passengers on board the express and the local, plus train crews and the signalmen. Grant has undertaken extensive research into the incident, during which he has uncovered some surprising facts and information which he will share with you this evening - some of them quite heartbreaking, others nothing short of miraculous - about the event that to this day, ranks as Britain's Worst Railway Disaster.
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The East Midlands (Nottingham) WFA branch will hold their next speaker event on Friday 14th August 2026 at 7.30pm. The branch meets at St. Peter’s Church Hall, Church Street, Ruddington, NG11 6HA and all visitors will be made very welcome.
The speaker on this occasion is Paul Cobb who will talk about the “Attack at Fromelles 19th/20th July 1916.”
This was a disastrous diversionary attack designed to draw German reserves away from the Somme battlefields. The newly arrived Australian 5th Division and the British 61st (2nd South Midland) Division were tasked with an unsupported assault over ground that had been fought over in May 1915. The result, as in 1915 and the other horrendous diversionary attack at Gommecourt on 1st July 1916, was a very bloody fiasco.
I have Paul’s book on my shelves and have visited Fromelles on many occasions. Now famous for the recent discovery of a mass grave of primarily Australian soldiers buried by the Germans after this attack. The CWGC constructed a brand new cemetery, Pheasant Wood, at Fromelles to accommodate the remains of the men discovered here.
Tony Nutkins also recommends this book - 'another book on Fromelles that is worth a read IMHO is "The Lost Legions of Fromelles" by Peter Barton. Gives a lot of the background on the readiness and training of the Divisions concerned and the way that they planned and executed their attacks.'
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The Leadenham Military History Group’s next meeting will be on Tuesday 28th July at 7.30pm at Leadenham village hall.
There will be a two part event on this night, starting with:
Paul Robinson - 'Operation Manna'. The airborne food drop into the Netherlands by the RAF in April and May 1945.
This will be followed by:
Brian Riley - Operations Doomsday and Eclipse'. As Britian celebrated VE Day, British 1st Airborne forces were deployed to Norway and Denmark to oversee the surrender of all German forces and to guard against Soviet intentions in Denmark.
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Another group who meet at the Royal Naval Club, Coulson Road, Lincoln, LN6 7BG, is the Lincolnshire Aviation Society.
The next meeting of LAS will be held on Thursday 20th August 2026.
Dave Bentley will talk about – “Tornado Operations in Germany 1980’s/1990’s”
Everyone welcome especially new faces.
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The Peterborough Military History Group meets at the Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery in Priestgate, Peterborough, PE1 1LF, on the second Wednesday of every month, 7.30pm to 9.30pm.
Everyone welcome, especially new faces.
August 12th David Lister
'Jerry doesn't like UP!'
Germany is often seen as the leader in Rocket technology during the Second World War. In reality, Britain used rockets far more widely and consistently than the Germans. This has largely been ignored and confused by post-war commentators simply due to naming conventions. Find out more, and Peterborough's links (small that they are) to that story.
Rocket firing Typhoon - see Matt Colley's piece below.
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Please click this link to read the latest newsletter from Sleaford and District Legionnaires Aviation Society.
Make sure you read the Charlie Brown and Fritz Sigler incident!
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Over the last couple of weeks, we have mentioned in several respects the Beechey family of Lincolnshire who lost five sons in the Great War, and you can hear more about the Beechey’s in Steve Baldwin’s FoLT talk on 30th July – see above.
Last week, Arthur Wood kindly sent in photos of the Beechey boys headstones or names on memorial walls. Following my email reply to Arthur, Arthur asked if I knew of the Souls family from Gloucestershire. I replied in the negative, and that prompted Arthur to send the following photos for us.
I then embarked on finding out some more about the Souls family, and it also made me wonder just how many other families lost 5 sons during the Great War.
The Souls family of Great Rissington, Gloucestershire, became one of the most tragic symbols of the human cost of the First World War. William and Annie Souls were ordinary farm workers raising a large family of six sons and three daughters in a small Cotswold village. Like thousands of British families in 1914, they could never have imagined that the war would devastate their lives. By the time the conflict ended in 1918, five of their six sons had been killed while serving their country, leaving behind a story of extraordinary sacrifice and heart-breaking loss.
The Souls brothers were Albert, Walter, Frederick (Fred), Arthur, Alfred and Percy. When Britain entered the war, the five eldest brothers answered the call to serve. Albert and Walter joined the Worcestershire Regiment, while Fred and the identical twins Arthur and Alfred enlisted in the Cheshire Regiment’s “Bantam” battalion, a unit created for men who were shorter than the normal height requirement but otherwise fit for military service. Percy, the youngest brother, was too young to enlist.
The brothers experienced some of the fiercest fighting on the Western Front. Albert and Walter survived the Battle of Loos in 1915 before transferring to the Machine Gun Corps, one of the most dangerous branches of the British Army. Sadly, Albert became the first brother to die when he was killed in action in March 1916. His death marked the beginning of an unimaginable period of grief for the Souls family.
Only months later, tragedy struck again. Arthur was killed during the Battle of the Somme in July 1916 after displaying great bravery, for which he was posthumously recognised. Before the family had fully recovered from this devastating news, Alfred was killed in October 1916. In the space of a single year, Annie and William Souls had lost three sons.
The suffering did not end there. Walter was killed in 1917 while serving with the Machine Gun Corps. Finally, in 1918, Fred disappeared during fighting on the Western Front and was officially listed as missing, later presumed dead. His body was never recovered. Annie Souls reportedly kept a candle burning in the window of her home, hoping that one day Fred might return. Sadly, he never did. This simple act became a lasting symbol of a mother’s hope refusing to die, even when faced with overwhelming loss.
Although Percy survived the war because he was too young to fight, he later died from meningitis, meaning none of the six Souls brothers lived long lives. The family’s sacrifice became known throughout Britain and remains one of the most devastating examples of the impact of the First World War on ordinary families. In Great Rissington, memorials continue to honour the brothers, ensuring that their names and their sacrifice are not forgotten.
The story of the Souls family reminds us that behind every military statistic were real people with hopes, dreams and families. William and Annie Souls lost nearly everything the war could take from them. Their experience reflects the immense human cost of the First World War and serves as a powerful reminder of the price paid by countless families across Britain. More than a century later, the memory of the Souls brothers continues to stand as a symbol of courage, duty and unimaginable sacrifice.
In Arthur’s correspondence with me he suggested that Annie suffered a number of post war jibes about how much money they received for the loss of their sons, a remarkably cruel state of affairs if true. So I set out to try and find out if this was the case.
With the recent digitisation of the WWI Pension Records and other contemporary accounts, I found that Annie and William received only a shilling (1s) a week for each son who died, a payment that was considered pitiful compared with the loss they had suffered. As one account puts it:
“The shilling a week pension for each dead son was no compensation for poor Mrs Souls.”
More broadly, the British war pension system for bereaved parents was controversial after the First World War. Many parents had to prove financial need, and the system was often criticised for being bureaucratic and insensitive. Parliamentary debates in the 1940s describe how many parents felt humiliated by having to undergo a form of means test and how compensation bore little relation to the sacrifice they had made.
So, while the Souls family undoubtedly suffered financially as well as emotionally:
There is no evidence they were personally abused by pension officials or the wider public.
They did receive a pension, but it was extremely modest.
Their treatment reflected a wider system that many bereaved parents considered unfair and degrading, especially when families had lost multiple children.
There is one often-repeated local story that Annie Souls was told something to the effect of “you can always have more sons.” Despite its emotional impact, I have not found any contemporary document or reliable historical source that verifies this happened. It appears to be a later anecdote rather than an established historical fact.
So, just how many families did lose 5 sons or more during the Great War?
For many years, historians believed the Beechey and Souls families were the only British families to lose five sons in the First World War. However, more recent research, has uncovered several other families whose losses were equally devastating.
Known British families who lost five sons include:
The Souls family (Great Rissington, Gloucestershire) – William and Annie Souls lost Albert, Walter, Frederick, Arthur and Alfred.
The Beechey family (Lincoln) – Amy Beechey lost five of her eight sons. When Queen Mary thanked her for her sacrifice, Amy famously replied: “It was no sacrifice, Ma’am. I did not give them willingly.”
The Smith family (Barnard Castle, County Durham) – John and Margaret Smith lost five of their six sons.
The Baldock-Apps family (Hurst Green, East Sussex) – identified through recent pension-card research as another family who lost five sons.
The Richardson family (Nottingham) – recognised in 2025 after pension records revealed Ellen Richardson lost five sons in the war.
The Hoult family (Derbyshire) – later research concluded five sons died as a consequence of their war service, although two of the deaths occurred after the Armistice from war-related illness.
As for families who lost more than five sons, there are no widely accepted British examples of six sons all killed during the First World War. The Smith family of Yongala in South Australia is often cited as losing six sons, but that was an Australian family.
Therefore, based on current historical research, at least six British families are now known to have lost five sons as a result of the First World War. Ongoing archival work—especially on pension records—means that number could increase if further cases are discovered.
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Two weeks ago, I asked if the Battle of the Somme was worth it? Last week both Tony Nutkins and Matt colley gave us their opinions, and Tony followed up again this week.
He writes; ‘I think that the battles of The Somme and Third Ypres (Passchendaele) will be discussed and debated for years to come. Personally, while the casualties in these and the many other battles fought by the British and Empire armies in WWI were tragic, they were part of the learning process of how to fight a war. What must be taken into consideration is the un-readiness in 1914 to fight probably the finest trained and equipped German Armies on the Western Front and that this first mass industrialised war would result in heavy casualties for all of the nations concerned.
Two ways to look at this, look at the casualty figures and blame whoever you ever like for these (remembering that the Germans/Turks, Bulgarians etc. had something to do with it) or look at it from an academic stance and study the reasons why things were done as they were and why and what was learned even if does appear to be an achingly slow process.
As far as the latter is concerned, it took time to recruit and train armies, design, tool, and mass produce effective weapons and train people in their use to achieve success.
It is too easy to underestimate how important the latter was and that these were nearly all raised and made from scratch and it also required experience and training to use what weapons we already had that would become effective only when tried in battle.
One soldier from 2/18th London’s commented after his first tour in the trenches in 1915, that "The only training for battle is battle itself."
I concur with Tony and his comments on the time it takes to raise and then train a new mass civilian army, as well as to gear up a nation’s economy onto a total war footing, but Alan Hicks has taken a look at the issues raised from a more emotional and personal slant.
Alan notes; ‘Another great edition of Trench Lincs today; thank you. I look forward to receiving your email every Sunday and I read it avidly with my first cuppa of the day! [You are very kind Alan – Ed]
It's not just the Great War content that intrigues me but your personal attendances at prestigious sporting events around the globe. I look forward very much to your first hand report on the World Cup final from the New York New Jersey stadium on 19th of the month! I'm sure Gianni Infantino has already invited you? [Ha ha, unfortunately not Alan, but I will be at the Notts CCC games next week on the 21st and 23rd – Ed]
Now, speaking of the World Cup, I noted that the attendance at England v Norway at the Miami stadium for the quarter final tie was a whisker over 60,000. If we go back 110 years and think of the first day of the Battle of the Somme and make comparisons, then everyone in that stadium would have been wounded with about one third of the spectators being dead by the end of extra time!! It's a sobering thought that puts the scale of the first day's losses into some kind of perspective.
Was it worth it? Did families in the UK appreciate the need to assist the French by releasing pressure on Verdun. Did families even know where Verdun was? A city on the moon? What would the families and particularly the Mothers of the young boys killed that day have thought? What would the communities who raised the Pals Battalions have thought? Would they think it was worth it? A resounding and definite NO I think!
I know this is not perhaps the line of thinking you were expecting but I refer to Amy Beechey who you featured in TL recently and who Steve Baldwin commemorates at Newport Cemetery. She lost five sons in the Great War and told Queen Mary that the giving of her sons' lives for their Country "was not a sacrifice - because she did not give them willingly." What would she have known about the Somme offensive? What would families in the UK have been told? Press coverage was severely censored and letters home from the front were similarly and systematically scrutinised to prevent any details of location, upcoming actions, casualties, ammunition issues etc. being divulged. I accept that only one of her sons may have been involved in the Battle of the Somme as Frank Beechey died of wounds sustained in no man's land on 14th November 1916 just a few days before the battle officially ended. He is resting in Warlincourt Halte Cemetery near Baupame.
Did Amy Beechey think Douglas Haig was a butcher? Did other families think the same way? It is likely in 1916 that they did not. Their suffering was borne selflessly and was too painful to be aired in public. Blame was not directed at Haig and he was viewed as some sort of distant mythical figure. They thought that the war was a just cause against tyranny. The official letters they received informing them of their sons' deaths might have only arrived weeks after 1st July. The press would have reported that good progress was being made, that the troops were fighting well and the enemy was being driven back. The terrible scale of casualties would not have been reported. Anger was often directed at the administrative bureaucracy of the army and the government.
Letters received by families from the battalion chaplain sought to soften the horrors suffered by their offspring. "They gave their life so that others might live" and "their death was instantaneous and they did not suffer" and "they went straight to heaven" were common narratives to ease the pain and suffering and deflect from the absolute carnage of trench warfare. Haig himself was deeply religious and to him the dead were martyrs in a just cause and that victory would require divine intervention. Was he troubled by the numbers?
So, how did Haig and his generals view the new Kitchener armies? They certainly welcomed the influx of volunteers to replace the virtually defunct old original BEF, but did they appreciate them? There was a distinct class stratification from the Edwardian era in the British Army at that time. Were these new armies trained properly? How would they perform when thrown into battle? The officers were not "proper" upper class and divisively labelled as "temporary gentlemen!". This did not bode well. Did the plan to walk the heavily laden troops across no-man's land at 07.30 on 1st July come from this notion that they were not a capable and reliable force? Matt Colley correctly commented in the latest TL that the generals would have known that the Germans had built seriously deep bunkers and that our shells were notoriously unreliable at that time and wholly inadequate at destroying the barbed wire entanglements. In the narrow view of these true gentlemen of the upper class British Army, were these new armies expendable? Who can say for sure?
Haig always expected more. He expected troops to take more and more ground. He expected breakthroughs that his precious cavalry could exploit. I have just been reading the diary of John Bagot Glubb (as recommended by you Jonathan) and he comments towards the end of his book that in the run up to the Armistice the British lost contact with the Germans who were retreating so quickly. He asked "where are cavalry when they were needed?" Prior to this in 4 years of war he had never seen the cavalry used even though they waited in vain at many battles for that elusive breakthrough!
So, was Haig incompetent? Did he care about his men? Post war, he worked tirelessly for the cause of veterans and established the British Legion. He refused personal decoration and honours and when he died over 100,000 people attended the procession for his funeral. Debate will go on. There can be no definitive answer to the question as to whether the Battle of the Somme was worth it. Some lessons were learned but many failures were repeated and repeated time and time again!’
Well said Alan. We are all taken in by books and narratives and often the family suffering and personal emotion is forgotten. You are bang on in bringing this to our attention.
Before I respond to Alan’s writing, I will leave it for a week to allow other TL readers to have their say. “The Battle of the Somme – Was It Worth It?”
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We return now to Matt Colley’s recent holiday on Guernsey. Last week I featured the role of the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry, the Jersey Militia and the Alderney artillery in WWI, and noted that the Channel Islands were not attacked or occupied during the Great War.
This was not the case in the Second World War, when following the fall of France, the Channel isles were occupied, quite brutally, by the National Socialists under Hitler’s leadership.
Matt spotted this fine memorial on the sea wall and writes; ‘As part of the preparations for D-Day 1944, the Allies had to destroy the German Radar systems. On Guernsey at Fort George there was a Freya Radar unit. This was initially attacked on June 3rd 1944 by the Royal Canadian Air Force’s 439 Squadron. As the installation was not completely destroyed a further attack was required, bad weather on June 4th prevented any action so on June 5th the Squadron attacked again.
Canadian pilot John Walton Saville led the attack but on his second run his Hawker Typhoon 18 aeroplane was hit by anti-aircraft fire and he crashed into Havelet Bay, off the coast of Guernsey. A search and rescue mission could find no trace of either the pilot or the plane.
The exact position of the crash site remained unknown until in the 1970’s a Guernsey Nautical Archaeology diver discovered the wreckage. Further investigations revealed some personal items and the site was declared an official war grave.
John Saville’s sister and some younger family members held a service above the site.
The memorial shown is attached to the seawall in the bay near the crash site.’
Matt continues with a few lines about the Nazi occupation of Guernsey and comments that; ‘On 28th June 1940 the Luffwaffe bombed St Peter Port harbour, killing 44 civilians, despite there being no military defences. German forces landed on 30th June 1940 and began nearly 5 years of brutal occupation.
The Channel Islands were included in the Atlantic Wall defence building project. Millions of tonnes of concrete were poured into bunkers, fortifications and coastal defences across the Channel Islands. The work was mainly done by the Organisation Todt, which used slave labour from occupied countries. Conditions for these people were appalling, the numbers who died in Guernsey are not known but hundreds of bodies have since been found.
The Islanders fared little better – there were mass deportations to concentration camps, numerous civilians died with one man being shot for espionage.
People of Jewish origin were ruthlessly rounded up and deported, with many dying in the concentration camps that they were sent to. Those islanders that remained were slowly starved as food supplies were very limited.
So all over the Island are clear signs of the Occupation, including a thought provoking German Occupation Museum. My photos give an insight into the inhumanity inflicted.’
Jumping back in time, Matt found evidence of Guernsey’s participation in the Boer War and he writes; ‘Despite their small sizes and populations, Guernsey and Alderney contributed significant numbers of men who fought in the 2nd Boer War. A Boer War Memorial in St. Julian’s Gardens, St Peter Port honours those who died in the conflict. The names of 11 Officers and 34 other ranks are shown.
The attached picture shows the front of the Memorial and depicts a soldier standing over his wounded comrade.’
Finally, from the Great War, Matt asks; ‘My last contribution from Guernsey.
The question I would like to ask is: has any TL reader seen one of these before?’
It is an original IWGC Grave registration card, giving details of the burial site of a soldier from the RGLI and includes the nearest railway station in case the family are able to visit.
I would suspect that Mike Credland owns one or two of these precious documents.
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Steve Baldwin had reason to visit the Albert Hall in Nottingham recently and spotted the Great War Memorial to the men of the Nottingham Albert Hall Mission. We have mentioned this memorial before in TL, but it would be several years ago and we have many new subscribers in recent times who will not have seen this splendid memorial as the Albert Hall is not routinely open for casual visitors. Thanks for sharing Steve.
On a match day in Nottingham, be it at Trent Bridge, the City Ground or Meadow Lane, 1000’s of spectators walk over the Trent Bridge but I wonder how many ever stop to read the memorial plaque that can be found on the city end of the bridge honouring all of the men who fell in the Great War and who were members of Nottingham’s four rowing clubs?
Again, it is one of those rarely seen and often forgotten memorials and I am pleased to bring it to your attention.
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As Alan Hicks mentioned earlier, I do like to travel and to take in sporting events, and this wanderlust has been inherited by my children too. Therefore, we are indebted this week to my eldest daughter Amy, and her family, for the following set of unusual memorial photos from Bandera in Texas.
Amy, husband Sean and their boys, Oliver and Samuel, have recently toured extensively through the state of Texas, visiting Fort Worth, Dallas, San Antonio, The Alamo, staying on a cowboy ranch and living with the cowboys, visiting a rodeo and several of the big sporting stadiums that you will have seen recently hosting world cup football.
Bandera can be found north west of San Antonio…
…. And is reputed to be the Cowboy Capital of the World!
The following photos show the history of the cattle trail that started at Banderas, honour the men who garrisoned Fort Montel against the Indians and did their bit for the Confederacy during the American Civil War, honour the cowboys who have lived, worked and died here, and most importantly to us, honour the men of Banderas who fell in the bloody fighting during the last two months of the Great War as soldiers in the AEF.
The Great War of 1917-18 Memorial.
Thank you Amy for sharing these memorials with us.
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All of a sudden, the 13th October is on the horizon and the annual service of commemoration at the Hohenzollern Redoubt at Auchy Les Mines. After being attacked three times at divisional strength by the 9th (Scottish) 28th and Guards Divisions, between 25th September and 12th October, Haig as commander of 1st Army under Sir John French, ordered just two battalions each of the 137th and 138th Brigades of the 46th (North Midland) Division to attack once more on 13th October.
The men of Lincoln, Leicester and Staffordshire paid a terrible price on this opening day, and as the night of the 13th became the early hours of the 14th October, the reserve 139th (Sherwood Foresters) Brigade attempted to dig across No Man’s Land to support the few men hanging on in the Redoubt. The actions of this day and into the 15th October would see Captain (Later Sir) Geoffrey Vickers of the 7th (Robin Hoods) SF win the Victoria Cross. It would also see the death of the Handford brothers who served with the 8th Sherwood Foresters (SF) a battalion that recruited from the towns of North Nottinghamshire – Newark, Mansfield, Retford, Worksop and as you will see, Southwell.
The Handford brothers are this week’s offering rom Chris at Colour by CJS.
Captain Henry Basil Strutt Handford (on the right) and Lieutenant Everard Francis Sale Handford (on the left).
Henry and Everard were born into a prominent family. Their father was a Doctor and their mother was the daughter of Henry Strutt, 1st Baron Belper.
The family home was in the village of Southwell in Nottinghamshire, renowned for its superb Minster.
The boys were educated at Rugby School and both were fine athletes and played for Nottingham Rugby Football Club.
Henry studied law at Trinity College, Cambridge and his brother had planned to follow him there.
However, when war was declared the brothers immediately volunteered to serve their country, and enlisted in the local Territorial Force battalion, the 1/8th, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment (The Sherwood Foresters).
The 5th, 6th, 7th (Robin Hoods) and 8th Battalions formed the 139th Brigade of the 46th (North Midland) Division, and the division deployed to France on 25th February 1915, becoming the first complete Territorial Division to serve on the Western Front.
The men of the 46th Division spent the spring and summer of 1915 being rotated in and out of the line in the Ypres Salient.
In September 1915 they moved south and took part in the Battle of Loos which started on 25th of that month.
The Handford brothers were both killed in action during an assault on the formidable Hohenzollern Redoubt on 15th October 1915.
Their bodies were not retrieved from the battlefield and today they are commemorated on the Loos Memorial to the missing at Dud Corner Cemetery.
Henry was 21 years old and Everard was 20 years old.
Postscript
Their Brother in Law, Major John Pickard Becher DSO was mortally wounded in the same attack. He died on 1st January 1916.
In yet another remarkable coincidence, last Thursday I received out of the blue, a story about the Handford brothers and Major Becher. The author has given me permission to share it with you next week. It really is remarkable how these coincidences keep happening!
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In Memoriam the Lincolnshire Regiment 19th July.
1915
2743 Private E J Clarke, 5th Battalion. Buried in Railway Dugouts Burial Ground, Belgium.
1916
7945 Private John Loxton, 1st Battalion, aged 18. Buried in Boulogne Eastern Cemetery, France.
1917
235182 Private V E Gazeley, 8th Battalion. Buried in Hazebrouck Communal Cemetery, France.
201183 Private Howard Ingram Palmer, 4th Battalion, aged 20. Buried in Lincoln Newport Cemetery, UK.
19240 Private George Doubleday, 1st Battalion, aged 22. Buried in Essex Farm Cemetery, Belgium.
18645 Private G W Nix, 8th Battalion, aged 22. Buried in Derry House Cemetery No.2, Belgium.
WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.
If you have any more thoughts about the Somme offensive, or would like to join the tour in September, please do send me an email.
Until next week,
All best wishes
Jonathan
© Jonathan D’Hooghe
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