Monday 24 November 2014

Life, death and laughter in the trenches


  
















Soldiers from the Cheshire Regiment in their trench during the 1916 Battle of the Somme  Photo by John Warwick Brooke
This is photograph Q 3990 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums (collection no. 1900-13)

The Battle of Mons, which saw the death of Second Lieutenant John Pepys, was a battle of movement, unlike most of the succeeding encounters with the enemy. Both the Allied and the German generals soon saw that with neither side willing to retreat a stationary form of warfare would be the only option.  Sir John French, the first Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force gave the order to entrench on 14 September, and on the Western Front for the next four years the conflict took the form of trench warfare which has made it notorious.
 
Almost 10,000 kilometres of trenches were dug on both sides. The first efforts at trench-building consisted of shallow pits in the soil and were generally ineffectual because of the lack of equipment, but the results improved with greater organisation. Temporary units of entrenching battalions were formed by the Army and construction methods were standardised.


 

















3467 Private George Watson. The photo was taken in early 1918 when he was aged 22, following his stay at the VAD Redde Hutte Hospital in Budleigh. It shows his three-year service chevron and silver thread wound stripe.
Image credit: Fairlynch Museum

Private George Watson, of the Royal North Lancashire Regiment, was posted to the 4th Entrenching Battalion in 1915 and found himself working in the Somme region of Picardy, Northern France.

 
















After being wounded he spent time convalescing at ‘Redde Hutte’ - now named ‘Stapleton’, pictured above -  in Budleigh Salterton’s West Hill Lane - and his memories were recorded and presented to Fairlynch Museum.

Our job in the Entrenching Battalion was to work at constructing trenches, redoubts and dugouts/tunnelling and general jobs like drainage,” he recalled.  “There was no fighting then in the Somme area, just the occasional shells, but that was before  the offensive and the rough stuff began.”

Care needed to be taken nonetheless to avoid attracting unwelcome attention. “I remember once working in a tunnel heading towards  the German lines. It was very low and kneeling down we used short spades for digging. The earth was shovelled to  the rear and passed along. It was then carted well behind the trenches and spread in piles making it appear that construction was going on there, which attracted shellfire.”

Trench construction became an art, explained George Watson. “To make a trench it was dug in a straight line but buttresses were left in about 20 feet apart. If a shell exploded in the trench the buttresses stopped the blast from going along the trench thus providing shelter for most of the men. The communication trenches were dug zig-zag so that the enemy couldn’t enfilade them, that is shoot straight along the trench. We drained the trenches by digging channels according to the slope of the ground. Sometimes we dug sumps or baled or pumped out the water. We made dugouts in the sides of the reserve trenches, covering the tops with timber, wattles and soil. Benches of soil were left were left in the dugouts on which the men could sleep clear of the water and mud.”

 












The quagmire of the trenches
Officers of the 12th Royal Irish Rifles wading through the mud of a fallen in communication trench, the result of a thaw after weeks of snow and from Essigny, 7 February 1918. They had recently taken over from the French 6th Division.  Photo by Second Lieutenant Thomas Keith Aitken.  This is photograph Q 10681 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums
© IWM (Q 10681)

That was the theory anyway. But torrential rain could transform the trench into a quagmire. George Watson quoted an amusing instance of this.  

“Once we were digging a 'sap' from the trench, underneath the barbed wire,  to make an observation  post.  Three men manned  the post,  one looking out   over the ground, another ready to take his turn and the third one relaxing. This meant digging outwards towards the German lines.  The weather was very wet and the trench became full of water and mud.  We had to bring a hand  pump to clear the water. Two of us were carrying it on a long crowbar. I was leading, chest deep in water,  when I became stuck in the mud. Two of our  mates crept  along the top of the trench and took the pump off us. They then yanked  me out of the mud. I was gripped so tight that my waders and  trousers were left behind, stuck in the mud. I bet they're still there. I had  to  make my way back to the billets in the village in my underpants and bare  feet.  Of course there were no villagers about then.”















A case of trench feet suffered by unidentified soldier in 1917
Photo credit: Library and Archives Canada/PA-149311 /
Not so amusing was the medical condition known as trench foot,  caused by prolonged exposure of the feet to damp and cold conditions. Affected feet could become numb and turn red or blue as a result of poor vascular supply; the early stages of necrosis would result in a decaying odour. If left untreated, trench foot usually resulted in gangrene, causing the need for amputation. It's been estimated that as many as 20,000 soldiers in the British Army alone during 1914 fell victim to the disease.
In poor weather conditions, and especially in the dark, soldiers could lose their way in the maze of trenches.  “One  night  when  we were carrying supplies  to the front line, during a ‘rest period’ it was difficult to find the way as there was no proper communication trench,” recalled George Watson. “The route was lined with white tape to show the way.  Unfortunately the tapes had  disappeared in the mud and as it was almost dawn my pal Tom and I tried to find our way back without success. In the daylight we would have been in danger from snipers so we took shelter  in a large shell crater. This meant waiting until nightfall to try again.

In the crater were two dead British soldiers, one with wide open staring  eyes. This made us feel so uncomfortable we turned him over. When  night came  we left the crater to try to find our way. Stumbling along we were challenged by a British soldier.  We explained that we were trying to find our way back to our unit in the reserve trenches.  With a laugh he informed us that we were heading for no-mans-land, so we had  to turn about and go the opposite way. We managed  to get back  to our unit just  before  we were  posted as missing.”

 
















The trenches today: Sanctuary Wood, a few miles east of Ypres, in Belgium
Image credit: Mo Sandford FRPS
©  Mo Sandford FRPS 2014
The author Michael Morpurgo has described her work as "deeply moving and interesting." More of Mo Sandford's remarkable photos of World War I battlefields can be seen here 

Added to these grim conditions was the insanitary nature of trench life which inevitably led to outbreaks of disease. Basic human functions were catered for in a primitive fashion. “Latrines were always a problem. We dug them as a long narrow behind the front line trenches with a narrow trench leading to them. A latrine was made with short cross-poles at each end, with a log pole or tree trunk between them to sit on, all open to the sky.”  


Not suprisingly, soldiers in the hell of the trenches found that black humour was a vital weapon in their battle for survival.  













Cartoon by Bruce Bairnsfather. It shows a soldier writing a card home: "Dear ____, At present we are staying on a farm..."

One of their great allies in this respect was Captain (Charles) Bruce Bairnsfather, renowned as a wartime humorist and cartoonist. His only connection with Devon was that he was educated at the United Services College in Westward Ho!

 
















'Coiffure in the trenches'  The caption reads: "Keep yer 'ead still, or I'll 'ave yer blinking' ear off."  A shell whizzes past overhead.

In 1914 he joined the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and served with a machine gun unit in France until 1915, when he was hospitalised with shellshock and hearing damage sustained during the Second Battle of Ypres.

 
















"There goes our blinkin' parapet again."

Posted to the 34th Division headquarters on Salisbury Plain, he developed his humorous series for the Bystander magazine about life in the trenches, featuring 'Old Bill', a curmudgeonly soldier with trademark walrus moustache and balaclava.



 


 


















The best remembered of these is shown above.  It shows Bill with another trooper in a muddy shell hole with shells whizzing all around. The other trooper is grumbling and Bill advises: “Well, If you knows of a better 'ole, go to it.”


Despite the immense popularity with the troops and massive sales increase for the Bystander, initially there were objections to the "vulgar caricature". Nevertheless, their success in raising morale led to Bairnsfather's promotion and receipt of a War Office appointment to draw similar cartoons for other Allies forces.


Grateful thanks are due to Jan Oke for allowing reproduction of the Bruce Bairnsfather cartoons from her collection of World War One postcards

‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ 2015 exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews included: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!! 
 











Hunting Geoffrey Moulson

 A nurse portrayed in Vera Brittain’s classic WW1 work Testament of Youth turns out to be the elder sister of a former RAMC officer painted by Budleigh artist Joyce Dennys. 
 
















Local journalist Eleanor Pipe wrote recently about Budleigh artist Joyce Dennys. Illustrated with paintings ranging from wartime posters to amusing street scenes, her article was published in the Journal on 16 October 2014 and was read with much interest.

Fairlynch Museum has many of Joyce Dennys’ paintings on display. There are also folders cataloguing her works, both art and writings.

In the Fairlynch folder’s section on oil on board figurative paintings, no 21 is described as ‘Old man on bench with basket’.

 











This painting, identical in every detail to the photo in the Fairlynch catalogue, was recently sold on the open market. Described as ‘A portrait of Geoffrey Moulson, widower, resting with his basket of shopping at Lion House’,  it was bought by a private collector according to the article in the Journal.

A cursory search of The London Gazette via the internet showed that a Geoffrey Moulson was gazetted as Lieutenant with effect from 1 January 1917. A later announcement in a supplement to The London Gazette of 5 September identifies him as a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps.


















I’m not really into all that serious family tree research but learning about the Great War has been an eye-opening experience. By now I was intrigued.  Joyce Dennys is noteworthy not only as the writer of Henrietta’s War but as the creator of the famous WW1 recruitment poster for VAD nurses.

A glance at the British Military Lists website showed me that Geoffrey Moulson was born on 17 February 1892, making him just a year older than the Budleigh artist and writer. 

Were they friends? Did he live in Budleigh? Had he come across Tom Evans, Joyce Dennys’ husband and the town’s GP, through their shared experience with the RAMC during World War One?

While searching the net, I found Geoffrey Moulson’s name mentioned on the useful RootsChat website by a researcher in Australia who wanted to know more about him. Geoffrey, it seems, had had a distinguished medical career, having been a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and was quoted by the Australian researcher as a Colonel in the RAMC.

He’d studied Medicine at St Thomas’ Hospital in London before war broke out. At an early stage of the conflict,  he had evidently volunteered, serving in France and Belgium from 2 November to 23 December 2014 and being awarded the 1914 Star medal.  One comment on RootsChat was that during this time he served as a dresser with the Number 6 Red Cross Hospital at Boulogne.

 













Doctors placing a patient's broken thigh in traction at a base hospital during World War One
Image credit: Imperial War Museum Q 33472

According to the Red Cross website, this hospital was actually at Etaples. There is conflicting information about the location of Number 6 Red Cross Hospital. It was a mobile unit funded by Liverpool Chamber of Commerce - it was known as the Liverpool Merchants' Mobile Hospital - and was not set up until April 1915, when it was based temporarily at Le Touquet-Paris-Plage on the French coast near Boulogne.

 













In whichever hospital in Northern France he was based at this time, Geoffrey Moulson would have found himself at the forefront of theories about the treatment of wounds in the early days of the Great War. In a 1996 article by Elinor Meynell published in the British Medical Journal the author drew attention to the role of  the celebrated bacteriologist Sir Almoth Wright, seen above,  and the need for pathological investigation of wound infection. Wright had set up a laboratory at the 13th General Hospital in Boulogne; his staff included Alexander Fleming, the future discoverer of penicillin.

But back to Geoffrey Moulson. His University of London OTC war record gave some useful information. However, following his stint at a hospital in Northern France in 1914 I found no information about his war service until he’s recorded as an officer in Mesopotamia from August 1916 until June 1917. What had happened during the two-year gap, I wondered. Had he been wounded?




At some stage he may have returned to Britain. His surname is listed on a photo dated 2 January 1918, showing the RAMC England football team - a real find via RootsChat. There was, it seems an RAMC international charity match between England and Scotland. The RAMC had a large facility during World War One at the Lancashire Military Convalescent Hospital, Blackpool, and the photo was taken by a Blackpool photographer.

That was followed by a spell in India, where he remained until December 1919.  But he seems to have remained with the RAMC, being listed as a Major on 15 July 1928.   

The Ancestry site lists a Geoffrey Moulson born in about 1892 in Kent and living in Hampshire. His mother was Lydia. Now I don’t subscribe to Ancestry. I believe in making information free of charge to my readers, though I suppose that the Ancestry site has to be maintained. But it does seem to charge rather a lot for membership.

















However I’m grateful on this occasion to Ancestry because by chance I’d been reading about Vera Brittain’s Testament of Youth and had come across the name of Faith Moulson. “I wonder...” I thought to myself.

Sure enough, according to Ancestry, Faith Moulson, born in about 1886, had a mother called Lydia and lived in Hampshire.

According to the National Archives,  Faith Moulson was a Reserve Sister with Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service at the British Red Cross Society Hospital.  As Sister in charge of the ward for German prisoners in the hospital at Etaples, Northern France, she was one of the two nursing sisters with whom Vera Brittain worked. She would later be portrayed as Hope Milroy in Brittain’s classic WW1 work Testament of Youth.               

If Joyce Dennys completed her painting in the year of Geoffrey Moulson’s death it seems that it was a fitting tribute from an artist who, like Vera Brittain, had played her own role in the medical history of the Great War.

If anyone out there can help to fill in the gaps in Geoffrey Moulson’s life I’d love to hear from them.

‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ 2015 exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews included: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!! 


 

Monday 3 November 2014

The first honour: Second Lieutenant Francis Pepys, killed in action 12 November 1914


















  



Second Lieutenant Francis Pepys DSO (1891-1914)  Photo  reproduced by kind permission of the Headmaster and Governors of Charterhouse  


 For the Pepys family in Knowle, still grieving over the loss of their eldest son John, as described here it must have been devastating to be told, barely three months later, that his brother Francis had been killed at Ypres.  


  












Maybe the family gained some consolation from the news that Francis had died a hero.  

Like his brother John, he was brought up in the family home of Knowle House on Dalditch Lane.


 




















A Charterhouse group: Francis Pepys is seated, right. 

Photo reproduced by kind permission of the Headmaster and Governors of Charterhouse 

While still at school at Charterhouse, in Surrey, he had decided on a military career. In May 1913 he was gazetted as Second Lieutenant to the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. He went to France with the Expeditionary Force on 13 August 1914, taking part in the retreat from Mons and in the Battles of the Marne and the Aisne the following month.  


Francis Pepys was the first serviceman from the Lower Otter Valley to be honoured with the Distinguished Service Order (DSO). The citation, dated 1 December 1914, reads as follows: "On 3rd November 1914, he did conspicuous good work in advancing from his trench and assisting in driving away a party of the enemy who were commencing to dig a new trench within 30 yards of his own; 30 of the enemy were shot down on the occasion.”   










 













‘The Defeat of the Prussian Guard, Ypres, 1914’ as depicted in 1916 by the English painter William Barnes Wollen (1857-1936).  The painting shows the 2nd Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry in action against the Prussian Guard at the Battle of Nonne Bosschen, 11 November 1914.

Just over a week later he took part in the repulse of the Prussian Guards, an action of the Great War celebrated in paintings such as the above example. Sadly, he was killed in action on 12 November by a shell burst as he stepped out of his trench. 

Francis Pepys, who was unmarried, was evidently a promising young officer whose loss was keenly felt by his colleagues. Writing of the DSO which he had gained, his Commanding Officer described how he had “most thoroughly earned” the award for his determined action in repulsing the enemy “and for his splendid leading on other occasions."  The young man’s bravery was also mentioned in a Despatch of 14 January 1915 by Field Marshal Sir John French, later created 1st Earl of Ypres.


 

















The Tyne Cot Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery
©  Mo Sandford FRPS 2014
The author Michael Morpurgo has described Budleigh-based Mo Sandford's work as "deeply moving and interesting." More of her remarkable photos of World War I battlefields can be seen here

Francis Pepys has no known grave, although the Marquis de Ruvigny’s Roll of Honour records that he was buried at Zonnebeke, in Tyne Cot, the largest British and Commonwealth war cemetery in the world.   

 

















 Image credit: Commonwealth Graves War Commission
 www.cwgc.org

He is commemorated on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial, seen above. 

A keen sportsman, he was noted for his love of steeplechasing: he won the Officers' Race in the Vim Hunt Point-to-Point in 1914. Golf, fishing, skiing and cricket were among his other passions; he is commemorated on the Lord's Cricket Members War Memorial, as well as in All Saints’ Church and on East Budleigh village war memorial.
 

 

























All Saints Church memorial
Image credit: All Saints’ Parochial Church Council 
‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ 2015 exhibition at Budleigh Salterton’s very special museum! Reviews included: “Wonderful display on WW1, informative, bright and relevant. Well done!!