A Budleigh widow’s son, killed in the Battle of Loos: Private Archibald George Slee, 14 October 1915

The badge of the Civil Service Rifles 

On the Loos Memorial in Dud Corner Cemetery, one kilometre west of the village of Loos-en-Gohelle is the name of yet another casualty of the Battle of Loos with a connection to Budleigh Salterton.

However Private Archibald George Slee was born not in Budleigh but in Ottery St Mary in 1895.  In 1901 he was living with his parents and older brother Harold Tom Slee in Silver Street, Ottery St Mary. Ten years later, according to the www.devonremembers.co.uk site, he was a student in London. At the outbreak of war he seems to have been working as a civil servant since he enlisted at Somerset House, headquarters of the 1^st/15^th London Regiment, known as the Civil Service Rifles because its recruits were made up of civil servants living and working in London.

After training at Bedmond and then Watford in Hertfordshire, Private Slee embarked at Southampton in one of four boats, used in peacetime, according to the Regimental History, for pleasure trips along the coast. Along with 30 officers, 1,045 other ranks, and 78 horses, he arrived at Le Havre on the morning of 18 March 1915.

It seems from the account in the Regimental History that the troops were not impressed, “the chief disappointment, perhaps, being that there were little or no signs of the Great War. No welcoming crowds of pretty French girls were there to meet them, and almost unnoticed they marched through the town and up the hill which led to the camp above Harfleur. Here the troops, perspiring after the steep climb, in what they thought was full marching order, learnt that there were many more things for the unfortunate Infantry soldier to carry in France. Winter clothing was issued, and although it was very welcome on that bitterly cold afternoon, the weight of it made everyone look forward with more than usual keenness to the coming of Spring.”

The Regiment had its full taste of warfare in the Battle of Festubert (15-25 May) and the Battle of Loos (25 September-14 October).

This image from the Illustrated London News of 30 October 1915 graphically conveys the horror of war, spelt out in the commentary: “One of the most awe-inspiring charges during the war was that made by the London Territorials on the German trenches between the ‘Tower Bridge’ of Loos and the great double slag-heap opposite Grenay, known as the Double Crassier. The first line having been cleared, a number of fortified houses were rushed, and finally Loos Cemetery was taken. Under cover of gas, the Territorials wearing their respirators, dashed forward with irresistible elan, and eventually emerged onto the front German line. The eerie effect produced by their Inquisition-like hoods struck terror into the hearts of the enemy. Sweeping with comparative ease over the German first-line trench, they encountered greater resistance at the sunken road and at the Lens Road junction at Valley Cross-roads, but this, too, was overcome, the enemy retiring to his third line of defence through Loos. The masked figure on the right is wearing the regulation belt filled with bombs. On the left three German machine-gunners are surrendering.”

The Loos Memorial

Image credit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission 

It was during the last stages of the Battle of Loos that Private Slee was killed in action. He was 20 years old. His name appears on Sidmouth’s war memorial. By 1921, when the Commonwealth Graves Commission Certificate was issued, his mother Rosa Slee was a widow, living at 13 Greenway Lane, Budleigh Salterton.  

‘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!!

  

 

The blacksmith’s son from Newton Poppleford: Alfred Thomas Pring, 8 October 1915

British infantry advancing at the Battle of Loos 25 September 1915.  It was the first time that the British used poison gas. In places, the gas was blown back onto British trenches. Due to the inefficiency of contemporary gas masks, many soldiers removed them as they could not see through the fogged-up eyepieces or could barely breathe with them on, which led to some soldiers being affected by the gas as it blew back.

Thousands of wounded men from both sides would die following the bloody battle of Loos on 25 September. 

Private Alfred Thomas Pring was one of the many casualties. Aged only 17, he was one of five children born to William and Emily Pring, of Station Road in Newton Poppleford.  His father, one of the village blacksmiths, had died in 1907, leaving his mother Emily (nee Selleck) to run the smithy business. 

In the 1911 Census she is shown as living with her three children and being the owner of a blacksmith’s business employing 52- year-old Samuel Holmes as a “blacksmith’s servant” and with her eldest son (also called William) as a “student blacksmith” at the age of 14.

Like so many of his schoolboy friends, Alfred joined the Devonshire Regiment, 8th Battalion, in Exeter. On 8 October 1915, less than a year after enlisting, he died of his wounds, having been carried from the battlefield in Flanders.

Newton Poppleford war memorial outside St Luke’s Church

Alfred Pring is buried in France, in Boulogne’s Eastern Cemetery, and is remembered on the war memorial in Newton Poppleford.   

His story is told by Newton Poppleford resident John Hagger at http://www.roll-of honour.com/Devon/NewtonPoppleford.html

‘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!!

WW1 tragedy of Budleigh Coast Guard remembered

 Pam Ashcroft with the WW1 plaques that she is lending to Fairlynch Museum  

 Precious and poignant items relating to the 1914-18 world conflict continue to be offered for display as part of ‘The Great War at Fairlynch’ in Budleigh Salterton’s museum.

The latest mementos to take their place in the exhibition come from Pam Ashcroft, great-niece of Ordinary Seaman Francis Thomas Veal.

 

The son of Francis and Elizabeth Veal of Budleigh Salterton’s Coast Guard Station, he lost his life, aged just 18, along with 800 other crew members in the HMS Vanguard explosion on 9 July, 1917.  His name is on the Budleigh War Memorial, opposite his then family home. 

It seems that the prime cause of the explosion is not known, but the most likely scenario is thought to be a fire in a compartment adjacent to a magazine which caused the cordite to explode.  Smoke detectors and automatic sprinkler systems were not fitted in HM ships of this date.

 

The commemorative plaque and scroll are treasured reminders to Francis Veal’s family of the son that they lost in the Great War

Budleigh-born Pam, who lives in Kilkenny, last visited the town some 15 years ago. The granddaughter of Bill and Kath Veal, of Boyne Road, she made the journey to the Museum on 10 April, coming all the way from Ireland to bring a commemorative plaque and a scroll, having heard about its ‘Great War’ display.

“They’re so special for me and my family, and it’s a privilege for us to have them,” she said. “We’re delighted to lend them to Fairlynch so that other people can see them in this wonderful exhibition.” 

If you can help the museum with similar WW1 items or stories please call Sheila on 01395 443197 or email mail@devonremembers.co.uk  

‘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!!  

 

The Battle of Neuve Chapelle: Ernest Smith, 12 March 1915

The Devonshire Regiment cap badge

I’ve been preoccupied recently by the glorious but violent Elizabethan age of Sir Walter Ralegh in preparation for Fairlynch Museum’s ‘Beyond the Boyhood’ exhibition, opened last night by local resident Richard Champernowne as you can read elsewhere 

Amidst all the research that I’d been doing into East Devon’s best known historical figure I’d occasionally forgotten about the slaughter that was taking place on the Great War’s Western Front a century ago.

I’d hoped to devote a post to each of the casualties from the Lower Otter Valley at approximately 100 years after they were killed in action. 

 

I slipped up a little in the case of East Budleigh man Ernest Smith. But there’s his name recorded on the list in All Saints Church and on the village war memorial.  

Sadly we know little about him, except that according to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission records he was aged 21 when he died, was serving as a Private No. 11196  in the Second Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment,  and was the brother of Frederick W. Smith, of Cromley Cottage, East Budleigh.

 

Le Touret Military Cemetery

Image credit: www.cwgc.org 

In addition to the local records, his name, along with those of 13,393 other casualties, appears on the Le Touret Memorial, located near the former commune of Richebourg-l'Avoué, in the Pas-de-Calais region of Northern France.

If the date of his death is accurate, it is likely that he fell in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, which took place from 10-13 March 1915. This was a British offensive in the Artois region of France which initially had some success. More troops had arrived from Britain, including the Second Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment which had landed at Le Havre on 6 November 1914, having returned from Cairo, Egypt. They relieved some French troops in Flanders, which enabled a continuous British line to be formed, from Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée north to Langemarck.  

Primitive communications and artillery bombardment of the British telephone system meant that the British commanders had been unable to keep in touch with each other.  The battle thus became uncoordinated and this in turn disrupted the supply lines. On 12 March, German forces commanded by Crown Prince Rupprecht, launched a counter-attack which failed but forced the British to use most of their artillery ammunition. The British offensive was postponed on 13 March and abandoned two days later. 7,000 British troops were killed in the battle, along with 4,200 Indian soldiers; German losses amounted to approximately 10,000 men. 

‘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!! 

 

  

An army doctor’s memories: the Christmas Truce of 1914

Budleigh Salterton solicitor Patrick Langrishe, pictured above, kindly showed me extracts from a diary kept  by his grandfather, an army doctor who served on the Western Front.  The entries for Christmas Day and Boxing Day 1914 make fascinating reading

We’re further into December. The prospect of an Anglo-German football match in 2014 between the clubs of Budleigh Salterton and Betheln is receding further into the distance.

Yet I keep thinking about the remarkable events of the Christmas truce just over a century ago, following on from what I wrote at http://fairlynchgreatwar.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/chatting-with-enemy.html

I was reminded of that bizarre episode in the Great War after reading Rose Wild’s Feedback column in The Times of 14 December. It mentions the “slightly surreal” tone of letters from serving soldiers sent to their families and forwarded for publication in the newspaper. One of them was from a piper in the Scots Guards.

“One German gave our officer a letter to post to a lady he knows in Essex,” he wrote. “I must say some of them are very nice fellows, and did not show any hatred, which makes me think they are forced to fight. I wrote you a letter telling you we made a bayonet attack. I wonder if you got it. We lost a few men. The Germans helped us to bury them on Christmas Day.”  

I’d started reading the Feedback column having spotted Rose Wild’s mention of Budleigh solicitor Patrick Langrishe, a partner with Devon law firm Gilbert Stephens.

Mr Langrishe has some equally remarkable stories to tell, based on extracts from the diary kept by his grandfather, Lieutenant-Colonel John du Plessis Langrishe DSO, an officer serving as an army doctor with the RAMC.  

 

This personal photograph was taken by Robert Cotton Money on 7 December 1914.  It shows the crew of an 18-pounder Field Gun in a gun emplacement on the Armentières sector of the front line, in France.

Photo credit: Imperial War Museum   Q51542

The Battle of Armentières had been fought by German and Franco-British forces in northern France from 13 October to 2 November 1914, during reciprocal attempts by the opposing armies to envelop the northern flank of their opponent. It was part of what been called the Race to the Sea, which I mention elsewhere

There is a detailed account of encounters on Christmas Day between men of the Queens Westminster Rifles and those of the 107th Saxon Regiment.  

The 25 December was, the diary records,  “a really  peaceful day.”  After a church service in the morning, followed by lunch, the young officer went for a   walk with a veterinary officer, returning by Armentières.

He wrote as follows about the unusual Christmas Day events: “The Saxons (107th) came out & talked to our men of Q.W.R., had a sing-song & a game of football which the Saxons won 3-2!  They even sang "God save the King"!! & gave our men some wine in which to drink his health.  Some came into our trenches, a few  remaining, saying they preferred to go to England!” 

It was not just the other ranks involved with this fraternisation with the enemy. The diary records that the Saxons’ Colonel and Adjutant “also came out & chatted.”   

The truce was by no means universally observed. Things were “very  different” on the south of Rue du Bac, to the west of Armentières, where the Germans “fired on the Leicesters & refused to have any truck with them.”

According to Colonel Langrishe’s diary the truce lasted only until the following morning of Boxing Day. “Lovely bright frosty morning, clouding over later,” he wrote. “After lunch snow, turning to a thaw & rain in the evening. C. Atkin  joined me at 10 o’c & after the sick went round "egg farmers", returning to his chateau where I showed him positions on the map. Stayed in after lunch on  account of weather. Bath after tea. Heard that a Saxon officer came across to  our trenches at 11 a.m. & said that he was sorry but they had orders to  resume hostilities at once. Germans have been stuffed with all sorts of yarns about invasion of England, & bombardment of London.  In their last attack on Rue du Bois on Oct. 28th the  l07th Saxon Regt. lost all  their officers & were   fired into by  their own artillery!”

 

Happier days: the photo shows Colonel Langrishe beside the River Liffey, during his time at Trinity College Dublin.  Known to friends and family as Jack,  he captained the University Boat Club in 1906.    Image credit: www.tcdlife.ie

Colonel Langrishe was not a Devon man but the account of his wartime experience will fascinate anyone with an interest in the human side of the Great War.

His eleven handwritten diaries, consisting in total of 482 pages, are kept at the Imperial War Museum.  They were written between 8 September 1914 and 23 March 1919, during his service with the Royal Army Medical Corps in multiple appointments. 

He was Medical Officer of the 38th Brigade RFA (6th Division) from August 1914 to January 1915; to 16th Field Ambulance (16th Infantry Brigade, 6th Division) between January and November 1915; to the staff of the ADMS (14th Division) between November 1915 and June 1916; and was finally commander of the 12th Field Ambulance (12th Infantry Brigade, 4th Division) between June 1916 and April 1919.

The diaries describe his experiences on the Western Front, including his inspection duties of brigade field ambulances, casualty clearing stations, camp huts, baths and sanitation, as well as his personal experiences during the Somme ‘push’ of 1916 in handling the wounded and the dead on the battlefields.  

Maybe some friendly Saxon from Betheln will read my online scribblings about the Great War Christmas Truce, and get in touch with their own positive WW1 stories. 

That would be a cheering thing to do in this traditional season of peace and goodwill, when an awfully large part of the world seems to be locked in stupid conflict. 

‘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!!