Defending the Ypres Salient: Sidney Alfred Demant 12 June 2015

 War memorials come in all shapes and sizes.

Not many people would associate this drain cover with the Great War. But whenever I see it as I walk down my garden path I think of Alfred and the son that he lost just a few years before he built our 1920s house on Exmouth Road in Budleigh Salterton.

Alfred Demant had moved from Highgate in London to live in the Budleigh area at some time after 1911. He and his wife Amelia Maude Louise had taken up residence in Ivy Cottage – now Yew Tree Cottage – next to the Baptist Chapel in Little Knowle.

Their sons Sidney Alfred and William Harold were born in London in 1891 and 1893 respectively.  Their daughter Winifred Constance was born in 1897. At an early stage in the war Sidney joined the 8th Battalion of The Rifle Brigade. Formed at Winchester on 21 August 1914, the Battalion was made up mostly of volunteers, part of Lord Kitchener’s New Army. It came under the command of 41st Brigade in 14th (Light) Division, moving to Aldershot and going on to Grayshott on the Hampshire/ Surrey border in November before returning to Aldershot in March 1915. Sidney Demant was with the 8^th Battalion when it landed in France at Boulogne on 19 May before proceeding to the Belgian town of Ypres.

 

Second Battle of Ypres, 22 April to May 1915 by Richard Jack (1866–1952). Image credit Canadian War Museum 19710261-0172

The Second Battle of Ypres was fought from 22 April to 25 May 1915 for control of the strategically important town. The Ypres Salient  – the area around the town projecting into enemy territory – saw some of the major battles of World War One.

The remains of trenches at Sanctuary Wood
©  Mo Sandford FRPS 2014
More of Mo Sandford's remarkable photos of World War I battlefields can be seen here

Two kilometres east of the town is an area known as Sanctuary Wood, so  named by British troops in November 1914 when it was used as shelter. It later became fiercely fought over by troops from both sides, and is popular with visitors today because of the way in which the trenches have been preserved. 

On 8 May 1915 the Germans had begun a major attack into the Ypres Salient known as the Battle of Frezenberg Ridge, the objective being to smash through the British front line. 

Bailleul cemetery

Image credit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Rifleman Demant was killed in action on 12 June, aged 24. He was buried in the communal cemetery in the French town of Bailleul, near  the Belgian border. A fortnight after his death, the 8^th Battalion would experience the first use of flamethrowers by the Germans at Hooge, Belgium.

 The Demant family remained in the area. Both Sidney’s brother William Harold and his sister Winifred Constance married local people. William, who also enlisted in the Rifle Brigade, married Gladys Hitt and lived in Chapel Street in Budleigh Salterton. 

Winifred married John James Ratcliff; the Steamer Steps were previously known as Ratcliff End. Alfred and Amelia Demant remained in Little Knowle until their deaths in 1923 and 1943 respectively. They are buried in St Peter’s Burial Ground, on Moor Lane in Budleigh Salterton.

 

St Peter’s Church memorial

Sidney himself is remembered on the town’s war memorial and on the brass memorial in St Peter’s Church, Budleigh Salterton.  But it’s the drain cover on my garden path by which I will remember him.

For more of my observations about Budleigh drain covers go here

 ‘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 youngest subaltern? Henry Gage Morris, 23 April 1915

Henry Gage Morris, killed in action aged 17

The average life expectancy of a subaltern during the trench war of the 1914-18 conflict was about six weeks.

Many of these young subalterns - the most junior commissioned officers who led platoons of 50 men - had gone almost directly to the Western Front from their school classrooms. Some were themselves the children of senior officers with a long family tradition of military service.

 

Such a young officer was Second Lieutenant Henry Gage Morris, who was killed in action on 23 April 1915. He was the only child of Colonel Henry Gage Morris and his wife Mary, and is listed on the memorial in St Peter’s Church, Budleigh Salterton as well as on the town’s war memorial. 

He was born at Bodmin, Cornwall, but his parents were living at ‘Marengo’ in Budleigh at the time of his death. He was educated at The Hoe Preparatory School in Plymouth before going on to Marlborough College in Wiltshire, and then the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst.  He was gazetted Second Lieutenant on 13 January 1915.

Henry Gage Morris has been justifiably cited by a commentator in an online World War One forum  as possibly “one of the youngest subalterns to die in WW1”, killed as he was at the very young age of 17.   

He arrived in France on 15 February 1915 with the 2nd Battalion, the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry.   

 

'The Second Battle of Ypres, 22 April to May 1915' by Richard Jack (1866–1952). 

Image credit: Canadian War Museum 

At around 5.00 pm on 22 April, poison gas was used to horrific effect for the first time in the Great War by the German 2nd Army.  This marked the start of the Second Battle of Ypres, with the Channel ports being threatened by the enemy. A series of battles took place between the Yser Canal and the village of St Julien in an effort to stem the German advance. It was during these counter-attacks in which his Battalion was involved that Henry Gage Morris was killed in action.

The young man’s death seems to have deeply affected those who knew him.  His commanding officer recalled the last sighting of him: “He came past me with a very cheerful face, and laughing, under a very heavy cross-fire from machine guns, and sang out to me, ‘Shall I push on?’ and I answered ‘Go on, laddie, as hard as you can.’ Poor lad, I did not see him again, but heard he was shot in the head, but he would not let anyone stay with him. He was such a good boy, always cheerful and always ready to do anything that was wanted. He was very popular with everyone - officers and men.”

His batman, Private W. Board, echoed such feelings. “The men in the platoon loved him and would do anything for him,” he wrote. “I was not with him when he got hit, but I heard he wanted to go on, and refused to be bandaged, as he said there were men who were hit more badly than himself. He always thought of others before himself.” 

Image credit: www.cwgc.org

Henry Gage Morris’ name is listed on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres. 

 ‘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 Race for the Sea:17 September - 22 November 1914

 

A cap badge of the Devonshire Regiment.  Private Frank Miller was the first member of the Regiment to be killed in action during the Great War

The retreat of British forces from Mons was followed by attempts of both sides to outflank each other, during what became known as the Race to the Sea. This part of the Western Front in Northern France was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting of the first year of the war. It included the battle of La Bassée, which lasted from 10 October to 2 November 1914; Private Frank Miller was killed on 21 October while serving with the 1st Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment.

 

The Le Touret Memorial

Image credit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

http://www.cwgc.org

The son of James and Louisa Miller, of ‘Southcotts’ on Exmouth Road in Colaton Raleigh, the 27-year-old is remembered on the Le Touret Memorial, near the town of Bethune in Northern France. It commemorates over 13,400 British soldiers who were killed in this sector of the Western Front from the beginning of October 1914 to the eve of the Battle of Loos in late September 1915 and who have no known grave.   

The Le Touret Memorial, pictured above,  bears the name of a second Colaton Raleigh man, Private William Jesse Clapp, from the same battalion of the Devonshire Regiment, who was killed in action two days later.  

  

Both Frank Miller and Jesse Clapp are remembered on the memorial in Colaton Raleigh church. 

Pic:  Aubers Ridge British Cemetery

Image credit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

http://www.cwgc.org

A third man from Colaton Raleigh whose name is listed on the church memorial is Private Herbert George Riggs, who died from his wounds at this early stage of the Great War. The 2nd Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment in which he was serving had been in Egypt when war broke out. On 6 November 1914 the battalion landed at Le Havre as part of the 23rd Brigade, 8th Division, and it was during one of its engagements in Northern France that Private Riggs was wounded. He died on 27 November, aged 28. He may well have been buried initially at the Winchester Post Military Cemetery in the village of Laventie before being moved in 1925 to the Aubers Ridge British Cemetery at Aubers in the Nord district of France.

 

 

Image credit: Lancing College

Also part of the Race to the Sea was the Battle of Armentières, which took place from 13 October to 2 November.  Second Lieutenant Lionel Holford Hughes, pictured above,  was killed by a stray shell on 29 October in the trenches near Rue du Bois, a small village two miles south of Armentières. He was the only son of Allen Edward Hughes and his wife Evelyn Emma. His father, an earthenware manufacturer, is recorded as residing at Wychdon Lodge, Weston, Staffordshire, but by 1914 they had moved to ‘Cintra’, on Coastguard Road in Budleigh Salterton.  

 

Lionel Hughes’ grave is in Ration Farm Military Cemetery, a short distance south of the village of La Chapelle-d'Armentieres, on the south-eastern outskirts of Armentieres.

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

Aged only 19, Lionel Hughes  had recently left Lancing College in Sussex, where he excelled in many sports; for two years he represented the College in shooting at Bisley. While still at school he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the 3rd Battalion, North Staffordshire Regiment.  

The culmination of the Race to the Sea came between 19 October and 22 November with the First Battle of Ypres. The town in Western Belgium was the last major obstacle to the German advance on Boulogne-sur-Mer and Calais; although the battle was an Allied victory losses were heavy on both sides as the British, French and Belgian forces held back the invaders. 

Yet another young officer with a link to our area was lost when Lieutenant Charles Vivian de Grete Edye was killed in action on 30 October at Ypres. From an old service family with many distinguished naval connections he was the 28-year-old son of Ernest and Kate Edye. His parents moved from Teddington, Middlesex, to East Devon in the post-war years and are listed as living at both West Hill Lodge - now replaced by flats as West Hill Court in Budleigh Salterton - and Syon House in East Budleigh.

Born in Twickenham, he was educated at Bradfield College in Berkshire. He was gazetted Second Lieutenant in the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry in August 1905, and had served at various stations abroad, including South Africa and China. 

 

Image credit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission

http://www.cwgc.org

Vivian Edye’s name appears on the Ypres (Menin Gate) Memorial seen above,  as well as on the All Saints’ church war memorial and Budleigh Salterton’s war memorial. 

‘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!!