Hello. Welcome to the December edition.
In this issue, we have two articles on the Christmas truce of 1914, one on the Welsh memorial at Langemark, and an account of Diege’s work on those commemorated on the Old Colwyn memorial. As ever, please send items of interest to me or Fiona.
Trevor
The Programme for 2014
6th December Members’ social event
Last Month’s Speaker
In November, Denis McCarthy came to talk to us about the Battle of Langemark, including of course the Irish involvement. Denis is doing a part-time PhD in the University of Wolverhampton. He is an acknowledged expert on the 16th Irish Divn, in which his grandfather served.
Unveiling of the Welsh Memorial in Flanders, 16th August 2014
Joy Thomas
In August this year, Marguerite Andrews and I attended the unveiling of the Welsh Memorial on Pilckem Ridge, Langemark in Flanders on 16th August. We were part of a contingent
Private Christmas and Rifleman Strudwick, both at Essex Farm CWGC cemetery
in six coaches from North Wales arranged by Silver Star Holidays of Caernarfon. Leaving North Wales in the early hours of the Thursday morning we journeyed to our hotels in the Lille area arriving late afternoon.
On Friday the morning was taken up by visits to Essex Farm Cemetery and the preserved trenches at Yorkshire Trench. In Essex Farm Cemetery I visited the graves of Private V J Strudwick who was just 15 years old when he was killed, Private C C Christmas of the Machine Gun Corps aged 20 and Private T Barratt VC of the Staffordshire Regiment as well as noting RWF graves. After lunch at a hotel on the outskirts of Ypres, we visited Tyne Cot Cemetery where Marguerite and I laid a cross at a grave for a friend. We then made our way to Hill 62 Museum at Sanctuary Wood. As I had not been before, we went to look at the Canadian Memorial which looks down on the town of Ypres, rather than the Museum.
On Saturday after lunch at the hotel we made our way to Pilckem Ridge for the ceremony taking place at 3pm. The memorial which takes the form of a cromlech topped by the Red Dragon of Wales was conceived by Lee Odishow and is in remembrance of all those of Welsh descent who took part in the First World War. The ceremony was introduced throughout by Roy Noble and Soetkin Ureel. We were welcomed by the Mayor of Langemark-Poelkapelle, Alain Wyffels and addresses were given by Peter Carter Jones and Erwin Ureel who were coordinators of the fund raising project. Accounts of Welsh soldiers were read by Gwydion Rhys in Welsh and Joe Lewis in English. Then there was the ceremonial placing of soil gathered from the summits of Snowden, Pen y Fan and Yr Ysgwrn, home of the poet Hedd Wyn. A guard of honour gathered at the base of the Cromlech and the Welsh flag was lowered accompanied by Dylan Cernyw on the harp. Hedd Wyn’s poem ‘Rhyfel’ was read followed by the Exhortation and Last Post. After the minute’s silence, Simon Weston read the ‘Kohima Epitaph’. After the Reveille, Rhys Meirion sang the song ‘Dweud wrth fy nhad (Tell my father)’ as the Welsh flag was raised. This I found one of the most moving parts of the ceremony as I thought of all those young men who did not return to Wales including my great uncle Rifleman George Thomas. There were then a number of addresses including by the Rt. Hon. Carwyn Jones A.M., First Minister of Wales and then the Memorial was unveiled and blessed followed by the wreath laying ceremony The North Wales Rugby Choir sang the hymns ‘Dros Gymru’n Gwlad’, ‘Gwahoddiad’ and ‘O Iesu Mawr’ during the ceremony. Following the National Anthems, there was an opportunity to lay our own tributes at the Memorial and I laid a cross for my great uncle.
We then made our way into Ypres to find something to eat before making our way to Langemark Church for an evening concert. Performing in the concert were the North Wales Rugby Choir, Rhys Meirion and Dylan Cernyw. It was a fitting way to end a memorable day.
On Sunday, we went to Artillery Wood Cemetery to attend a service in memory of Ellis Humphrey Evans ‘Hedd Wyn’. The weather was not kind to us today and it was rainy and blustery. Also the PA system failed and it was difficult to hear. The North Wales Rugby choir, Rhys Meirion and Dylan Cernyw again took part in the service. Following the service we stopped at the Welsh Memorial to take photographs and then made our way into Ypres for the Welsh themed Menin Gate Ceremony. As Marguerite and I had been to the ceremony several times before we did not go very early but did manage to get under the gate itself. There were a huge number of people so we could not see very much but we could hear very well. Once again musical contributions were made by the North Wales Rugby Choir, Rhys Meirion and Dylan Cernyw. The Choir sang the hymn ‘Gwahoddiad’ and I am sure there were many like myself joining in the singing.
Our journey home from Lille to St Asaph took 12 hours with some people travelling on to Caernarfon and the Lleyn Peninsula. We had enjoyed the trip enormously and felt proud to be Welsh.
The Christmas Truce 1914
Keith Walker
Christmas Eve was cold and a hard frost had settled on the ground. As light faded the British infantry were astonished to see many small Christmas trees with candles and paper lanterns alight on the parapet of the German trenches. They then heard the German troops singing carols “Stille Nacht” and hymns. Gradually contact was made with the German troops and a general agreement was made to bury the dead lying in no man’s land the following day.
Capt Bruce Bainsfather (9th July 1887-29th September 1959) “later of Old Bill fame” was a twenty-six year old reservist with the 1st Btn Royal Warwickshires who were stationed at St Yvon near Ploegstreert Wood. As he watched the sun dip below the clear sky on Christmas Eve, he felt “a sense of strangeness.”
The next morning Christmas Day, which was cold with a low mist lying over the battlefield, Capt Bainsfather said “I awoke at dawn and on emerging on all fours from my dugout, became aware that the trench was practically empty. I stood upright in the mud and looked over the parapet, no man’s land was full of clusters of khaki and grey pleasantly chatting together”.
Capt. B. Bainsfather joined his troops and exchanged two of his uniform buttons for two buttons from a German lieutenant’s coat. Bainsfather later also drew a map of the area where he met frightful Fritz and hateful Heinrich (below).
Christmas Truce by Soren Hawkes MA
Another officer, Capt Robert Hamilton(1878-1959), also of the 1st Btn Royal Warwickshires, stated in his journal “ a day unique in the worlds history. I met this officer and we arranged a local armistice for forty eight hours.” He added “the soldiers on both sides met in their hundreds and exchanged greetings and gifts.”
On the hill above Ploegstreet Wood at Mesines, the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment was in the reserve trenches resting. In the billet at Bethlehem Farm which was the regimental H.Q, there was dispatch runner, Gefreiter Adolf Hitler (20th April1889-30th April 1945). Although the regiment was in reserve, there were discussions about crossing no man’s land to exchange presents. Hitler refused and is reported to have said “such a thing should not happen in wartime. Have you no German sense of honour left at all.”
Further down the line, was Pte Frank Richards of the 2nd Btn Royal Welch Fusiliers. Richards (1883-1961) was a regular soldier who had joined the ranks in 1901. He had served in Burma and India where he had “risen”, he wrote in his memoir, to the rank of private!
On Christmas morning, he and his mates who were in the front line at Houplines Nr Armentieres “stuck up a board” with the words “A Merry Christmas” and waited to see what would happen. As the mist cleared that morning, the soldiers on both sides “got a bit venturous and looked over the top”. Richards noticed “a German started to walk down the towpath (of the Lys river) towards our line”. After contact was made “cigars and two barrels of beer” from the Germans were exchanged for “tins of bully beef, and plum and apple jam.” During the day, burial parties buried the dead. Fraternisation continued throughout the day. Men exchanged greetings and gifts. It has even been suggested that football matches took place. At nightfall, the men slowly returned to their trenches.
Boxing Day was quiet in the trenches and very little fraternisation took place. Richards states “during the whole of Boxing Day the 2nd Welch never fired a shot, and the enemy the same.”
The 2nd Btn Royal Welch Fusiliers were relieved from the front line by 2nd Btn Durham Light Infantry in the late afternoon of Boxing Day without notice.
It was not quiet all along the Western Front. Records show that ninety six British soldiers died on Christmas Eve, eighty one on Christmas Day and sixty two on Boxing Day 1914. German losses are not known.
Frank Richards in later life
References
Stanley Weintraub. Silent Night. Published Plume 2002
Frank Richard. Old soldiers never die. Published Faber and Faber 1933
Andrew Hamilton. Meet at dawn unarmed. Published Dene House 2009
C.W.G.C
The Christmas Truce at Frelinghien 1914
Steve Binks
The First Battle of Ypres ended on the 22nd November 1914. German attempts to break through Ypres to the Channel Ports had failed. However, British losses had been devastating: 10,000 officers and men lay dead and a further 40,000 had been wounded.
With the onset of winter, French troops relieved the remnants of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) from around Ypres, as both allies and Germans licked their wounds and started to dig trenches, eventually stretching 450 miles, from the North Sea to the Swiss border. With little change, these trenches would be the home of millions of French, German and British troops for the next three years.
The British line ran from “Whitesheet” (north of Ypres), through “Plugstreet Wood”, Armentieres, Bois Grenier, Neuve Chapelle to the La Bassee Canal; just twenty one miles as the crow flies.
With few exceptions, offensive action was limited to snipping, bombing and the occasional shelling; trench raiding was as yet very rare although patrols on ground established between the opposing trenches – No Man’s Land – was commonplace. However this “quiet” period still inflicted great loss on the BEF with fatalities averaging fifty other ranks per day! As Christmas approached, the generals warned against possible fraternisation with the enemy, worried that the fighting spirit of the British “Tommy” would be affected.
The Christmas Truce of 1914 is well documented in war diaries, official histories and private letters and accounts, no more so than the events of Christmas Day in No Man’s Land in front of the 2nd Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers (19th Brigade, 3rd Division).
On Christmas Day, the battalion held the front line north of Houplines at the village of Frelinghien, down to the Lys River (bordering France and Belgium). Opposite them, holding trenches that included the village brewery was a detachment of the machine gun company of no. 6 Jaeger Battalion.
(The following events are taken from Captain Clifton Stockwell and Private Isaac Sawyer, 2/RWF)
Christmas Day was cold and the battlefield in front of the Fusiliers was misty with little visibility. A pheasant had been shot on Christmas Eve and successfully retrieved; along with treats and comforts from home the men enjoyed their Christmas dinner. Pioneer Sergeant J.J. “Nobby” Hall stuck up a board with the message “Merry Christmas” with a painting of the Kaiser. The enemy responded similarly.
As the mist cleared a German could be seen approaching the Fusiliers trenches down the canal towpath; Private Sawyer climbed out of the trench to meet him, shaking his hand. The German offered him a box of cigars as more Germans left their trenches. The Welsh had been told not to leave their trenches – Captain Stockwell does not mention this – however Private Frank Richards corroborates this story; that the Welsh began to throw tins of bully beef and apple jam in to No Man’s Land, as the fraternisation spread.
As Captain Stockwell sat down in his dug out to lunch (unaware of events) his duty sergeant suddenly appeared and told him there were half a dozen Germans standing on the parapet! “Don’t shoot; we don’t want to fight today” they said. Stockwell claims he met an officer in No Man’s Land (now known to be Hauptmann Maximillian Freiherr Von Sinner) and shook hands. Stockwell states that the German officer was well turned out but that he was dressed in a goatskin coat. He then advises the Germans that it was dangerous to fraternise and that they should return to their trenches, at which point two barrels of beer were rolled across from the German trenches. Stockwell suggests that he and five German officers shared a drink from glasses supplied by a German dressed as a waiter. With nothing to offer in exchange Stockwell suddenly remembered that the battalion had some spare plum puddings and duly offered them to the Germans. At this point the Germans returned to their trenches, as did Stockwell.
At 8.30am on Boxing Day, Stockwell fired three shots, climbed on to the parapet and raised a flag with “Merry Christmas”. A German office responded with two shots, signalling to both sides that the war was back on, although conversations and singing went on all day with no shooting, each side waiting for the other to commence!
Recent research has stated that the Christmas truce was enacted across two thirds of the 21 miles of trenches occupied by the BEF, that is around 14 miles. However, the trench lines were rarely straight, twisting and turning to obscure visibility of the neighbouring battalions, perhaps just 200 yards away!
So whilst Christmas Day 1914 brought a brief respite for a few, it witnessed the poignant death of forty three officers and men; a greater number than in 1917 when the British held well over 100 miles of front line trench!
Christmas Truce Memorial in the old No Man’s Land at Frelinghien, engraved with the RWF cap badge
First of the sixty six
Steve Binks
On Monday 20th October 2014, Diege’s many years of research in to the men on the Old Colwyn Memorial was finally realised and acknowledged. The local council had agreed to erect an information board from which Diege could post information and thus commemorate the 100th anniversary of each of the soldiers’ deaths; this is the story of the first of sixty six men.
John David Jones was born in Old Colwyn in May 1889. The 1891 census shows the family living at 4 Rhos View Terrace (Lysfaen Road). He later had connections with Liverpool House – now a 8Balti takeaway on Abergele road, Old Colwyn – but by the 1901 census he was living in Festiniog with his mother and his four brothers, the eldest of whom is shown as head of the household working as a quarryman and the main bread winner of the family.
Vicar Philip Atack blesses the new information panels; the council eventually supplying two!
The family moved to Liverpool and by 1911 were living under the same roof at 4 Roby Street, Wavertree. John, like his brothers – at this time – was an unemployed labourer.
On 31st July 1911, John enlisted in the 3rd Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers, Special Reserve at Litherland, Liverpool. His six year commitment – after initial training – was to attend yearly training and serve overseas during times of war. Meanwhile he remained at home, continued to work (by now he was working as a cotton porter) and was paid a retainer to remain in the army.
On the outbreak of war John was mobilized from the reserve. He reported to the regimental depot at Wrexham where he was posted to the 1st Battalion R.W.F on the 19th September 1914.
His battalion disembarked at Zeebrugge, Belgium on the 7th October 1914 as part of the Seventh Infantry Division. After failing to prevent the fall of Antwerp, the Seventh Division arrived in Ypres on the 14th October 1914 where a general advance began against the German forces. It became known as the First Battle of Ypres. The objective for Rawlinson’s Seventh Division was the border town of Menin.
Just south of Dadizeele, the Royal Welsh Fusiliers deployed, supported by further units of the 22nd Brigade, 7th Division. The German outposts in Kezelberg were driven in and the leading waves were within 200 yards of their objectives, when orders were received for a general withdrawal. Although unknown at the time, the reason to withdraw coincided with the arrival of the German 4th Army and their objective to capture the Channel ports.
By this time however, the Royal Welsh had advanced their centre to such a degree that communication of orders was difficult and they were heavily engaged by enemy artillery and a frontal attack. Eventually the battalion was able to take up a new position on the ridge near the windmill, from which they were able to successfully cover the retirement of the rest of the brigade. Nineteen officers and men were killed in action with a further 49 others wounded before the battalion could withdraw.
On the 21st October, one hundred years after his death Diege stands by the new memorial at the Kezelberg Crossroads to Guillaime Vanraes; this was also the central position of the Royal Welsh advance. The windmill was originally over Diege’s left shoulder.
Besides information panels the memorial commemorates the first civilian shot by the Germans as a “franc-tireur” (a sniper). Local residents were rounded up and searched. Guillaume Vanraes was found to be carrying empty bullet casings. He was summarily shot at the site of what is today the memorial. The Flemish named the 19th October 1914, “Schuwe Maandag” which translates as “Terrible Monday”.
Private John David Jones has no known grave and is commemorated on the Memorial to the Missing at the Menin Gate.
Research using the latest on-line CWGC records indicates that the Germans buried the Royal Welsh Fusilier’s dead in the churchyard, in the town of Gheluwe, which remained in German hands until the last few months of the war. Concerned at the lack of Belgian post war care of German cemeteries (that contained British dead), the Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission) exhumed the British dead from German burial grounds and reburied them in British cemeteries.
Records indicate that the fatalities of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers from the fighting of the 19th October 1914 were exhumed from Gheluwe in 1922 and reburied in Harlebeke British Cemetery, thirteen miles east of Gheluwe. Unfortunately, on reburial many of the fatalities could not be identified and were consequently buried as “An Unknown Solider of the Great War”.
Diege stands at the end of a row that contains the graves of two known and fourteen partial and unknown Royal Welsh Fusiliers, inscribed “October 1914”. It is likely that Private John David Jones lies under one of these unknown headstones.
John married Mary (Crooks) on the 31st March 1914 and resided at 9 Godwin Street, Toxteth Park, Liverpool. On the 14th January 1915 Mary gave birth to a baby girl – Mary Kathleen. Mary registered the child’s father as her deceased husband, John David Jones. Tragically the child contracted bronchial pneumonia, which proved fatal; she died, aged just three months old.
The top map shows the locations of Gheluwe, Kezelberg, south of Ledghem and Harlebeke
The red line indicates the advance of the 1/RWF. Kezelberg – later Windy crossroads on British trench maps and the Windmill are indicated
Last Post Association
Joy Thomas
An article in the November issue of Saga Magazine featured an interview with Last Post bugler Antoon Verschoot aged 89. It reminded me of a photograph I took of Antoon in 2007 and it is the best photograph I have taken of the buglers. This year the centenary of the start of the First World War, is his 60th year as a volunteer bugler. He has been playing the Last Post at the Menin Gate every other week since 15th May 1954 and has only missed playing twice in that time. In the article he is quoted as saying “Christmas and birthdays or choir practice, it doesn’t matter, I always put my duty first. I’ve played it around 14,000 times if I include all the extra occasions I’ve filled in. And after six decades I still get chocked up”. Antoon has received many awards including an MBE from the Queen. We can only salute such dedication to duty and thank him for his service to those who attend the Menin Gate Ceremony.
There is a BBC NI programme on iPlayer at www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-30050870 on the photos taken by George Hackney who took his camera with him to the Western Front. It includes three photos taken on the first day of the Somme. They were given to the Ulster museum on his death in 1977, but were simply stored and until recently were not appreciated for the unique record that they are.
And coming hotfoot is………….
Mark doing the sponsored fire-walk at Llandudno for Blind Veterans UK
Trevor Adams trevormcmadams@gmail.com