WWI REMEMBERED Many lives lost on duty laying mines under German lines at Passchendaele

JULY 1917 began with the sad news of the death of Gunner William John Deeble, Royal Horse Artillery. He had died at Norwich Hospital on the 12th day of the month as a result of gas poisoning sustained in France a few weeks previously.

William was the second of eight children, born in 1883 to Annie and Richard Deeble, of 4 New Road, Porthcawl.

In 1912, William had married Jane Turner, who was working as a domestic servant to Robert Rankin at 7 Suffolk Place.

Following their marriage they moved to Barry, Jane’s hometown. In 1913, their daughter Olive was born, followed by Iris in 1916.

William is buried in Merthyr Dyfan Cemetery, Barry.

He was by no means the only Deeble from Porthcawl to serve in the First World War.

His brother James, a painter and decorator in the town, served for a short time with the Monmouthshire Regiment, before he was discharged on July 2, suffering with a condition that severely affected his digestive system.

However, another brother Sidney, a former quarryman, having enlisted into the Royal Horse Artillery Reserve on July 1, 1910 at Port Talbot, was embodied into the RHA Regiment on August 5, 1914, the day after war was declared.

Throughout the next two years he served on the Home Front. Then in August 1916 – as Gunner Sidney Deeble, attached to the Royal Field Artillery, with another Porthcawlian, Corporal Harry Batters – he underwent training at Salisbury Plain.

Harry, unfortunately, suffered so severe an injury while training that he was discharged that same month.

Sid, on the other hand, as part of the 58th Trench Mortar Battery, was posted on January 20, 1917, to the Western Front where his unit saw action at Messines and Passchendaele.

Returning to Blighty in April 1918, Sid was promoted to Corporal and transferred to the Labour Corps on August 31, 1918, from whence he was discharged on April 30, 1919.

Finally, there was another Deeble that served in the war. It is not known how she was related to the three brothers, but Miss Frances Deeble served with the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC).

Formed in July 1917, the WAAC was organised into four units: cookery, mechanical, clerical and miscellaneous. The War Office had stated that any job given to a member of WAAC must result in a man being released for frontline duties.

On the Western Front, the month of July 1917 was taken up with preparations for an offensive in Flanders.

Following the somewhat limited success of laying a significant number of mines under the German lines, preceding the Big Push at Messines, it was decided to repeat the tactic at a place called Passchendaele.

Once again, within the ranks of the Royal Engineers were miners from South Wales as well as the north-east of England, who were employed in this extremely dangerous task.

Many lost their lives in the execution of their duty, as did men from other units.

One such man was Corporal Albert Edward Ironside, the grandfather of Bridgend MP Madeleine Moon.

He was attached to the “O” Cable Section, Royal Engineers (RE), and was killed on July 22, while laying communication lines, preceding the battle.

Albert, a farm labourer from Sunderland who was married with one son, also called Albert Edward, had enlisted in the RE prior to the war.

On August 15 he landed in France with the British Expeditionary Force and throughout the next three years would have been assigned to laying signal communications in various parts of the Western Front.

In July 1917 his unit was assigned to laying cables in unsuitable terrain, fearing bombardment from German shelling, amid the heavy rainfall in the weeks leading up to Passchendaele.

Yet the Germans had changed tactics by July 1917.

They allowed the enemy to cover an increasing amount of ground in the hope that they would lose momentum.

Consequently, forward signal parties would often become involved in fighting.

Such evidence suggests that Corporal Ironside may have, therefore, been entrapped and died fighting.

Cpl Ironside is buried in Dozinghem Cemetery, north-east of Ypres.

Meanwhile chief officer Angus Grant, mercantile marine, was one of two lives lost when his ship Begona No 4 was torpedoed and sunk on July 27 off the coast of Ireland by German Submarine U46 while sailing to Cork with a cargo of phosphates.

Angus, one of seven children, was born on November 14, 1870, in Pencoed where his parents, Donald and Mary, ran the village post office.

When Angus was 14, he joined the Great Western Railway and worked on Pencoed Station but on June 7, 1886, aged 15, he enlisted into the merchant service.

He eventually gained his master mariner certificate in March 1897, followed by a certificate of competency as an extra master mariner in June 1897.

At the time of his death Angus had served for 31 years in the merchant service.

Angus never married and before his death had bought a house in Porthcawl, at 32, Esplanade Avenue.

His sister Catherine Pyves, a widow, continued to live there after he died.