OUR FIRST WORLD WAR
In part 18 of his personal testimony series, Peter Hart takes us to November 1915, when the carnage at Gallipoli and the western front made the need to blood new recruits ever more pressing. Peter will be tracing the experiences of 20 people who lived thr
Joe Murray
Out in Gallipoli, Ordinary Seaman Joe Murray was still attached to the VIII Corps Mining Company. The weather had been getting cooler but on 26 November a terrible rainstorm lashed down on them. Flash floods engulfed the gullies, building up behind the trench lines and then breaking through by sheer weight of water.
All of a sudden the dam would break and the whole volume came down carrying everything before it. Corpses, all sorts of gear, some people drowning.
The Turks were standing about and so were we. There was no trench to go in – they were all full up with water. It was raining like hell. They were standing there, and we made no attempt to do anything. We couldn’t. Half of us didn’t have any rifles – they’d been flooded in the trench somewhere.
The Turks could have walked through as far as they liked. There was no defence at all. Not where we were. Everywhere was washed up. Fellows ill with dysentery had fallen down and drowned in their own communication trenches and of course other people were going down walking on them. It wasn’t till after the storm that we realised what a lot of people were drowned.
The rain was followed by a terrible freeze, bringing Arctic conditions to Gallipoli. Hundreds of men died and thousands had to be evacuated suffering from severe hypothermia. Yet Joe discovered that not even entombment in a block of ice could rid his shirt of lice.
I spread my shirt on a stone in the trench behind me – it had been three days in a solid block of ice. And do you know, I looked at this shirt and, believe it or not, the blinking lice were still alive and crawling all over it! They’d been three days in a block of ice. You’d have thought that would have killed the damn things – but it didn’t!
John Palmer
At the start of November 1915, Bombardier John Palmer was still suffering the aftereffects of wounds sustained during the battle of Loos. Despite this, he was posted back to the front to join the 105 Battery, 22nd Brigade, Royal Field Artillery. He would not last long. On 5 November he was on duty at a forward observation post.
We got mixed up with a German attack and I came out of it with a broken rib caused by a bayonet thrust. As the Jerry lunged at me, I turned slightly and the point of the bayonet caught my rib, broke it and skidded off. I do not know actually just what happened after that, but we struggled for the rifle and that was the last I knew – until I was dug out of the trench some time later. I was told that a shell had burst on the parapet and we were both buried. I was underneath, drenched in blood, none of which was mine. The hilt of the bayonet was against my breast and the blade had completely transfixed the Jerry – it was his blood which was soaking me. It was a miracle which must have caused it. How the bayonet became detached from the rifle I shall never know.
Carted away to the dressing station where the doctor was quite sarcastic. He just said: “An eighth of an inch higher, an eighth of an inch lower, and I should not have to worry about you, as it is all you have got is a cracked rib!”
That was not all I had though. I knew it now. I was cracking up. Frightened by the shells however far away. I feel I have changed a lot since we first landed in this country some 15 months ago. Then we were all thrilled and anxious and eager to meet the Germans and show them just what we were made of. Now we really know what war means. The loss of so many of our pals, the death, destruction, blood and mud. All I long for now is home and to get out of this living hell.
On 13 November, John Palmer was finally sent home. He would be back to face a new hell on the Somme in 1916.
“I looked at this shirt and, believe it or not, the blinking lice were still alive and crawling all over it! They’d been three days in a block of ice”