OUR FIRST WORLD WAR
In part 49 of his personal testimony series, June 1918, when the threat from the German Peter Spring Hart Offffffensive reaches is beginning to recede, but tensions between the exhausted Allied armies are starting to surface. Peter is tracing the experien
Harold Hayward
Born in 1897 in Alcester, Harold signed up with the 12th Gloucestershire Regiment, fighting on the western front in November 1915. He was injured at the Somme in September 1916 but recovered and returned to the lines, now as an officer. Newly commissioned Second Lieutenant Harold Hayward was serving with the 15th Welch (Carmarthenshire) Regiment in June 1918. He had served in the ranks himself earlier in the war and knew how important it was to establish a strong relationship with his men. I was not Welsh and of course that was a slight barrier – that I didn’t speak with a Welsh accent, which they all did. I had known what it was to be addressed as, “Hey you!” so I wrote down all their names and if possible all their nicknames – the sergeant, then the four corporals, the lance corporals and then the men – so that when I addressed them, at least I used their names. It makes a heck of a lot of difference, instead of, “You, you and you!” After a while, having censored their letters, I got to know something about each man. I knew how to treat one man a little differently from another and I never had to put anyone on a crime sheet.
The officers lived a different life from their men. I shared a dugout with the other officers of the company. Two of us were out on duty while the other two were trying to get some sleep. There was a rough wooden bed on which you lay, instead of lying on mud. Then of course we were fed a little differently. We had our own officers’ batmen who acted as our cooks – so I had things a bit nicer than I did out in the trenches as a man. My batman was Jones. He was old enough to be my father! In a sense he treated me as his son. I couldn’t want anything done that he wouldn’t do – anything.
Hayward was appointed battalion works officer.
My job was to go around the trenches. If they were in anyway knocked about and not first class defensive positions, then I had to take out a company at night and get it repaired. I wasn’t very popular! Nobody had a good word. They could be sitting down playing cards, I had to take them out with me. I had to detail what these chaps had to dig. The commander Royal Engineers said: “We must have another communication trench. It will be a 1,000 yards long from the front line, right the way through support and reserve lines, back into the quiet country.” It was for me to have that dug. I had to pace it out. Every man had to do two nights and there was underground grumbling all the time. I heard a lot of back-slang about it. I thought: “What can I do? Well now, I’ll go and see the colonel.”
I said: “Now, colonel, do you mind, could you approach the general and ask that this trench should be called Carmarthen Trench?” The day that we were going to come out of that sector he said: “Division have said you can call it Carmarthen Trench.” I had already got little labels painted up and before the first man of the battalion coming out of the line, I got one of these about every 200 yards. The chaps came along, “Carmarthen! Carmarthen!”
“If the trenches were knocked about, I had to take out a company at night and get it repaired. I wasn’t very popular!”
His reputation was restored.
Kate Luard
Londoner Kate, born in 1872, trained as a nurse. On the western front she rose to head sister, in charge of a staff of up to 40 nurses and 100 orderlies.
Even times of war can throw up days that are almost perfect. For Sister Kate Luard, serving with 41st Casualty Clearing Station, Saturday 16 June was just such a day.
I suppose you’ve had the same heavenly mornings we’ve had. We emerge about 7.30 from our dugouts, to a loud continuous chorus of larks singing their Te Deum, and also to the hum and buzz of whole squadrons of aeroplanes keeping marvellous V formations against the dazzling blue and white of the sky. The hills are covered with waving corn, like watered silk in the wind, with deep crimson clover, and with fields of huge oxeye daisies, like moving sheets. Today there is no sound of guns and it is all peace and loveliness.
Then there were days that threw up stressful challenges.
I’ve had a mild go of flu, but haven’t knocked off for it and am now better. Jerry comes every night again and drops below the barrage, seeking whom he may devour. I think he gets low enough to see our huge Red Cross, as even when some of our lads butt in and engage him with their machine guns, he hasn’t dropped anything on us, though there is lively scrapping overhead.
It is interesting but too critical to be amusing. A man has had his left arm and left leg off today – they seldom recover. A boy the other day had to have his second leg off and died the same night. He had been craving for strawberries, and by great luck we got some for him the day before.
Joseph Murray
Joe grew up in a County Durham mining community. He served at Gallipoli with the Hood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division, but was wounded in 1917 and evacuated back to England.
Ordinary Seaman Joseph Murray had lost his leading seaman status on leaving front line service. His wounded wrist was still giving him trouble and he was sent to Milford Haven on light duties with the naval police.
I was given lodgings at the Sailors’ Home, Milford Haven. I had a civilian suit, walking stick, umbrella and bowler hat! You ought to see me in a bowler hat! When the war began, the Belgian fishermen with their trawlers fled to England. They employed lots of them at Milford Haven. All the fish was sold on the quayside and it appeared that the fishermen were complaining about not getting enough pay. They sent us naval police down there.
There was one main gate – up comes a lorry, “Hello!” They’d go into the office and hand in a chit. “Please allow the bearer to pass with three stone of hake, haddock and so on.” “All right!” And off they used to go. We let several go and then my mate Hayes and I decided to have a check. The bloke got in the lorry cab and drove up towards the gate – soon as he handed in his chit. “Whooh! Stop there!” Hayes went in front, so they couldn’t move; I opened the back and we find that there was four times as much fish as there was on the chit! The fishermen were paid by the chit and not by fish. They were rumbled.
Sir Douglas Haig
Haig was commander of the British Expeditionary Force on the western front. He had spent the past few months trying to cope with the German Spring Offensive.
In June 1918, Haig was still under incredible pressure. The German threat had receded, but Allied relations were growing fractious.
Losses of our five divisions in the Aisne battle amount to 24,414. One division has had three French divisions relieved on each side of it since it went into battle. Our troops are being used up to the last man in order to give the French courage and fight! Hamilton Gordon commanding our IX Corps gives a dismal picture of the French troops. But this I knew in August 1914; the Somme battle confirmed my view that much of the French good name was the result of newspaper puffs! Now, when the result of the war depends on their ‘fighting spirit’, many of their divisions won’t face the enemy.
Such criticism was unfair, but not uncommon during a stressful battle for survival.
Peter Hart is the oral historian at the Imperial War Museum