Our young remember
THE centenary events commemorating the Great War have come to a close and we’ve all been touched by them.
For my husband and I, one of the most moving was Wolverhampton Schools’ Poppy Remembrance Service, on November 9th. Three hundred primary and secondary pupils marched alongside serving armed forces personnel and veterans to an open air service in St Peter’s Square.
Ken and I felt very proud as our seven year old grandson, Jacob, was among the ranks of orderly school kids – each one holding a large, red poppy bearing the name of someone who had died during the war.
During the closing stages, two girls read their winning pieces from a schools’ competition, entitled ‘A Message Home’. Pupils had been asked to write a letter home from a soldier to their loved ones. Like the named poppies, the letters helped personalise events from a terrible war, normally so distant from today’s youngsters. It was a poignant moment.
A century ago, British children had to grow up quickly. In 1914, there were around 5 million children in primary school. Education was only compulsory from ages 5 to 12, with just half the children staying on to age 14. So, when war broke out, many school leavers went into war work.
Schools dug up playgrounds, the children planting vegetables to ease the food crisis. Youngsters knitted socks, scarves and balaclavas for the troops – or made bandages for the wounded. Close to military camps, they also took on mending uniforms.
From 1915, as German Zeppelins began bombing raids, 18 pupils were killed when their primary school suffered a direct hit during a daylight raid on London. Zeppelin raids also killed civilians in Walsall and Bilston.
Young workers
As the war progressed, more children went into war work, especially in munitions factories. By 1915, 8,000 boys worked in munitions in Woolwich Arsenal. By then, around 35 per cent of working boys and girls were doing war work, many doing 12 hour shifts in dangerous industries.
The scout movement founded by Baden-powell also played a major role. In August 1914 when war was declared, many scout troops were away at summer training camps. In many cases, scout leaders and their assistants were also reservists or in the Territorials. Many were called up from the outset.
Baden-powell encouraged scouts to look for opportunities to help the war effort, including supporting relief organisations, service personnel and their families, and establishing first aid posts.
As fears of enemy espionage and invasion grew, scouts were also given a range of more dangerous duties, including guarding telephone lines, railway bridges and military sites. They also worked as dispatch riders for various government departments.
The boys on telephone line guarding duties worked four hour shifts, or sometimes overnight.
Others, as young as eleven, worked as buglers, sounding the all clear during bombing attacks. Unlike during the Second World, there were no sirens for air raids. Instead, they used red flares called maroons to alert the public, while policemen cycled round the area wearing placards, warning people to take cover.
As more men went to the Front, scouts took on more roles. In coastal areas, in the absence of coastguards, they were assigned coast-watching duties. In daytime, they patrolled in pairs, reporting anything suspicious that was washed ashore to the local coastguard station – ever watchful for mines.
Bunkers
At night, scouts were assigned look-out duty in bunkers by the coastguard station. Armed with night binoculars and a phone, they watched over the boats. They were also given a chart showing all the different flags, in case they saw something suspicious.
Working along the coast put many scouts in a vulnerable position, often exposed to enemy fire. Despite this, the scouts were unarmed and most boys did not consider their work to be dangerous. Sadly for some, this was not always the case. One young lad sent to watch the coast at Whitby lost a leg during a German naval bombardment on the town.
During the war, younger scouts under 14 were still obliged to attend school, full time, despite their sterling service to the war effort. Yet, very often, special arrangements were made, with schools’ and parents’ permission to allow them to attend school, part-time – enabling them to carry out war effort activities alongside the older scouts. Some boys even tried to do both, carrying out night-watch duties – trying their best to stay awake at school the next day.
For scouts who turned 18 during the war and enlisted, their scouting experience gave them an advantage. Especially when it came to drilling, and using semaphore or Morse Code. The contribution the scouts made to the war effort was widely appreciated.
Not to be left out, at the outbreak of war, girl guides besieged Guide headquarters, volunteering for the war effort. A committee was convened, issuing guidelines as to what the girls could do to help and what work was deemed appropriate for them. All guides’ voluntary work had to be done for official societies and public organisations. Girls also had to have written permission from their captain, identifying them and outlining their exact role.
Girl Guides were not allowed to take on any military duties. Instead, their work focused on local communities and auxiliary medical support. They were encouraged to support the Red Cross Society and St John’s Association, local hospitals and relief centres.
For many girls, Guides was an extra activity, as they juggled to balance their voluntary work with regular, paid employment.
Over time, guides’ war work became more varied. Many supported local VADS, helping transport hospital equipment, in carts, or setting up new, temporary hospitals. Some took in sewing, darning socks for territorial soldiers and making bandages. And, in preparation for an invasion, guides trained local agricultural workers in basic first aid and how to carry stretchers. Others took on gardening and agricultural work, making sandbags and collecting reading material for patients.
The Guides were also asked to convert their meeting rooms into hospitals and safe houses for the public to use during air raids – which is how the girls first found themselves put in danger. Rather than insisting the girls take shelter during air raids, headquarters encouraged them to patrol outside, searching for wounded, and administering first aid.
Less well known is the Guides’ work in intelligence. A Government document reveals that between 1914 and 18, girl guides acted as messengers for MI5.
At the start of the war, MI5 employed boy scouts, but apparently finding them too excitable and talkative to be trusted completely carrying confidential material, they replaced them with apparently “calmer” girl guides.
Top secret
Britain’s national intelligence service employed 90 guides aged 14-16, paying them 10 shillings a week. The girl messengers carried top secret documents, also collecting confidential waste material. Occasionally, the most trusted girls were asked to memorise and pass on information, verbally.
Girls were recommended for these roles by their company Captain. If a girl was discharged from the service, this was also carried out by her Captain, under Government orders. Messengers worked 9 hour days, usually from 9am-6pm, or 10am-7pm, with breaks for lunch and tea. They worked throughout the week, with every other Sunday, and one half-day, off per week. Holiday was given at Christmas and Easter, with one week’s leave in summer. Like the scouts, guides also made a sterling contribution on the Home Front.
During the Great War, the legal age to sign up for military service was 18. For armed service overseas, it was 19. Yet, over 250,000 boys under 19 ended up volunteering to fight.
In those days, many didn’t have birth certificates so it was easier to lie about their age. Recruitment checks also focused more on fitness than verifying age. It seems that recruitment offices, as well as parents, teachers and even MPS, all helped underage young men enlist – the argument being if they were fit and keen to fight – why stop them?
In September 1916, young seaman, Jack Cornwell, was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery at the Battle of Jutland – the youngest recipient of the award:
“Mortally wounded early in the action, Boy, First Class, John Travers Cornwell, remained standing alone at a most exposed post, quietly awaiting orders, until the end of action, with the gun’s crew dead and wounded around him. His age was under sixteen and a half years.”