Uncle suffered in the ‘forgotten’ war
I WRITE further to the letter from John Freeman (“Remember those buried far from home”, Western Daily Press, November 5).
My father and his eldest brother, Ralph, volunteered in 1914 and enlisted in the Somerset Light Infantry Territorials.
After training, they went to India and then to Mesopotamia – modern-day Iraq – where the fight was against Germany’s ally Turkey to prevent them capturing the oilfields which were essential for providing the fuel to power our ships.
Ralph was one of 40 volunteers from the 5th Battalion who went from India to reinforce the Ox and Bucks. It was with them that he fought in the siege of Kut-al-Amara and was taken prisoner when the town had to surrender. Ralph survived the force-march through the heat of the desert to Baghdad, the brutal beating they received when paraded through the streets of the city, and on to a prisoner of war camp in Asia Minor.
In July 1916, Ralph was one of a number of prisoners who were released in a prisoner exchange. He was in such a poor condition that he was sent back to hospital in India. When he was released he managed to bring with him some of the bread the prisoners were given to eat by their Turkish captors.
A doctor in the hospital was intrigued by the bread and had some of it analysed. It was found to consist mainly of hay and straw horse fodder. Ralph said it was so hard you had to find some water to soak it in before you could eat it. The bread is still kept in Ralph’s family today.
Ralph said that at one time after his release he was told to take a rifle and guard some Turkish prisoners but he refused, saying, “If you give me a rifle I will shoot them for what they did to us”.
Many Somerset, Dorset and
Devon men fought and died in that theatre of the war. I thank
John for bringing attention to the Mesopotamia war and the Siege of Kut because, as is the case for Korea, Mesopotamia seems to be a forgotten war.