‘I’ve Walked In Herman’s Wartime Steps’
In a labour of love, Jon Gliddon has charted the exact movements of his grandfather’s company in 1918, and made his own visit to the battlefields. By Gail Dixon
My abiding memory of my grandfather Herman Pike is his eyes,” explains Jon Gliddon, a former mining engineer who lives in Somerset. “He had one slightly askew, and I was never sure which eye to look into. Years later I discovered that he had his right eye removed and replaced with a glass eye, because of a wound he suffered in 1918.”
Herman was born in Exeter, Devon, in 1899, and worked as an organ builder. “He was a quiet, thoughtful and kind man. He passed away in 1960, when I was only eight years old.”
Like many of his generation, Herman kept his wartime experiences to himself. “All the family knew was that he enlisted with one of the Training Regiments four days before his 18th birthday.”
In 2014, Jon retired and decided to research his grandfather’s life. “I had a breakthrough when
I met Cliff Chappell, who was apprenticed to my grandfather in the 1950s. Cliff told me that Herman was a marksman, and that he was wounded when he ‘looked up, one too many times’.”
Jon found Herman’s British Army pension record on Ancestry ( ancestry.co.uk), which proved a revelation. “Grandfather fought with the 6th Battalion of the Dorsetshire Regiment, and joined ‘A’ Company in France on 10 April 1918. The pension record also revealed that he suffered gunshot wounds on 4 November, a week before the Armistice.
“My next destination was The Keep Military Museum in Dorchester, Dorset, where the regimental records are held. I wanted to know exactly where Herman was stationed, and which battles he fought in.
“The knowledgeable staff gave me copies of the battalion records for 4 November, and the trench maps.” The regiment was engaged in the Battle of the Sambre, which was part of the Allied armies’ push towards Belgium.
“The Dorsets came under heavy machine-gun fire from the retreating Germans. I was able to pinpoint that Herman was wounded while fighting in the Forest of Mormal, just south of the Route de la Flaquette. His company was 800 yards northwest of the village of Locquignol when he was hit. Bullet fragments entered his forehead just above the right eye, his nose and right hand, between 3pm and 5pm.”
Jon was so enthralled that he
The Dorsets came under heavy fire from the retreating Germans
decided to retrace Herman’s steps. “In 2015 I visited France, and walked the length of the road where the Dorsets came under fire. Weeks earlier, Herman’s company had to negotiate a ravine to reach the Front. The track is only wide enough for single file, so I literally walked in my grandfather’s footsteps. It was very moving, and I found myself talking out loud to Herman.
“Grandfather was involved in several major battles. I used to think that Herman was unlucky to have been injured just before the Armistice, but now I realise how fortunate he was. The Allied push in 1918 resulted in some of the bloodiest battles of the war, and the Dorsets suffered particularly heavy losses.”
Jon found the bravery of Herman and his comrades so inspiring that in 2018 he collated the regimental records into a book. It’s called Mud, Blood and Bayonet: The Story of the 6th Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment, 1918 Day by Day.
“While the brave Dorsets are no longer with us, their experiences are captured in the War Diaries, and their handwritten notes are still legible on dog-eared trench maps. Mud, Blood and Bayonet is dedicated to my family hero, Herman Alfred Pike.”