Friday, November 11, 2011

They shall grow not old

In the summer of 1964, when I was 18 and had just done my A-Levels, the BBC began to broadcast a very moving and detailed documentary series called The Great War, to mark the 50th  anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War.  At the time my widowed grandfather (my mother’s father) lived next-door to us.  Each week during that summer and autumn, I went round to his house to watch the new episode with him and talk to him about his memories of that same war.

Granddad had served in France throughout the war and came home with severely damaged hearing from prolonged exposure to the noise of the artillery, which it had been his job to supply with ammunition. Even worse, his whole family had been devastated by the death in action of his younger brother, the baby of the family, on 16 February 1916 at the age of 21.
 
My grandfather in uniform
Uncle Walter in uniform

















Before the war Walter had been a labourer in a cement works in his native Hull. On enlistment he became a private in the 7th Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment and, as his medal card shows, went to France on 13 July 1915. However, Walter did not serve as a combatant, but instead as a regimental stretcher-beareras can be seen from the SB armband he wears in this photograph.

I'm indebted to our own family historian, my next-to-youngest sister, for most of this detailed and poignant information and she points out that being a stretcher-bearer was no guarantee of safety: “ It was very risky moving stretchers through the trenches, but especially trying to rescue the injured from No Man's Land.”

According to official regimental records, in the early morning of 15 February 1916, Walter’s regiment was moved up from Divisional Reserve to the Ypres Salient, to a place called The Bluff, at one end of the infamous Hill 60 and just north of the Ypres Canal. Late in the evening of the same day, the regiment took part in a poorly-planned and ineffective attempt to retake trenches captured by the Germans the previous day. 
The official account continues: 
The East Yorkshiremen were then ordered to consolidate the ground they held. The 16th was comparatively quiet. At night the Battalion was relieved and, by 5 p.m. on 17th, all Companies were back in Reninghelst.

This was the first action in which the 7th Battalion was engaged, and it is interesting to note what the C.O. said of his men in his report to Brigade H.Q. :—"l wish to express my appreciation of the excellent conduct of all ranks of the Battalion during these operations. Pelted by the snow storm, continually hampered, halted and pushed on the road by transport, soaked to the skin, ordered back on arrival and again forward on getting back, were a severe test of their soldierly qualities and which, in my opinion, they came through with credit. Later they were operating in unknown trenches, over unknown ground and under heavy shell fire most of the time and again acquitted themselves well."

The Bluff - part of the Ypres Salient
In this aerial photograph of the battlefield, taken on 20 February 1916, the frozen canal, the craters and the German trenches can clearly be seen.  The operations in the area of the Bluff, from the start of the enemy attack on 14 February to noon on 17 February, cost the British 1,294 casualties, of whom my great-uncle was just one.

Although Walter’s death was witnessed, he has no known grave, which implies either that his body was not able to be recovered from the battlefield or that his grave was subsequently lost. He is commemorated on Panel 31 of the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres.

Walter's name on the Menin Gate Memorial


The report of Walter’s death in the Hull Daily Mail for 26 February 1916 reads: “Pte. W. Sutcliffe, a young Hull soldier of the 7th East Yorks., whose home was at 4 Earle’s-row, Wilmington, has been killed while attending a wounded comrade. An intimation has been received to this effect. Private William Nicholls, a friend in the same regiment, writes to his relatives: “He was dressing a pal’s wound when he was hit, and died a few moments later.  God bless “Jack” he has done his duty well. He was well liked by all the officers and men of the battalion.” Private Sutcliffe, who was 21, had recently been home on leave.

It’s all a very long time ago now, but the repercussions have come down through the years to this day. My memories of my grandfather, with his damaged hearing and his enduring sense of loss at the death of his brother, are still vivid. Two months after her young uncle’s death, my mother was born and a new little family looked towards the future. But there was a gap which was never filled. Rest in peace, Great-Uncle Walter. I wish I’d had the chance to know you.
My Great-Uncle Walter

My grandparents and my mother - Summer 1916


42 comments:

  1. Thank you, a beautiful and poignant post that helps make it more real for those, like myself, who know no direct connection with this war. One grandfather was too old, the other too young (just) to be directly involved in it; both parents lived through WWII, one as a child the other as a serviceman (just).

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  2. Hello Perpetua:
    This is a very sad and poignant reminder of the terrible waste of human life and suffering of so many in the atrocious war of 1914 - 1918. It also serves, through your personal account of one individual, as a reminder to each one of us to remember all those who have lost their lives in, or been affected by, all wars at all times, and not least those which continue around us right up to the present day.

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  3. As ever Perpetua, well researched and beautifully written and illustrated.
    All wars are terrible, but in many ways the most significant factor of the 14/18 conflict was the extreme youth of so many who were lost.
    It would be wonderful to be able to believe that each battle in each war strengthened the desire to find another way to resolve differences, but alas, that appears to be as distant a dream as ever.

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  4. It is so interesting to read this, Perpetua. I have just finished reading an excellent novel by AS Byatt called 'The Children's Book' which ends with the first world war claiming the lives of many of the characters in the book. I was very moved by this novel and by the loss of some of my favourite people - who were not real - though the war claimed so many who were.
    One who did make it through - despite going missing for some time - was a stretcher bearer. Luckier in fiction than Walter, your great uncle, was in fact. AS Byatt writes very movingly and has researched her work thoroughly but your words, including those from the period, reach that bit further into the heart.
    I personally find Remembrance Day as frustrating as poignant simply because we still haven't learnt enough from it - and by 'we', I do of course, mean 'they'. It adds more poignancy to poignant, which is in itself poignant...if you follow me.

    And we must still remember.
    Axxx

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  5. Wonderful account. Personal reflections are so important to all of us in being able to understand the tragedy and waste of war and the horrific legacy it brings to those who are left bereft. My mother-in-law was 3 years old when her father was killed and the path her life took as a result of his loss caused her much difficulty, pain and sorrow.

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  6. Thank you, Catriona. That's exactly what I was hoping to do, so it's nice to know you think it worked. I have my sister to thank for almost all the facts, so that I could concentrate on the thought that all statistics, especially casualty statistic, are made up of unique and irreplaceable individuals.

    My father served in WW2 - on minesweepers in the North Sea.

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  7. Thank you, Jane and Lance. I found it very moving to weave all the information my sister had collected into a personal account of a great-uncle I never knew. Such a terrible waste of young lives and their potential and, as you remind us, it's still going on, as though we have learned nothing from the past.

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  8. Thank you, Ray, though I can take no credit for almost all the information I used to write this. I found one or two extra links, but it was my sister who did all the donkey-work and whose hand is shown pointing at Uncle Walter's name on the Menin Gate Memorial.

    I so agree with you about the youth of so many of the combatants. In an item on the BBC News website today:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15645345

    mention is made of a young soldier who was killed on the Somme at 17, having joined up at the age of 15!

    Like you I don't think we've learned the lessons war should teach us, even after so many dreadful examples in the past 100 years.

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  9. A good piece, as always, but in the interests of accuracy I need to tell you that the second photo you think is of Walter is in fact Harold, granddad's older brother, who served in a Scottish regiment and had received gunshot wound. Walter never looked more than a boy. I find the photos of him as an early Boy Scout (pre-war) are particularly poignant

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  10. Thank you, Annie, not least for the mention of the A S Byatt book, which I will track down.

    I found the post very poignant to write, especially as I sifted through family photos and saw again and again just how young and ordinary and nice Walter looked. It must have been a terrible blow for his widowed mother to lose her youngest child like that and he was one of so very, very many.

    As you say, we must remember and try to help the next generations to do better than ours have done.

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  11. Looking back at the researches I did in 2008 it seems Uncle Harold was shot twice, firstly in the arm and then in the leg in 1918. I have sent you a link to the photos I put in an FB album, so you can see Walter as a scout.

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  12. Thank you, Broad. I'm lucky to have had such good material to work with. I very much agree with you that personal accounts of what war inflicts are so important. So many children like your mother-in-law grew up with their widowed mothers in poverty, either material or emotional and too often in both and their scars, as much as the wounded soldier's were often life-long.

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  13. Many thanks, Baby Sis. I've been and changed the photo straight away. I did wonder, but the photo I used was labelled Walter in my file and all three boys had a strong family resemblance in any case. I do agree with you about the Boy Scout photo. So young....

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  14. Thanks again, Baby Sis, for the information about Uncle Harold, about whom I know very little in comparison with Walter. One minor point - it looks like the mislabelling of Uncle Harold's photo as Walter stems from the FB photos you posted the link to, I just hovered over it and it says Walter....

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  15. We are also calling to mind Bart's uncle, his father's twin brother, Alan, who died exactly seventy years ago today, on Armistice Day 1941. Of all tragic coincidences this was also the twins' 21st birthday. Alan and his crew (he was the navigator) were lost on a bombing raid over Germany. He has no known grave but is remembered on the RAF memorial at Runnymede.

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  16. What a very tragic coincidence, Baby Sis. I'd heard about his death in WW2, but not the sad details. Such waste...

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  17. What a wonderful post. So many of us are so far from a direct connection to the wars and this helps us make the connection. Sad and yet lovely to see those old photos, they look so young and so handsome. Karen xxx

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  18. Thank you, Karen. As I get older I realise more and more how important it is that those of us who do have these personal connections should share them with later generations. My grandfather and both his brothers served in WW1 and none escaped unscathed. As you say, they were so young and they were certainly handsome, especially my grandfather.

    Because of the family connection I've always had a strong interest in WW1 and there have been some excellent items on the BBC website today, including this:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11743727

    which shows just how appalling was the loss of life in WW1 compared with subsequent conflicts.

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  19. Despite almost a century of terrible conflicts since, it is the First World War that still seems to haunt Britain. So many important and moving works of fiction have come out of it, but the accounts of real lives are of course more important and moving than all of them. This is a very fine account that you have written, and you honour your family in remembering them. Doesn't Walter look so proud in his uniform, and so young.

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  20. Thank you, Dancing Beastie. You are so right about the hold that WW1 still has on the British psyche, particularly those of us old enough to have known well those who lived through it. Hence the fine literature that it has generated, both fiction and non-fiction. For years I have been particularly gripped and moved by Lyn Macdonald's outstanding works on the Somme, Passchendaele and the work of the medical staff and particularly the VADs in The Roses of No Man's Land. Unforgettable.

    Their stories, like that of my family deserve to be told and I'm glad I've been able to do so in a small way. Yes, Walter looks so young and proud. He was probably 19 or 20 when that photo was taken.

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  21. My father was a teenager when he stood beside his mother at their farm on top of the hill and watched the postman delivering letters in the village below.
    At every house at which he called the blinds went down...and then the postman arrived at the farm....all the elder brothers killed in the same attack.
    The blinds went down in their house too.

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  22. It is hard to imagine how many lost their loved ones. So, so sad.

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  23. Fly, the horror of what you have written takes my breath away. How families and communities endured such multiple loss and grief almost passes comprehension. No wonder the powers-that-be eventually did away with local regiments to try to spread the impact of the obscene casualty rate.

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  24. Clearly a poignant post. But I like too that it is researched and carefully written - care in the words and in the people it depicts

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  25. So true, Linda. From the UK alone almost 900,000 men died, leaving virtually no community, however small, untouched. Tomorrow I'll be at the war memorial here in Tongue on the north coast of Scotland, one of 3 in the parish. Altogether on the 3 are 64 names out of a population in 1911 of about 1600. Four percent!

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  26. Thank you for this, Mark. It's what I always try to do, but especially in this post with its family and historical significance. I wasn't just writing for myself with this one.

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  27. A moving and well written tribute to our Great Uncle Walter, Big Sis.

    When we went to Ypres to find Walter’s name among the 54,896 names on the Menin Gate we saw the moving Last Post Ceremony. Ypres was very atmospheric in the snow and the beautifully restored Cloth Hall & Church floodlit. But we were there only for about an hour in that bitterly cold, snowy weather of late last November before we rushed to the warmth of a nearby restaurant for a hot meal.

    I thought of all those poor men and boys enduring those miserable conditions day after day in the cold, mud-filled trenches of the bleak, windswept battlefields of the Ypres Salient throughout the winters of 1914-18. It was towards the end of the winter 1915-16 that poor Walter was killed on the ‘comparatively quiet’ 16th February.

    In response to Fly’s moving comment, in the Cotswold village of Great Rissington one poor woman lost all her six sons whereas a few miles away the rather grimly named ‘Upper Slaughter’ is one of the fifty plus ‘Thankful’ villages who lost no husbands, sons or brothers in WW1, although many served. It is only one of fourteen ‘Doubly Thankful’ villages who lost no-one in either world war.

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  28. Thank you, PolkaDot, but a large part of the credit should go to you for providing me with so much excellent material.

    One day I too must go and hear the Last Post played at the Menin Gate. What you say about the appalling conditions endured by the troops is borne out by the regimental records you found and by the aerial photo showing snow on the ground and the frozen canal. It's hard to imagine living and fighting in such a situation.

    The sheer randomness of who lived or died and which families escaped unscathed and which endured heartbreaking losses is terrifying to contemplate. The BBC item on Thankful Villages you refer to can be found at:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15671943

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  29. A very moving post Perpetua. My father fought in WW2 and lost many good friends.

    We owe so much to all those brave men and women, without whom we would never have had the freedom we've enjoyed in my lifetime.

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  30. Thanks, Ayak. We think so much at this time of those who died, but it's important to remember those who carried on doing their duty after losing good friends, often before their very eyes. There is more than one way of being wounded in war. As you say we owe a huge debt of gratitude to all those, military and civilian, who ensured our freedom.

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  31. A very moving account Perpetua. So many young lives were lost and so many families affected.

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    1. Thanks, Susan. I thought you would appreciate the story of just one young man's sacrifice out of many. I still find the scale of loss heartbreaking to think about.

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  32. The old photographs are wonderful. I know Wilmington in Hull too.

    My friend Vicky wrote about the Menin Gate and Ypres, you might be interested;

    http://vicshill.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/remembered/

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    1. We have a box of old photos like this, Rough Seas, and they are so evocative. Many thanks for the link which I shall follow up now.

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  33. I am so pleased Roughseas sent me a link to visit here.

    Such an evocative post, it is so hard to comprehend the horrors that took place, but reading your story has really brought it home.
    I've visited Hill 60 as well as the Menin Gate and Tyne Cot, I paid my respects, not to any one person, but to all the fallen.........we will remember them.

    Just noticed your comment on my blog, thank you :-)

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    1. Thanks, Vicky. I think all these personal accounts and posts like yours help us to continue to remember, even when the events themselves are almost lost in the mists of history. Sadly modern conflicts will go on providing casualties whose loss is equally deeply felt and who must in their turn be remembered.

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  34. Such a good post. And I'm grateful to Facebook for the link, catching up from the future, as it were!

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    1. Thank you,, Christine. I felt linking to it was the most appropriate way of marking today's anniversary.

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  35. So poignantly told, Perpetua. The sharing of your family's story of such deep loss during WWI is so, so sad, but, you honor your uncle, and all those who have fallen, as well as your grandfather, in the telling. I'm amazed at all the history you were able to gather (and thank goodness for family members who dig deep and find these pieces of information - and for you for such beautiful telling of the stories.

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    1. Thanks, Penny. This is one of the most significant posts I've ever written and it moves me too every time I reread it. My younger sister is a thorough and dedicated family historian and it was my pleasure and privilege to put together the material she'd gathered over a considerable time. She and I plan to visit Ypres in 2016 on the centenary of Walter's death to pay our respects in person.

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  36. So sad but so well documented I was moved to write a poem about a similar occurence poemblog3.blogspot.co.uk I called it 'the beautiful game'.Enjoy your words. Mark

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    1. Thanks, Mark. Most of the research was my sister's and I put it all together. It has been very moving seeing the place where it all happened. Thank you for the link to your very touching poem. I remember the sad case of Harry Farr.

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