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-bearer, as 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