First World War Poetry Digital Archive

[RichardB]

Example :

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa/item/5...BOX=1&REC=2

Photograph of Ernest Gregory, Sheffield (born 1894). When war broke out - as a conscientious objector he refused to fight - he volunteered and joined the RAMC. He served as a stretcher-bearer and was gassed, and suffered from the effects until his death in 1976. The family's collection includes Gregory's medals which include a 1914-15 Star (225 Pte E. Gregory RAMC), and a Military Medal (405152 Pte E. Gregory 1/3 W. Rid. F.A. RAMC [1/3rd West Riding Field Ambulance, Royal Army Medical Corps]). The reverse of the card includes "love from Ernest March 31 17". In the writing of Ernest's wife (Jessie)'s brother "Military Medal gained at Paschendaele for Bravery in the Field for bringing in the wounded from the field in terrible conditions - under fire and through shell holes and mud filled with water up to the armpits".

Editor's Comment:

Pte. Gregory wears a Red Cross Armband, Small Box Respirator over his shoulder, and the belt of the Pattern 1914 Infantry Equipment with brace attachments - these were introduced for non-combatants who did not wear ammunition pouches. On the lower left sleeve is a Good Conduct badge, an inverted chevron awarded after two years.

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa/docume...1/5939#doc-desc

[RichardB]

Joseph C Bennett (Vickers Ltd, Sheffield)

No.173/3517

This Certificae is granted to Joseph C Bennett employed as Foreman in the

works of

Messrs.VICKERS,Ltd. Sheffield

in token that his services are urgently required in the manufacture of

Ordnance War Material for the defence of the Realm, in which service he is

required to exercise DILIGENCE and FAITHFULNESS.

Kitchener

(This certificate is the property of H.M's War Department.)

Overleaf is stated

"To ensure that this Certificate remains in the hands of the person to whom

it has been issued,it is ordered that it shall be initialed or stamped on

this side once in every month by a representative of the firm in which the

holder is employed. Should the holder cease to be employed the Certificate

must be given up by the holder and returned to the War Office.

At the end of the War this Cerificate will be returned to the War Offce with

the claim for issue of the Medal which is sanctioned for issue to those whose

service is approved. Only those Cetificates which are properly initialed and

certified will be deemed valid."

The Certificate lives in a red passport type of cover marked;

Any person finding this book,unless it can be at once restored to the Owner,

should place it in a Post Office Letter Box for return to:-

The Secretary,

War Office,

London,S.W.

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa/item/5...BOX=1&REC=3

[RichardB]

Harry Ellison

Harry Ellison first attested as a soldier in December 1915 and appears to have been placed on the Reserve for about 3 months before he was first posted, attached to the Manchesters 29 March 1916.

He was originally given the Regimental number 24699 in what looks as though it was the York & Lancaster Regiment (the original regiment is crossed through). Given that he gave his address as Wadsley Bridge, Sheffield, and he made his attestation at Sheffield, the York and Lancasters would have been his local infantry Regiment. The approving officer for his attestation gave his place of approval as Pontefract, which was the depot for the York & Lancasters.

Harry was a 39 year old joiner when he attested. He seems to have been a fairly small chap “ 5 ft 6 ½ inches tall with a 38 inch chest. On enlistment it was noted that he had a scar under the right clavicle (collar bone). He gave his mother (who lived in Greasbrough), as his next-of-kin and there is no entry for a wife or children.

Things got serious in April 1916 when he was posted to the West Yorkshire Regiment on 10 April. He was posted to 22nd (Labour) Battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment and on 18 April was appointed as an unpaid Lance Corporal, which was made a paid appointment on 29 April 1916. It looks as though the fact that he was an older man and a skilled man led to him being posted to a labour battalion and given some responsibility as a junior NCO.

Labour battalions were generally made up of men who were not considered physically fit for fighting and were engaged in a wide range of labouring tasks largely connected with transport (building roads and railways, operating docks etc.) but also the construction and maintenance of defensive works, trench lines, huts and billets etc. behind the immediate front lines. They were often working in range of the line of fire from artillery, machine gunners and snipers.

Harry shipped out to France on 10 May 1916 so he was there for the Somme offensive. Without finding the Regimental War Diary, we cannot know what he was doing and where. But on 12 September 1916 he suffered gun shot wounds in the field. By 16 September he was in the Military Hospital at Etaples and they returned him to England on the Hospital Ship St Denis.

He is recorded as at the West Yorkshire Regimental depot from 21 September 1916 until he was discharged as no longer physically fit for war service on 1 March 1917. He was regarded as having 100% disability for pension purposes. He was awarded a pension, reviewable after 2 years but sadly he died before then on 4 November 1918.

His case was reviewed by a Medical Board on 27 September 1918. The Board Members were Robert Hiller, W Gray and H H Jamieson. The Board found him 100% disabled, requiring constant attendance by another person and said that he cannot work at all. They found that his disability was permanent and it will get worse. They were asked to give full details of the gun shot wound(s) and did so as follows (so far as I am able to read it, the comments in italics may be helpful in understanding the severity of his injuries):

There is a soundly healed ai**** scar just above and internal to the back of the *** condyle of ******. (not sure where this injury is)

There is a discharging **** (? abscess) immediately below the external condyle of the right arm. (he had a wound to his upper right arm which was not healing)

There is a perfectly healed circular scar about the size of a shilling in the episternum just to the right of the linea alba with thickening of the connecting cartilage on that side. (sounds like a bullet wound in the back, that missed the spine)

There is a depressed stellate scar, adherent to bone, just above the occipital protruberance quite healed and closed by bone. (the occipital area of the skull is the lower back area of the skull. If you run your hand around the back of your head you will feel a slight lumpy bit which is the occipital protruberance. This is the area of the skull where the joins onto the spine.

There is about complete right hemiplesia (paralysis) with aphasia (loss of ability to speak and/or understand speech) and almost complete aphonia (loss of voice). The fingers of the right hand are much contracted and there is wasting of the hand. He can only walk with support and drags his leg very badly.

It sounds as though he was hit by at least 4 bullets in the back one of which was in the back of the head and caused a significant brain injury. He was left very severely disabled and it is probably surprising that the poor chap survived as long as he did.

For information, the 22nd (Labour) Battalion of the West Yorkshire (Prince of Wales Own) Regiment was formed at Millington (just east of York) in April 1916. It appears that the Battalion War Diary is available at the National Archives, Kew, under reference WO 95/571. The Battalion was part of the Fifth Army, which was a reserve to the Fourth Army which initiated the Somme offensive. It would seem that they soon became involved with the offensive. In early September there was still heavy fighting around Delville Wood (Devil's Wood, the horridest place on the Somme) and Guillemont Farm. 12 September was the day the barrage started prior to the attack on 15 September on the Albert/Bapaume Road.

Submitted by Harry's sister Ada's very proud Great Grandaughter Linda Rudnicki (transcription of Harry's papers by a very special person called Mich)

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa/document/9014?REC=5

[RichardB]

Ypres paper knife

Extract :

This paper knife is made from a German cartridge case with a German crest soldered onto it with a bronze blade (probably made from a shell case) decorated and with the word Ypres. It was probably made my a German soldier and acquired by my father at some time during his service with the Coldstream Guards on the Western Front. His unit spend several months at Ypres during 1916 and 1917. The war museum classifies this kind of thing as "trench art".

My father's full name was John Hubert Fox, service number 14269. He enlisted on 21 Dec. 1914 at Sheffield, serving on the Western Front in the 2nd Battalion, Coldstream Guards. He was wounded on the Somme in Sept. 1916 and more seriously at Cambrai in November 1917. After recovery in

hospital in Manchester he was posted to the Reserve Battalion at Windsor where he was engaged in training recruits. He was demobbed on 10th March 1919.

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa/item/3...BOX=1&REC=6

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa/item/3...BOX=1&REC=8

[RichardB]

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/gwa/document/9014/3902#

[Guest Trefcon]

Good site that Richard, i think you mentioned it last year, but good to see on here what was there.

I have something similar to the Ypres knife.