Preparations for the Battle of the Somme May 1916 - Aerial Contact Patrol

Contact Patrol

Contact Patrol was carried out by planes and was designed to provide aerial liaison between the Front Line and the Battalion and Brigade Headquarters during battles when other means of communication became impossible.  In spite of endless practice before the big day, this initially proved less effective than hoped, due to the necessity for ground troops to use flares to signal to their planes which also meant giving away their position.   However, later on Cecil Lewis tells us, “… we got used to the dangers of low flying over the front line, and used to go right down to a few hundred feet and find the position of our men by actually seeing them in their trenches.”

“The war below us was a spectacle. We aided and abetted it, admiring the tenacity of men who fought in verminous filth to take the next trench thirty yards away.

Echoing the feelings of WW1 soldier poet Wilfred Owen, Cecil described the “horrible futility of war, the mountainous waste of life and wealth to stake a mile or two of earth.  A caricature of common sense, both sides eager, when they had licked their wounds, to fly at each other’s throats again.” (p. 93)

Source:  “Sagittarius Rising” by Cecil Lewis (1898 – 1997), published by Warner, London 2000 with a new Foreword by Cecil Lewis;  first published by Peter Davies in 1936.

The Dover Patrol in the First World War

During the First World War, The Dover Patrol was based at Dover and Dunkirk with the task of blocking the way through the British Channel of German submarines trying to get through to the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Irish Sea.   They also had to try to protect and escort the enormous amount of shipping that crossed the Channel every day, taking passengers, troops, supplies and post to France and Belgium and bringing the wounded home in Hospital Ships.  They also had to sweep for mines and destroy German submarines.

The large German submarines were able to remain away from port for 25 days, while the smaller ones could remain away for 14 days.

In the early days of the war, the Dover Patrol consisted of old Tribal Class Destroyers with a motley group of vessels – trawlers, minesweepers – many of them paddle steamers – armed yachts, submarines, planes and airships.   By the end of the war, Britain had a fleet of modern Torpedo Boat Destroyers and a mined barrage was placed across the Channel that was illuminated at night.

The work and the men of the Dover Patrol is commemorated on memorials in Britain (St. Margaret’s Bay, Dover), France (Cap Griz Nez) and America (Fort Hamilton, New York)

Source:  ‘The Years of Promise’, Cecil Roberts, published by Hodder & Stoughton, London in 1968.

The Sinking of the Hospital Ship HMHS LLandovery Castle, 27th June 1918

Built in 1914 for the Union Castle Line, which had been taken over by the Royal Mail
Line in 1912, the Llandovery Castle was converted for use as a hospital ship during WW1.

She was in use by Canadian forces and was on her way from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada to Liverpool, when she was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine on 27^th June 1918 off the coast of Southern Ireland.

At the time, firing on a hospital ship was against International Law so one wonders what went through the mind of the Captain of the submarine, Helmut Brűmmer-Patzig when he surfaced, ran down the lifeboats and machine-gunned survivors.  

Only twenty-four people managed to survive the horror to be rescued by the British Destroyer HMS Lysander and tell the world of the war crime.   234 doctors, nurses and patients, plus ship’s crew were killed.

After the war, under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, trials were held in Leipzig of Germans alleged to have committed war crimes such as mistreatment of prisoners of war, crimes on the high seas and against civilians and non-combatants.   The Leipzig Trials were a first attempt at bringing the perpetrators of war crimes to justice.   They were held between 23^rd May and 16^th July 1921.

Unfortunately, Commander Brűmmer-Patzig, the captian of the submarine that sank the Llandovery Castle, was not among them as he had fled the country.  His two First-Lieutenants Ludwig Dithmar and John Boldt, were initially found guilty but acquitted after an appeal as having merely obeyed their Captain’s orders.

For a post regarding the nurses, please see http://inspirationalwomenofww1.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/canadian-nurses-lost-at-sea-hmhs.html 

Mobile Military Museum, Scotland - Fascinating Facts of the Great War

I have been working with Ian Inglis of the Mobile Military Museum in Scotland and sending him panels via e-mail for display.  Ian has just sent me a couple of photos of his most recent display.

Find our more about the Mobile Military Museum by having a look at Ian's Facebook Page:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/1583320401955943/?fref=ts

'The Gaities' Leslie Henson's Concert Party WW1

Leslie Henson (1891 – 1957) – British actor, comedian and film producer and director


Leslie Henson was born in Notting Hill, London in 1891.   Henson joined the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War.  However, he was soon ordered to form a concert party – ‘The Gaities’ – to entertain the troops on the Western Front.   After the war, Henson published his account of his time on the Western Front in a book entitled   ‘My Concert Party at the Front – How the ‘Gaities’ cheered the troops’.



One person who attended, and was impressed by, one of those concert parties was a young Charles Laughton who joined the Army in WW1 and served on the Western Front in the 2/1^st Battalion the Huntingdonshire Cyclists and later the 7^th Battalion the Northamptonshire Regiment.

During WW2, following a successful tour of South Africa, Henson returned to Britain to form the Entertainments National Service Association, known as ENSA, with Basil Dean.  ENSA was sponsored by the British Government to entertain Allied troops the world over.


Sources: 

http://www.reocities.com/CollegePark/4825/henson.html http://www.reocities.com/CollegePark/4825/henson.html

David Bowie's Grandfather was killed on The Somme in November 1916

Perhaps I should have another section for Famous People whose Ancestors were involved in the First World War. David Bowie's paternal grandfather, Robert Haywood Jones, was killed in November 1916  at Beaumont-Hamel during the Battle of the Somme and is commemorated on the Thipeval Memorial.  He has no known grave. Source ‘Courier Picard’ newspaper via Stanley Kaye and No 56 Bed and Breakfast on the Somme.

David Bowie was the stage name of David Robert Jones.

http://www.courrier-picard.fr/region/thiepval-80-le-grand-pere-de-david-bowie-tue-au-combat-ia201b0n704344

https://www.facebook.com/Number56BedAndBreakfast/?fref=nf

Christmas in Britain during the First World War

A very interesting article in today's 'Times' newspaper tells us a lot about Christmas in Britain in 1915.  It was the second Christmastide of the conflict that most people had believed would have been 'all be over by Christmas 1914'.

Whilst Christmas 1915 was 'shorn of some of its old meanings' such as peace on earth and goodwill to all men, 'there are signs that to some extent, at any rate, its material associations will be preserved.'

The shops were full of British made toys, rather than the usual German ones - 'military and naval toys - soldiers, forts, warships, guns, and the rest' seem to have been the most popular.  However, for those who could not afford such luxuries, 'at the other end of the social scale is the penny toy, usually to be found in the trays of the kerbstone vendors of Ludgate Hill' (in London).  That year, both sellers and the goods on offer were fewer than in previous years.

Food, however, was apparently plentiful that year: 'Prices for turkeys, geese and beef are high, but both the supply and the demand are good.'  And for those with a sweet tooth, the Port of London Authority (for London was a premier port in those days) reported that 'vessels have come into the Thames with 80,000 to 100,000 packages of Greek currents.  Spain is keeping us well supplied with nuts.  France is sending us, among other things, mistletoe…'

From 'The Times' '1914 - 1918 The First World War, page 28, Saturday, December 19th, 2015.