Secret Tunnel wars

[Pegleg]

Quite right, apologies for being sloppy. I was just checking the WFA page on "Empire Jack" and there is a small mention of "Cornish Tin miners":

http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-on-land/general-interest/887-norton-griffiths.html

Thank you for the reminding me about George Butterworth. I find it difficult to listen to his settings of "A Shropshire Lad" without being overcome with a deep sense of gloom.

[Anna]

The movements of individuals, and groups both large and small, between battalions of the same regiment or different regiments is so often a mystery.

This is so true Pegleg, and baffled me at first, before I learnt of the Kitchener's Army K1, K2, etc., where men were sent to seemingly random regiments, finding them would be so much easier if they had kept their original army number.
Researching just now two brothers on paternal Grandfather' side, both were miners and enlisted at Tonypandy (not that I suspected they were Tunnellers) and both, of course, enlisted in the Welch Regiment, my confusion was that one landed up in The Devonshire Regiment (killed in action 1st July 1916, first day of Battle of the Somme and listed on Thiepval Memorial), the second was sent to the Sherwood Foresters (Notts & Derby Regt), died of wounds 14th April 1918, buried in Lijssentheok Cemetery (Lijssentheok was a casualty clearing station for a very large area) Unfortunately although their medal records exist it appears their Army records are amongst the 'burnt' ones, I would like to know which battle he was wounded in before taken to the casualty station.

There were two other programmes after the tunnelling one, unfortunately the one about aerial research didn't finish until midnight so need to catch up on iplayer. I suspect the schedules will be full of WW1 programmes next year, the anniversary.

[Pegleg]

This is so true Pegleg, and baffled me at first, before I learnt of the Kitchener's Army K1, K2, etc., where men were sent to seemingly random regiments, finding them would be so much easier if they had kept their original army number.
Researching just now two brothers on paternal Grandfather' side, both were miners and enlisted at Tonypandy (not that I suspected they were Tunnellers) and both, of course, enlisted in the Welch Regiment, my confusion was that one landed up in The Devonshire Regiment (killed in action 1st July 1916, first day of Battle of the Somme and listed on Thiepval Memorial), the second was sent to the Sherwood Foresters (Notts & Derby Regt), died of wounds 14th April 1918, buried in Lijssentheok Cemetery (Lijssentheok was a casualty clearing station for a very large area) Unfortunately although their medal records exist it appears their Army records are amongst the 'burnt' ones, I would like to know which battle he was wounded in before taken to the casualty station.

There were two other programmes after the tunnelling one, unfortunately the one about aerial research didn't finish until midnight so need to catch up on iplayer. I suspect the schedules will be full of WW1 programmes next year, the anniversary.

Anna, I am saddened to learn of the casualties in your family. DOW is synonymous with untold suffering in my mind, and I sincerely hope this was not true in your relative's case. It's over two years since I looked at anything to do with the Great War but would offer this advice in trying to pin point the action in which your relative was wounded. Firstly I would check the SDGW CD ( I can do this for you if you wish - once I can find my copy) to get some idea of the numbers of Sherwood Foresters listed as KIA or DOW around the time of your relative's death. This would give you some idea if he was involved in a major action or was part of what the Staff euphemistically referred to as "wastage". I suspect the former as the date is around the time of the Fourth Battle of Ypres, see here:

http://www.greatwar.co.uk/ypres-salient/battles-ypres-salient.htm

This was part of the wider German spring offensive ( A Good book: Lyn Macdonald - To the Last Man, Spring 1918). The situation was very fluid at this time. Next thing to check, once your know the man's exact battalion, are if the relevant war diaries are online at the National Archive and downloadable at a small cost, or have already been transcribed and are posted somewhere on the internet. The Sherwood Foresters is a regiment that has attracted a lot of research. Again, depending on which battalion, you may be lucky enough to find an official battalion history online. For example:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/20527/20527-h/20527-h.htm

Other ranks, as they are known, are rarely mentioned by name in either War diaries or official histories, but at least you may gain a better idea of your relative's final days. If all else fails, join GWF and ask for info. There are a great many members there with expert knowledge who are willing to help. All the best ...

[LeMartinPecheur]

I'm a real pedant, I know, (I'm wearing my anorak) but they were actually DCLI men (Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry). My mother's father served with them in Mesopotamia and later in India. George Butterworth also enlisted as a private with them before accepting a commission in the Durham Light Infantry.

Sorry, that late at night my own inner pedant was inexcusably switched off

Remembering a little more of what Mrs LMP has told me about the book, I gather that not only were the ex-DCLI men great tunnelers/bombers, their great knowledge of bomb-making was very usefully turned round and used in making safe the booby-traps or unexploded demolition charges left behind by the retreating German armies at the close of the war.

[Anna]

Anna, I am saddened to learn of the casualties in your family. Firstly I would check the SDGW CD ( I can do this for you if you wish - once I can find my copy) to get some idea of the numbers of Sherwood Foresters listed as KIA or DOW around the time of your relative's death. This would give you some idea if he was involved in a major action or was part of what the Staff euphemistically referred to as "wastage". I suspect the former as the date is around the time of the Fourth Battle of Ypres, see here:

Many thanks for the offer Pegleg, I'll do some more digging on the Net and try the GWF but may PM you with his details if you can find your cd.

As to the elder brother in the 9th Devonshires, I've managed to find out a lot of information about his battalion going over the top on 1st July 1916, they had 8 officers and 133 other ranks killed; 8 officers and 259 other ranks wounded; and 55 other ranks missing. (A total of 463 casualties out of the 775 officers and men who went into the assault - a casualty rate of almost 60 per cent.)

I’ve also found that there is a cemetery just for the 9th Devonshires killed on that day at Mansell Copse, Mametz, it seems they retrieved the bodies from No Mans Land and there was a mass burial in one of the trenches. (I’ve also found that 15 killed that day from the 9th were Welsh, mainly from The Valleys as he was) There is a memorial at the entrance which says "The Devonshires held this Trench - They hold it still" There are 10 unidentified bodies from the 9th there but as he's commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial I don't know if he's one of those reported as missing or one of the unidentified burials. Reading first hand accounts by the 'other ranks' of the first day of The Somme is very upsetting.
(sorry this is very off-topic re original subject)

[Pegleg]

Anna,

I've located my SDGW CD ( it's not the updated version) and would be happy to search the database for you.

I failed to mention in my previous post that if the medal index card and CWGC info does not tell you which battalion of the Sherwood Foresters your relative served in, then the SDGW might. Otherwise it means checking the actual medal rolls held at the NA as these have not been digitised.

One of the advantages of the SDGW over the CWGC register is that it can contain a ref to man's former unit and previous army number before transfer. The later can help to locate service/pension records on Ancestry. I'm sure you've found these Ancestry searches need diligence and persistence if they are to bear fruit. When a given man's papers cannot be found, adopting the tactic of searching for others in the same unit with army numbers close to that of your man can help tease out additional info. It can be a lengthy and time consuming activity. Frankly, I just don't have the energy to do much of this any more.

One website that can help with the arcane army numbering system of the Great War is this: http://armyservicenumbers.blogspot.co.uk/

Other possible sources of info are:

De Ruvigny’s Roll and the National Roll of Honour, both on Ancestry.
Local newspapers. A vital source of info for casualty lists/obits and much more.
Absent Voters List. An elusive, but NB document, compiled by voter registration officers for the 1918 General Election. Whether it actually exists for the constituency your relative lived in can be hard to ascertain.

The story of the 9th Devonshires on 1st July 1916 is depressingly familiar, and I agree that reading these accounts is emotionally draining. I assume you've seen this page: http://www.keepmilitarymuseum.org/de...ob=3&rpn=somme and wonder why Lieutenant W. N. Hodgson MC poem before action ends with: " Help me to die, O Lord."

It should never be forgotten that except for a small minority who succumbed to illness or perished in accidents, the bulk of those named on the Great War memorials that litter our landscape met a violent death: sniped, bombed, atomised by HE, shredded by shrapnel, buried alive by mines, drowned, gassed or burnt alive by flame thrower. In the end, after attempting to find something of the story of close to 800 men on two memorials, I found this litany of death too much to deal with. I just didn't realise what I was getting into. I have no intellectual response to the Great War now, only raw emotion.

[Anna]

Just briefly to say, thanks to Pegleg for his usual care and thoughtfulness in submitting useful links, I have sent you a personal message re the Sherwoods.
As to Lynn Macdonald which you recommend, I see she has written many books so I must get myself to the library! I realise I am woefully ignorant about many aspects of WW1, perhaps it's because, as you say, it's almost too painful at times to read about it.

[aeolium]

It should never be forgotten that except for a small minority who succumbed to illness or perished in accidents, the bulk of those named on the Great War memorials that litter our landscape met a violent death: sniped, bombed, atomised by HE, shredded by shrapnel, buried alive by mines, drowned, gassed or burnt alive by flame thrower. In the end, after attempting to find something of the story of close to 800 men on two memorials, I found this litany of death too much to deal with. I just didn't realise what I was getting into. I have no intellectual response to the Great War now, only raw emotion.

Yes, that is understandable, Pegleg (and I echo Anna's thanks to you for your research and the links you provide). My grandfather was a stretcher-bearer in the RAMC and must have seen many unspeakable horrors - and, indeed, he refused to speak of them ("You don't want to know about that" was his usual response to any questions, or silent tears).

Yet I think there has to be an intellectual response as well as an emotional one, if only to detect and oppose the lazy thinking and absence of moral imagination which can lead (and has led) to our involvement in needless wars. As Bertrand Russell put it after the outbreak of war in 1914, "all this madness, all this rage, all this flaming death of our civilization and our hopes, has been brought about because a set of official gentlemen, living luxurious lives, mostly stupid, and all without imagination or heart, have chosen that it should occur rather than any one of them should suffer some infinitesimal rebuff to his country's pride."

[Pegleg]

Just briefly to say, thanks to Pegleg for his usual care and thoughtfulness in submitting useful links, I have sent you a personal message re the Sherwoods.
As to Lynn Macdonald which you recommend, I see she has written many books so I must get myself to the library! I realise I am woefully ignorant about many aspects of WW1, perhaps it's because, as you say, it's almost too painful at times to read about it.

Message received Anna, I will reply as soon as I can. As to books, much of my reading on the subject was done about a decade ago and I started with some of the more well known biographies. In no particular order:

Undertones of War - Edmund Blunden
Good-bye to all that - Robert Graves
Memoirs of an Infantry Officer - Siegfried Sassoon
Under Fire (Le feu ) The story of a squad - Henri Barbusse (published in 1916 - my lending library had an original copy!), can now be found here: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4380/4380-h/4380-h.htm
Storm of Steel - Ernst Junger (published 1920 and makes for very disturbing reading)
Im Westen nichts Neues ( All Quiet on the Western Front ) - Erich Maria Remarque, which I think should be read in conjunction with Der Weg zurück (The Road Back).

Of course there are many others, including:

There's a Devil in the Drum - John F. Lucy
With a Machine Gun to Cambrai - George Coppard
The Price of Glory: Verdun 1916 - Alistair Horne

Another disturbing read is a book I could only read parts of:

Death's Men - David Winter.

As to poetry, don't overlook Isaac Rosenberg:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jrosenberg.htm

Beware that it can take you over.

[Pegleg]

Yes, that is understandable, Pegleg (and I echo Anna's thanks to you for your research and the links you provide). My grandfather was a stretcher-bearer in the RAMC and must have seen many unspeakable horrors - and, indeed, he refused to speak of them ("You don't want to know about that" was his usual response to any questions, or silent tears).

It may sound ludicrous, but there are times that I have only to close my eyes to hear the shouts and screams, the din of battle and I'm overcome by the pitiless horror of it all. God only knows what it must been like for our grandfathers and I seriously doubt if I would have had the mental strength to cope with any of it. My own grandfather served in the ASC and then the infantry. He volunteered in Nov 1914 and by some random miracle returned home more or less in one piece after the Armistice. I hardly new him, I was only 5 years old when his heart failed, aged just 65. By all accounts he remained silent on the subject of the Great War.

Yet I think there has to be an intellectual response as well as an emotional one, if only to detect and oppose the lazy thinking and absence of moral imagination which can lead (and has led) to our involvement in needless wars. As Bertrand Russell put it after the outbreak of war in 1914, "all this madness, all this rage, all this flaming death of our civilization and our hopes, has been brought about because a set of official gentlemen, living luxurious lives, mostly stupid, and all without imagination or heart, have chosen that it should occur rather than any one of them should suffer some infinitesimal rebuff to his country's pride."

Of course there should and must be something beyond emotion, who could argue with Bertrand Russell's statement. It's just I find it so hard to think straight about it.

[Flay]

Thank you all for this fascinating discussion on such a shocking subject. It is all too easy to hear statistics without really appreciating the horror, bravery and personal nightmares suffered.

[kernelbogey]

Tunneling beneath each other's position also took place on the Dolomites front between the Austro-Hungarian and Italian armies. The latter blew the top off a mountain containing an Austrian position using 33,000kg of explosive. And all this in winter at about 3000 metres.

See for example

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=lagazuoi+tunnels&client=safari&sa=X&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ei=5nGgUeXrFqiV0AXOsYCICw&ved=0CCsQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=686

Youtube has some episodes of a semi-dramatised documentary in German which is often moving (if you have German).

[aeolium]

A fine reading list, Pegleg. I found Blunden's Undertones of War an extraordinary book, a description in beautiful prose of horror and destruction. I would add one 'must read' book to your list - Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory, a quite superb book using many sources from the period.

[gurnemanz]

A fine reading list, Pegleg. I found Blunden's Undertones of War an extraordinary book, a description in beautiful prose of horror and destruction. I would add one 'must read' book to your list - Paul Fussell's The Great War and Modern Memory, a quite superb book using many sources from the period.

Also, thanks for the list. After a shattering tour of the battle site at Verdun I felt the need to read up on the subject and bought The Price of Glory by Alistair Horne - the only one from the list which I have read and thoroughly recommendable.

We have some personal WW1 documents. My wife is German and her grandfather was killed in November 1914 when her father was 8 years old. The family produced a memorial booklet of letters, photos and reminiscences. It makes fascinating reading all these years later. Especially touching is his last letter in which he thanks his son for the drawing he has sent him.

[Pegleg]

Anna,

You have a PM.