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| Sergeant FCJ Wood, photographed late in the war |
But this blog post is about the experiences of just one man amidst all
of that upheaval. One decent, ordinary man: a man of his time, who signed up to
do his patriotic duty for King and country: one small piece of the
gigantic machine that built up to and culminated in the Battle of the Somme. He
survived that battle, suffering a 'Blighty injury' in the latter stages of the
campaign, but returned to front later in the war, and was awarded medals for bravery in the line.
I should declare an interest. He was my wife's grandfather - and recently I traced his steps across Flanders and
Picardie from 1915 to 1916.
Frederick Charles John Wood was born in 1895 in South East London. His military record does not record his parents’ occupations, but this was a working class family living
in Eltham. As a boy, Fred must have been attracted by all that emanated from the nearby mighty arsenal and weapons depot at Woolwich, because on 17/6/12 he joined the Territorials. He enlisted
in the 6th Company of the London Royal Field Artillery Brigade, giving his age
as 18yrs exactly (he was just turning 17). He was listed as a preliminary
trainee, and his occupation as a plumber's mate. He took his oath of faith to
the King - named as Edward VII on the official paper but scratched out in
favour of George V.
At the outbreak of war two years later, he was promoted to
Assistant Bombardier on 26/8/14 and then, almost as he received his call up
papers, was made Bombardier on 26/9/14. His call up paper is interesting, the "Agreement to be made by an
officer or man of the Territorial Force to subject himself to liability to
serve in any place outside the United Kingdom in the event of National
Emergency." It was
countersigned by his officer at the nearby RFA Station at Plumbsted (sic).
It seems that Fred was occupied in preparation and training
exercises in England for much of 1915, while the desperate battles of
Neuve-Chapelle, Aubers Ridge, Festubert and Loos were raging. However, at the
beginning of October his battalion crossed to France and a year of intense
activity began (see map). In the sense that he had joined in 1912 as a Territorial he was not one of 'Kitchener's army' - the million plus civilians who had flooded the recruitment offices in autumn 1914 in response to Kitchener's famous call. But he was decidedly part of the Kitchener army that left home shores in late 1915 to prepare for the big push of 1916.
From this point onwards he kept a diary -
still in the family's possession - in (now) faded pencil on squared A5 paper.
(Strange to hold it, knowing that it made those journeys across so many
mangled sectors of the Western Front.)
Within 2 days of landing at Le Havre, he and his company boarded
cattle trucks on 4th October 1915 for an eleven hour train journey to Amiens,
twenty miles behind the front (a 115 miles journey that can be covered in two
hours by road today). On 9/10/15 they moved forward to Thievre (numbered 1 on map), a billet five
miles behind the line; and the following day their 'wagon train' moved on to
Hebuterne (2), immediately behind the line at the northern end of
the Somme battlefront. This was the time when the British were taking over more
of the front to give the French some relief. Hebuterne itself had been the site
of vicious fighting and very heavy French casualties earlier in the year in the
second Battle of Artois (see Blog 4/6/2015 Allied offensives in Champagne and
Artois). More recently the area had stabilised and was now known as a quiet
sector, with an unspoken 'live and let live' policy between the French and
German trenches.
The British Generals determined to put an end to this, and
Fred's company and the rest of the field artillery were kept busy from 11-19th October supporting constant forays and raids on German trenches by the
infantry. His diary records that on 25/10 his battalion was inspected by King
George V and the French President, Poincare.
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| A proud moment - to be inspected by the King |
After further training behind the lines, his company was moved to the north to support the established forces there. From the large railhead
at Pont Remy (3), on the Somme river, they were entrained on 11/12/15, arriving at
Aire-sur-Lys (4) on the same day. He spent two months in this sector, including
Christmas at Laventie (5) close to the La Boissee canal. In 1915 there was none
of the fraternisation that had marked the first Christmas of the war, and it
sounds like Fred enjoyed a bleak and cheerless white Christmas. He moved back
to the front line at Loos (6) on 16/1/16, operating field artillery from the
remnants of that shattered town (See Blog 'Battle of Loos' 6/10/15) .
On 25/2 Fred was transported back from Lillers (7) to Pont Remy(3). The next three
months were spent in further training for the Somme offensive.
He gained instruction in signalling and communications – two areas of
great weakness in the British army. He describes some hair-raising journeys
across country with his horse in driving snow during that time. Life was
tough and the demands seem unrelenting, even away from the front line.
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| Fred's diary: First entry starts Oct 4th. Left Havre for Amiens in cattle trucks..... |
In early May, as the big day drew nearer, the battalion was moved
back to its original position at Hebuterne, returning to very different conditions
of extensive preparation. Fred’s company moved backwards and forwards across
that sector, between Hebuterne, Sailly au Bois and near to Gommecourt, before
digging in to semi permanent positions near Sailly during June (8). He was involved
in heavy action on 15th May for which he was recommended for the Distinguished
Conduct Medal (DCM). He was in action for two full days of the seven day pre
Somme bombardment, and for the whole of the murderous first day of the battle –
July 1st. His diary entry:
“…the burst lasted for seven days till
July 1st which we termed Z day when the boys went over the top and
in our sector was the London Scottish Rangers and Fusiliers and they made very
good progress but could not do much as Fritz had concentrated all his artillery
on Gommecourt and Serre and I saw the advance myself and nearly got killed when
out of my lines and oh the sights I saw wounded of all descriptions and shells
bursting all over the place. Horses and wagons lying all over the place,
wounded, fainting and it lasted in all a day in which we wore our guns out, and
serviced them”
Mercifully for Fred and his mates, they were relieved and sent to
the rear to recover after that terrible day. On August 2nd he was
promoted to Corporal, and spent the next three weeks in that stalemated
northern section of the battle. He describes the awful sight, followed through his
signalling telescope, of a colleague whose parachute failed to open when he
plunged from a kite balloon observing enemy positions. On August 28th
they received morale boosting news, dropped from an aircraft, of Roumania’s
entry to the war and Italy’s declaration of war on Germany.
On September 1st the final phase of Fred’s year in
action began, with a transfer to the south east of the line via Ovillers and
Bois de Hardicourt (9). He passed through Mash Valley below Ovillers, the site of
massacres through July, and describes a gruesome passage through Trones Wood (by now behind the British front line) on 10th September: “a terrible sight of dead germans and british
all over the place, and a Hun 77th mortar battery wiped to hell,
found a water bottle and a cap of ammo and a German rifle, and fritz made a
counter attack and got repelled.” He was in constant action from 11th
to 20th September, and his diary records many friends injured and
killed. Another move came on 22/9, to the extreme right of the British line,
linking up with French artillery on the advance from Ginchy and Guillemont
towards Combles and Morval (10). A particularly violent action on 25th September
resulted in men and horses around him being blown up and seven close friends
being killed.
Reinforcements arrived on 3rd October, and you can
sense his pride that they included hardened veterans of the Royal Field
Artillery who had been involved in the Great Retreat of 1914. On 10th he suffered his ‘Blighty’ injury, severe damage to his leg, behind the
contested village of Morval, and received his second commendation for a DCM. He spent
one week in a field hospital, before being transferred back to a hospital on
the coast at Ault, prior to transport back to England (11).
There is now a gap in his military records - like so many others that were lost
or damaged in Luftwaffe air raids on London in WW2 - and no diary to help us. It’s known that he returned
to the western front, but not where, or in what capacity. He had continuing disability
from his leg, and may not have been in front line action. He was promoted to
sergeant in 1917, awarded the Military Medal for bravery, and his military discharge record confirms him as a member of the BEF
from 3/10/15 to 20/11/18. He was discharged from service on 22/3/19 and
demobilised on 10/9/19. He was awarded a 20% disablement pension from 3/9/19.
This was for the princely sum of 6s 6d (37.5p) per week, to be reviewed in 9
weeks!
After his discharge, he resumed his occupation as a plumber; married Trinity Irene Carter, and they had two children, June (b1923) and Frederick (b1929). Like so many he would not talk about his war experience - except
in occasional reunions with his old pals, where reminiscences with people who
could comprehend the horror of it all must have been helpful. In WW2, he was a senior member of the Home Guard from 1941-44. He died of cancer in 1958, aged only 63.
All I can do is pay tribute to this unsung, typically brave man, and feel
pride that my son had such a great great-grandfather.
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