The South Shore Tide Watch: Euro 2024 ~ The Somme and Family War Graves ...

The Somme ~ in the idyllic beauty of the French countryside, there is now peace and calm which bathes the landscape, that belies the horrors that once raged here. The tragedy of the Somme battle was that the best soldiers, the stoutest-hearted men were lost; their numbers were replaceable, their spiritual worth never could be.

Today I drove from Balen close to the Dutch border in north east Belgium to the Somme region of north west France. Back on April 9th, 2000 I did the same journey with my parents. With all the many stops that were made on that journey, I recall it as one of the longest and most tiring days of my life. On that occasion we went from Beringen in Belgium to Hamel Military Cemetery near the small village of Beaucourt-sur-l'Ancre in The Somme, to visit the grave of my mother’s uncle John Kerr, then from there we drove north back to Belgium to the town of Ypres. While planning this trip, I wisely decided to split the journey into two days and stay for one night in Beaucourt-sur-l'Ancre.

According to Google Maps the driving distance and time for this journey was to be 310Km and 4 hours 12 minutes, but with my intended stops and a few additional unplanned ones, the journey actually became over 9 hours. My primary objective in The Somme is to visit the war graves of my first cousin twice removed Hugh James Wright buried at Joncourt British Cemetery, Joncourt, and make a return visit to my granduncle John Kerr buried at Hamel Military Cemetery. When I was planning the route through the French countryside, I discovered that I would be in the vicinity of the small village of Ors, where a famous WWI British poet is buried. So, with only a slight diversion, I decided that I would stop by Ors and visit his war grave ~ more on this later.

Joncourt British Cemetery ~

The son of my great grandfather’s brother John Wright and his wife Mary Wheelan Walker. Hugh was born in Bridgeton, Glasgow during 1897 and was killed on October 2nd 1918, just over a month before the Armistice that brought over four years of hostilities to an end. It was only in late 2022 during my continuing family tree research, that I discovered Hugh James Wright and his sister Margaret Cathrine Wright. From CWGC records, I learned at the time of his death, his parents lived at 20, Shiphaugh Place, Stirling.

Corporal Hugh James Wright was in the 10th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, with service number 40539, he is now my fifth known relative to be killed in war.

Historical information about Joncourt British Cemetery ~

The village of Joncourt was immediately west of the German fortification called the Beaurevoir-Fonsomme Line. It was captured by Australian troops on 30 September 1918 and cleared by the 5th Australian and 32nd Divisions the following day. Joncourt British Cemetery contains 61 First World War burials, 55 of which belong to the 10th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. All of the graves’ date from the period 30 September to 4 October 1918, three remain unidentified.

From the grave photos below, you will note that Hugh James Wright shares the same gravestone and probably the same grave as that of Private Christopher Mundell aged 19 (born 21 November 1898), this appears to be a typical feature for this cemetery. Christopher, originally from Maxwelltown, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, was the son of Robert Grierson Mundell and Janet Geddes Connor of 648, Shettleston Road, Shettleston, Glasgow. Like Hugh he was part of the 10th Battalion Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and was also killed on October 2nd, 1918.

25587 PRIVATE

C. MUNDELL

ARG. & SUTH’D HIGHRS

2^ND OCTOBER 1918 AGE 19

40539 CORPORAL

H. WRIGHT

ARG. & SUTH’D HIGHRS

2ND OCTOBER 1918 AGE 20

Photos of Joncourt British Cemetery …

After placing a poppy each for Hugh and Christopher, I wrote the following in the Cemetery Register …

“Hugh James Wright ~ In over 105 years, I may be your first family visitor. I am proud to be in the privileged company of you and your mates ~ RIP.”

Poppies growing by the roadside ...

Below are Hugh and Christopher’s CWGC documents ~

From Joncourt British Cemetery it was a 63Km drive north west to Hamel Military Cemetery to revisit the grave of my granduncle John Kerr, the older brother of grandmother Elizabeth Kerr.

Historical information about Hamel Military Cemetery ~

The nearby Beaumont village was captured by British troops in November 1916, but Hamel was in British occupation from the summer of 1915, until the 27th March, 1918. Hamel Military Cemetery was begun by fighting units and Field Ambulances in August 1915, and carried on until June 1917. A few further burials were made in Plot II, Row F, after the capture of the village in 1918. It was known at time by the names of "Brook Street Trench" and "White City". The cemetry was enlarged after the Armistice of November 11th, 1918, by the concentration of 48 graves from the immediate neighbourhood. There are now nearly 500, 1914-18 war casualties commemorated in this site. Of these, nearly 80 are unidentified. Special memorials are erected to four soldiers from the United Kingdom known or believed to be buried among them. A number of French and German military graves have been removed to other burial grounds.

CZ/4980 ABLE SEAMAN

J. KERR RNVR

DRAKE BATTN. R.N.D.

4TH FEBRUARY 1917 AGE 19

AS WITH THE YEARS

WE OLDER GROW

OUR HEARTS FOR HIM

WILL EVER PINE

A twelve-horse team, probably of the Army Service Corps, hauling a G.S. waggon (General Service), over rough, muddy ground, September 1916. In the foreground are the wooden grave markers of Hamel Military Cemetery

In civilian life James was a moulder in a local foundry close to his home in Camelon, Falkirk, Scotland. From his military records and other family information, I strongly suspect John lied about his age to join the Royal Naval Division (RND) at the Falkirk Labour Exchange on May 31st, 1915.

The RND was established under the direction of Winston Churchill, who was the First Lord of the Admiralty at the outbreak of WWI in 1914. The division was composed largely of surplus reserves of the Royal Navy, who were not required at sea and was formed around a cadre of Royal Marines.

From his military record, I have discovered that John and his Drake Battalion of the RND, may have been involved along with the Australians and New Zealanders (ANZAC), at the ill-fated Gallipoli campaign in Turkey. This is backed up by the fact that on May 16th, 1916, it is recorded that he disembarked from the cargo/passenger ship Minnewaska at Marseilles in the South of France, having left the Aegean Island of Mudros not far from the Gallipoli peninsula five days earlier.

Many years ago, during my teens I had the unenviable task of clearing out the attic in my grandmother’s house. It was not a pleasurable assignment, in fact, it was truly awful. I think for many days afterwards I was coughing up and sneezing out decades of coal dust and perhaps a few other nasty things. During the clear-out, I came across a photo that had been printed on what was then a very fragile piece of card measuring about 10” x 20”, I learned from my grandmother that it was a photo of John Kerr, her older brother.

Much later during the early 1990’s after a visit to Scotland, I brought the photo over to Canada. By this time, it had deteriorated even further to the point it had broken up into dozens of random sized pieces. It was around the early 2000’s, I decided to see if the photo could be salvaged. I gave all the bits to a professional illustrator who I worked with to see if he could produce some magic with it. Using a high-quality scanner along with enormous patience and tremendous skill, he brought all the pieces together and created a high-quality scan of the assembled parts. From there with the aid of a graphics/photo software, he carefully and seamlessly blended all the parts together. Below is the impressive result, which I suspect is the only photo of my granduncle John Kerr, in the uniform of the Drake Battalion of the Royal Naval Division.

Below are more photos of Hamel Military Cemetery and John’s grave, with a couple showing his “New Testament for Service Men” Bible that I took with me to France, along with his photo and one of his parents James Kerr and Agnes Caldwell Guthrie at his grave during the 1920’s.

It is now I have much regret that I never asked my grandmother to tell me more about her older brother James. She died on May 19th, 1982 when I was 20, a time when I did not fully appreciate the importance and relevance of family history. My grandmother (Elizabeth Kerr) was born in 7th May 1905, the youngest of ten children, she would only have turned 10, when her brother John joined the RND in 1915. With their age difference and having so many siblings, it is unlikely that she would not have known much about him.

From John’s military record, his next of kin is noted as Margaret Kerr, his sister. Margaret or Aunty Maggie as she was always known was born on September 17th, 1898 and died on Christmas Day 1987. I have fond memories of Aunty Maggie from mainly from the late 1960's to the early 1970’s, when she would be at our house in East Kilbride (Scotland) for New Year celebrations. At those memorable events she could always be heard singing “Danny Boy” ~ some 50 years later, I still think of Aunt Maggie when I hear Danny Boy sung.

I suspect being only a year or so younger than her brother John, Maggie may have been a better source of information about him. But this was the early 1970’s, when I was much younger and did not know that John Kerr even existed. To reflect upon it now, it is a tragic fact that I had been in the company of two relatives who had a living memory of John, and never had the knowledge or good sense to ask and perhaps learn about him. The lesson here is to never let your family history die, ask questions now, or it will soon be gone forever.

I wrote on the Cemetery Register ~

“John Kerr my granduncle, rest easy young man, you did your bit …”

On February 4th, 2017 the 100th anniversary of John Kerr’s death, I wrote a blog about him titled ~ “Remembered 100 years on”. It contains a lot of research information including his full RND military record, together with a photo of his name inscribed on the war memorial at his home village of Camelon, Scotland.

Click on the image or link below ~

https://southshoretidewatch.blogspot.com/2017/02/rememdered-after-100-years.html

Since my last visit to this location and John’s grave back on April 9th, 2000, I have always associated him with the song written by Eric Bogle ~ “The Green Fields of France” (also known as No Man’s Land). Recorded by a few artists, my favourite version is by John McDermott, it can be found by clicking on the image or the link below ~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_mBJgsaxlY

John Kerr's CWGC documents ~

My stop at Ors, France ~

During five years of High School, I had a number of favourite subjects, they included physics, mathematics, technical drawing, woodwork, geography and modern studies. There were two subjects that I continually disliked and never got good marks in, those were French and English. During my two years of French, I gained absolutely nothing, it was a complete waste of time. While in all my four years of English, my gain was a life-long appreciation of WWI poetry. This happened when our class was introduced to the poem “Dulce et Decorum Est” written during WWI by Wilfred Owen and published posthumously in 1920. I say “posthumously”, because Wilfred Owen was killed November 4th 1918, one week before the Armistice that brought WWI to an end. Since first reading the poem at a tender age of 12, its words and the gruesome portrait of war that it describes, has always remained with me. From within the tragically descriptive verses, the poem conjures up incredible images of the horrors, death and devastation of WWI, the world’s first industrialized war ~ “The War to end all Wars” ~ a phrase or line originally idealistic but now used mainly sardonically.

Dulce et Decorum Est ....

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

“The old lie" ~ is a Latin phrase by the Roman poet Horace, translated to English ~ “It is sweet and fitting to die for one's country”

The poem presents a vignette from the front lines of WWI ~ a group of British soldiers on the march are attacked with chlorine gas. The poison-gas artillery shells explode, and one soldier takes too long to don his gas mask. The speaker of the poem describes the gruesome effects of the gas on the man, and concludes that anyone who sees the reality of war at first hand would not repeat mendacious platitudes such as Dulce et Decorum Est Pro Patria Mori: "How sweet and fitting to die for one's country".

Wilfred Owen who was a Lieutenant with the Manchester Regiment 5th Battalion, served on the front-line during WWI, his poem is a statement about a type of war atrocity that he had personally experienced.

Since my school days, I have collected a few books of WWI poetry, with works by Siegfried Sassoon, Edward Blunden, Ivor Gurney, Issac Rosenberg and many more, but it has been Dulce et Decorum Est and other poems written by Wilfred Owen that have always resonated with me. So, today being able to make this diversion on the road, to visit his grave at Ors Communal Cemetery was indeed an honour for me. I could never have imagined at the age of 12, that one day I would visit Wilfred Owen’s grave in France.

LIEUTENANT

W.E.S. OWEN, MC.

MANCHESTER REGIMENT

4^TH NOVEMBER 1918 AGE 25

“SHALL LIFE RENEW
THESE BODIES?
OF A TRUTH
ALL DEATH WILL HE ANNUL” W.O.

Those words inscribed on his gravestone, were chosen by his mother Susan Owen, they were taken from his poem “The End”.

Wilfred Owen was born March 18th, 1893 in Oswestry, Shropshire, he volunteered for the Army in October 1915 and received a commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Manchester Regiment in 1916. He first saw action on the Western Front in France later that year, but was deeply affected by his experiences and suffered from severe shell-shock. Whilst undergoing treatment at the Craiglockhart War Hospital in Scotland, he met one of his literary heroes, Siegfried Sassoon, who provided him with guidance, and encouragement to bring his war experiences into his poetry.

Wilfred returned to the Western Front in 1918 and took part in what would be the final offensive of the war, during which he was awarded the Military Cross in recognition of his courage and leadership.

Throughout the war Wilfred wrote to his mother, Susan, his final letter to her on October 31st, 1918 was written in a cramped cellar in ‘Forester’s House’, close to the tiny village of Ors. Four days later, on November 4th, he was killed in a hail of machine-gun fire near the Sambre-Oise Canal. His mother received the telegram informing her of her son’s death on November 11th, 1918 ~ Armistice Day.

Wilfred is buried with 58 of his known comrades who all but four died on the same day, November 4th, 1918.

I wrote in the Cemetery Register ~

"Wilfred Owen, thank you for giving me a life-long appreciation of WWI poetry"

Historical information about Ors and the cemetery ~

Ors was cleared by the British 6th Division on the 1st November, 1918. The cemetery contains 63 WWI casualties, of 4 are unidentified.

During my years of collecting and reading WWI poetry, I have learned that the soldier poets came from a surprising range of backgrounds, both privileged and poor, and served at all levels in the armed forces. Some went to war riding a wave of patriotic glory, others out of a sense of obligation, or because they were compelled to go. A number were already established as writers and poets, others made their reputation on the basis of their wartime output. Most though, were ordinary men, simply seeking in poetry a means of expressing the weight of their wartime experience, or their nostalgia for a way of life that would never be the same again.

Wilfred Owen's CWGC documents ~