THE GREAT WAR

The War to End All Wars began in August 1914. As far as we know, the only connection Jack had with Bristol was that his widowed father had married Lucy Billingshurst in December 1908 (just after Jack himself had married). She was a farmer’s daughter from Horfield, where the Gloucestershire Regiment had a depot, but John Ade Likeman was still living in Reading. Whatever the reason that brought Jack to Bristol in that fateful month, it proved once again to be one of those occasions when he was in the right place at the right time. A more detailed account is given later on in Chapter 8 of the raising of the 12th ( Bristol’s Own) Battalion of the Gloucesters, in which it was destined that three young men would meet, and their lives and those of their families be forever intertwined. A good photographic record exists, because one of the three young men, Ernest Burris, was a keen amateur photographer, and later a pioneer of home movies. Ernest was heir to a profitable business that made horseshoe nails and other metal wares. His priceless collection of pictures was with his daughter Meg, my godmother, now deceased. It has presumably been passed down to one of her three children. The collection includes a photo of the three at Codford in 1915. The third man of course was Tom MacGregor Allison, the heir to his father’s leather business, and the only one of the three who did not survive the war.

Left: a recruiting badge for the 12th Gloucesters (Bristol’s Own). Centre: the cap badge of the Gloucester Regiment, commemorating the Regiments’s participation as the 28th Regiment of Foot in the Battle of Alexandria against the French in March 1801. Right: the famous ‘back badge’ worn  on the back of the headdress in honour of the Regiment’s performance in the same battle, when the rear rank was ordered to ‘About Turn’ and engage French cavalry charging at their rear.

Jack was given a commission as a Temporary Lieutenant on 26th September 1914 and as he had been on Active Service before, he was appointed Adjutant. Ernest Burris was commissioned the same day. In the photograph of the officers of the new battalion, he sits beribboned on the left of the Commanding Officer, seventh from the right in the front row, and looks every inch an officer and a soldier. Few of the others do so yet, and Tom was absent. Ernest Burris is second from the right in the front row.

Tom’s sister Mysie got to hear about Jack, and in particular that his wife and 4-year old son were living in London, far away. She promptly invited Gladys to Bristol, and there began a close and lifelong friendship, which led ultimately to Little Jack meeting and marrying Mysie’s niece Sheila. But that is to look ahead for 20 years or more.

 On 9th December 1914 Jack was promoted to the rank of Temporary Captain, and his two chums were promoted the following June and sent to Staff College. The group photo at Codford was taken just prior to their departure for France on 21st November 1915 as part of the 14th Brigade, 32nd Division. They took the train from Wylie to Folkestone, and crossed the Channel to Boulogne. After being transported by train to Abbeville, they marched eastwards, skirting Amiens to the north, and followed the valley of the River Somme as far as Suzanne. All the places that are named in this chapter may easily be followed on the Michelin map of the area: little seems to have changed in 90 years. The Battalion finally went into the line at Maricourt. It was now transferred to the 5th Division as part of the 95th Brigade.[i] For more than six months it was employed in routine line-holding duties, while the soldiers learned their trade. Casualties were few. The men did not receive their baptism of fire until the Somme in July 1916, and by this time Jack was long gone.

 A personal diary record of life in the Battalion was made by Captain H.A. Colt (later LtCol, DSO, MC) who was OC of A Company when the Battalion went to France. Tom was OC of D Company, and Ernest 2 i/c of C Company at that time, and both were Captains. Captain Colt’s diary is available on the Internet.

 After a cold Christmas in the trenches, the Battalion returned to Allonville just north of Amiens in January 1916. Ernest took command of C Company, and steel helmets were issued to everyone (much to their displeasure). At the end of February the Battalion marched from Amiens to Arras: it took them three days. Here they relieved French troops, and took up a position in the village of St Nicolas, which is now just a suburb of the city. Overlooking them were the Germans on top of the infamous Vimy Ridge. Arras lay in a salient, and the front line at Roclincourt was just a couple of kilometres away.

Logically the 95th Brigade belonged to the 32nd Division, which also included the 96th and 97th Brigades, and the 14th Brigade should have belonged to the 5th Division, along with the 13th and 15th Brigades. Such anomalies reflect the action taken to replace heavy losses, and the reduction of Divisions to comprise three Brigades instead of three – also to accommodate heavy losses. Quite what brought about the exchange of the 95th and 14th Brigades remains obscure. 

In April 1916 Jack was appointed as an Instructor at the 3rd Army School of Infantry. The 5th Division, to which the 95th Brigade belonged, was part of the 1st Army. Most soldiers had little idea to which Army, or even to which Corps they belonged, and in any case these larger groupings were liable to change. The Division was the soldier’s home. Jack never returned to the 5th Division; on 25th April 1917 when his year at the School was over, he was promoted Acting Major, and posted to the 8th Brigade (3rd Division) as Second in Command of the 7th Battalion the Kings Shropshire Light Infantry (KSLI), who were then in the line at Arras.

While Jack was at the School of Infantry he missed the horrors of the Somme, and the Gloucesters’ attack on Delville Wood, in which both Tom and Ernest were wounded. There were 328 casualties in the battalion on that single day. Instead Jack arrived at his new posting in time for the Battle of Arras which commences on 9th April 1917, a somewhat futile attempt to divert attention from a French attack in the Champagne region which was to begin a week later. Jack joined his unit at Tilloy, just to the east of Arras, to discover that the CO LtCol Arnott had just been wounded by shrapnel; he immediately assumed command. Once again, his destiny awaited him.

On 2nd May the time arrived for the 8th Brigade to join the battle. The Battalion moved off from Tilloy just before midnight, but a heavy barrage of gas, high explosive (HE) and shrapnel fell on them before they had advanced 500 yards. Nevertheless they reached the assembly point just south of Monchy on time. As the attack developed Jack skilfully closed a gap in the line which had opened between the 8th and 167th Brigades, but the German positions on Infantry Hill were too strong in machine guns, and the advance faltered without reaching the objective. The Battalion was relieved and returned to Arras, to baths in the Rue de Lille and clean clothing. An account of the attack in Jack’s handwriting from his field notebook is held in the Public Records Office.

Attacks continued along the front to the east of Arras, and the KSLI spent another week in the line. They then moved from Tilloy to Berneville by motor lorry, and marched through Gouy-en-Artois to billets at Villers-Sir-Simon, due west of Arras. We should never underestimate the distances covered by route marches during WWI. On 8th May, Tom Allison was wounded again, this time at Fresnoy a few miles to the north of Jack’s position. There the 12thGloucesters were holding the far side of Vimy Ridge, which had been captured by the Canadians at great cost in the first week of the battle.

On 1st June Jack’s battalion returned to the line by bus, only to be subjected to bombardment from the air. Much work was done improving the trenches, and repairing damage done by heavy rain. On 15th June LtCol Arnott returned from convalescence in England, and resumed command. On 17th June Infantry Hill was finally captured by the 76th Brigade. This Brigade was also part of the 3rd Division, and is about to enter our story. On 20th the KSLI pulled out of the line and made its way by a rather devious route to Doullens, from where they entrained to Bapaume, a few miles to the north of the famous Somme battlefields of the previous year. They then marched in the rain to Fremicourt, just east of the town and on the Roman Road to Cambrai. This was the Reserve Line; the front was quiet and the weather had cleared up.

Now that LtCol Arnott had returned to the battalion, Jack was transferred to the 76th Brigade to take over command of the 2nd Suffolks. The Commanding Officer, LtCol Stubbs had been posted to the Senior Officers’ School at Aldershot. Such postings were a common device for giving commanders a few months rest. The 2nd Suffolks was a Regular Army battalion, but there were very few regular soldiers left after the horrors of the Somme; still the majority of the troops were reliable Suffolk men. On the 24th July Jack was promoted Acting LtCol. The runaway boy from Brighton had finally arrived.

The other Battalions in the 76th Brigade were the 8th Kings Own Royal Lancaster Regiment, the 10th Royal Welch Fusiliers, and the 1st Gordon Highlanders. Later in the year, as manpower reserves dwindled, brigades were re-organised on a 3-battalion instead of a 4- battalion basis, which weakened the overall strength of the division, and placed greater demands on the men; but more of this later.

Towards the end of July, the battalion moved back to a tented camp at Beugny, just east of Bapaume, for rest and training. At this stage, they were unaware of what lay just ahead of them. To the north, at Ypres in Belgium, the latest of General Haig’s costly offensives was gathering momentum. The Battle of Arras was over: the Battle of Passchendaele was about to begin.

The situation in the salient at Ypres had been stalemate since May 1915. The city lay in a saucer-like depression, and the Germans occupied the high ground that formed the rim of the saucer on three sides. They had ringed the city with machine gun nests in huge concrete blockhouses, and with artillery; it was impossible to dig deep shelters as both sides had done in the chalky soil of the Somme, because they quickly filled with water. The countryside was reduced to a featureless mass of mud, across which advance was nearly impossible, and on which any movement was easily spotted and rewarded with a barrage of shells.

Haig’s plan was to capture the high ground around Ypres, and break out to the north to capture the Channel ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge, which were being used as U-boat bases. The offensive would also take the pressure off the French in the south, and the Russians in the east. Above all Haig wanted to win the war before the Americans arrived.

There were to be three phases to the attack; the Second Army under General Plumer would attack the high ground at Messines to the south of Ypres and secure the flank. The Fifth Army under General Gough would advance east from Ypres and capture the ridge behind the village of Zonnebeke (now no more than heaps of rubble and brick-coloured mud). The Belgians and French would secure the northern flank with a simultaneous attack. The third phase was a seaborne invasion of the Channel ports by General Rawlinson’s Fourth Army, based at Nieuport.

Plumer’s attack to the south began with the detonation of huge mines under the German positions on Messines Ridge on 8th June. It was a spectacular success, and the Ridge was captured and held on a nine-mile front. However Haig failed to exploit this success by implementing phase two while the fine summer weather lasted. This may not have been entirely his fault; the British Cabinet led by Lloyd-George was reluctant to allow Haig to embark on another offensive, which might prove as costly and futile as the Somme had been the previous year, and withheld in England the drafts of reinforcements which Haig needed to bring his forces up to strength. And the French were not ready either.

The offensive finally began on 31st July; the tide would be right for Rawlinson’s attack on 25th August, which gave Gough 19 days to capture the Passchendaele Ridge, and advance 7 miles beyond it. Unfortunately, the wettest August on record was about to begin.

On 1st August the Suffolks, still far away to the south at Beugny, honoured the tradition of Minden Day and wore roses in their hats. They had a ceremonial parade, and a gymkhana, and a concert party in the evening. The tradition was explained to the new recruits: it commemorated the capture of the town of Minden in Germany from the French by the British and Hanoverians in 1759 during the Seven Years’ War. Such were the traditions of the old British Regular Army, in which the Regiment mattered more than its individual members; this particular custom of wearing Minden roses had lasted 158 years, and celebrated a victory over greatly superior numbers, due to the stubborn resistance of the British regiments. It was ironic that the victory had been won by the British as allies of the Germans against the French, but such are the vicissitudes of history.

Throughout August and until 6th September the Suffolks followed the routine of one week in the line and one week out. Then the Brigade was relieved by the 167th Brigade from the 56th Division. General Gough’s 19 days had come and gone, and his army was nowhere near its objective. Bogged down by the mud, and dominated by the impregnable German block houses, it had taken nearly six weeks to reach a point on Westhoek Ridge from which Polygon Wood and Zonnebeke could be attacked.

More troops were required for Haig’s latest bloodbath. The Suffolks marched south from Beugny to Barastre, where they spent several days with the rest of the Division in simulated Brigade attacks, range practices, and marching with their respirators on. The War Diary frequently comments on the rain. They knew that something big was about to happen, and on 17th September Jack issued orders for the battalion to march to Bapaume and entrain. 40 men to each wagon, stores, wagons, horses, everything.

They were headed for the dreaded Salient.

They left at 1pm on 18th September and arrived at Godewaersvelde twelve hours later. In spite of its Flemish name, Godewaersvelde is actually in France, just west of Mont des Cats. From the station they marched to a tented camp near Watou, just across the Belgian frontier, and due west of Poperinge: “Accommodation not good. Chiefly tents with a few barns” says the War Diary. The next day, selected officers and NCOs went to see a model of the ground over which the Division was going to attack, and others went up to the line to look at the ground. The attack was planned for the 26th.

In the light of history, one must wonder why the attack went ahead; on 23rd Haig had been forced to cancel the amphibious operation against Zeebruge and Ostend, and by then the chances of a successful break-out from the Salient must have faded completely. But Haig was not a man to give up when there was the chance to turn failure into a disaster, or to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Suffolks moved up to Brandhoek, between Poperinge and Ypres, and then to a camp to the south of Ypres. On the evening of the 25th they left their camp, passed the Menin Gate (already in ruins, as in the famous painting by Will Longstaff in the Australian War Memorial) at about 8.15 pm, and were led by guides to the assembly point in Hannebeke Wood, and from there to the start-line. It is interesting that Jack’s orders did not require him to take the village of Zonnebeke, but just “to continue the advance of V Corps in the direction of Zonnebeke”. There had been a brief break in the weather for the two weeks prior to the attack, and in spite of occasional showers the ground had dried out somewhat and hardened, so that the going was good. On the morning of the attack, there was a light mist, which favoured the British.

The Divisional Orders were for the 76th Brigade to be on the right of the line, and the 8th Brigade on the left. To the right of the 76th were the Anzacs, specifically the 13th Brigade. The first wave was to be formed by the Gordon Highlanders and the Kings Own, with the Royal Welch and the Suffolks in the second line. The frontage was 375 yards. Immediately to the right of the Suffolks was the 51st Australian Infantry Battalion, a unit still in existence today and based in Cairns, North Queensland. The plan was for the leading battalions to advance as far as Mühle (“the mill”), and then allow the rear battalions to pass through them. These would then attack in two waves,

the first carrying forward to the outskirts of the village, and the second penetrating to the railway station, church, brick yard and the lake by the Zonnebeke Chateau. The attack was to be preceded by two hours of shelling, and a “creeping barrage” was to accompany the advance.

In 1991 Miranda and I walked over the ground of the attack on a bright summer’s day. The small stream called the Hannebeke, a tributary of the Steenbeke, lies in a shallow valley, and from there the ground rises slowly and steadily towards Zonnebeke, whose church can now be seen from a great distance. Much of the area around Hannebeke has now been built over, and a Motorway crosses the line of advance just north-east of the Westhoek Ridge. The left axis of advance lay on the old Ypres-Roulers railway, now taken up, but from the point where the line crossed the Frezenberg-Zonnebeke road the railway embankment has been made into a single lane road. From Zonnebeke Station it becomes a walking track all the way to Tyne Cot. The advancing troops reached the Frezenberg-Zonnebeke road where the Mühle had once stood. Here there was also a road junction with the track which led to the Chateau and the Brickyard. The vital “leap-frog” of the battalions was to take place here. Driving along the main road, it is easy to miss this turning and find yourself in Zonnebeke and arriving at the church before you know it. Walking up the slope from Hannebeke, we could see the objective about a mile ahead of us, but it was hard to picture the mist and mud and desolation that existed in 1917. Contemporary photographs show the church and chateau almost completely demolished.

2/Lt L.J.Baker MC, one of the company commanders of the Suffolks (probably Y Coy), advancing with his men in the mist towards the brickyard, had great difficulty in finding his objective which was now just a small pile of rubble, but the lake was easily recognisable. (In his account, recorded in “They Called It Passchendaele” by Lyn Macdonald , Baker speaks of ‘Le Moulin’; but this was the name of another mill, which was some way beyond the village on the road to Broodseinde. This is clearly a mistake for ‘Mühle’, as the final objective was the line of the church, lake and brickyard).

Jack’s report on the attack is now held in the Public Records Office at Kew. He records the common confusion of formations advancing over unfamiliar ground in the dark, of the axis of advance deviating to the left, and of the uncertainty about the location of the line where the leading Battalions were to change over. But by the time they reached the outskirts of the village, the mist had cleared (or perhaps they had walked out of it on to the higher ground), and the objectives were clear before them. They advanced in perfect formation and rushed the enemy positions under cover of the barrage.

The Suffolks held the village for four days, and beat off the usual enemy counter-attacks, which began on the first night in bright moonlight. The 8th Brigade on the left actually withdrew, leaving the left flank in the air, but the line held. The attacking Germans were at a disadvantage, as they had to descend over the skyline, and in spite of heavy shelling all their attempts to re-take the village failed. The artillery was directed from enemy aircraft. Gas was used, and sniping was intense; but the line held.

On the evening of 29th September, the Suffolks were relieved by the 33rd Australian Infantry Battalion, and the Australians went on to capture Broodseinde Ridge on

4th October. The unit which I was later to have the privilege of commanding, the 9th Australian Field Ambulance, also took part in this action. The Suffolks lost 41 killed, and 192 wounded in this action. Jack was awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his conduct in the action.

Passchendaele was finally taken by the Canadians in late October in an unprecedented night attack. Fighting in the area continued until 10th November, but hopes of a break-out had long since been abandoned. The battle was over: everyone had lost track of the score. In fact British casualties in 1917 on the Western Front had amounted to 860,000, and of these 250,000 had been sustained at Passchendaele. Jack must have felt extremely lucky to be alive.

The Suffolks rested for three days at Winnezeele near Cassel, and on 3rd October were inspected by the Divisional Commander. They then marched to Arques just outside St Omer in the continuing rain, and from there they were trucked to Wizerne, where they entrained for Bapaume. From Bapaume they marched back to Barastre, where they had been in September, via Bancourt and Haplincourt. The rain continued unabated. So did the war: it had another year to go yet.

Jack now received the news that he had been granted a permanent commission with the Suffolks (as a Captain). We do not know who initiated this move: perhaps the Suffolks were embarrassed that they had achieved a singular success in battle under the command of a temporary officer from another regiment, and that he had been honoured for it. Whoever it was, and for whatever reason, it was to be the guarantee for Jack of future security, assuming that is that he survived the war. The boy from Brighton was now up there with the graduates from Sandhurst, although never quite on the same footing.

The battalion was given only 2 weeks rest, and then moved north to Mory, and into the line at Bullecourt, another infamous place, where they relieved the 185th Brigade. So ended October 1917. For a change, November passed quietly, with routine line duties and rest, and the occasional raid, and December likewise. Jack went on leave on 19th December, and had Christmas at home. On 9th January 1918 he went to Buckingham Palace to receive his decoration from King George V. Presumably Gladys was there, and possibly even little Jack, who was now 7 years old, but he never mentioned it. The medal and the letters patent, signed by the King, are in my possession. The citation in the London Gazette (6th April 1918) reads,

“Likeman, John Longhurst, Temporary Captain (Acting Lieut-Colonel), Gloucestershire Regt. For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He commanded his battalion with great dash and skill. It was largely owing to his personal leadership on two occasions that they gained all their objectives and beat off heavy enemy counter-attacks”.

What those two occasions actually were, we may never know.

The Distinguished Service Order is a lesser order of knighthood established by Queen Victoria in 1886 for officers of all three services. It ranks above the Military Cross, and below the Victoria Cross. Those upon whom it is conferred receive the style of knighthood, but not the title (i.e. they are not addressed as ‘Sir’). King George V introduced a Bar to this award, but few have been awarded.

Jack returned to the Battalion at Blaireville on 15th January 1918, where they had been in a hutted camp since late December. Snow lay on the ground. Blaireville is to the south of Arras, just a few miles from where the 12th Gloucesters had set off on their attack on the Somme in 1916. The front line had not advanced very far for all that effort, and the war seemed no nearer being won.

About this time the Brigade lost the 10th Royal Welch Fusiliers. As mentioned earlier, instructions were received from Cabinet that all divisions were to be re-organized on a 10-battalion basis, instead of the previous 13. This enabled the Government to accede to a French request to take over an additional 28 miles of the Front without releasing the fresh troops that were in training in England. Lloyd-George was still reluctant to give Haig reinforcements, in case he was tempted to embark on another futile offensive. Haig was not impressed; because of the reduction in numbers, the fighting efficiency of the division was reduced. Each brigade, instead of having 2 battalions in the line and two out, now had only one out, and this meant 2 tours of duty in the line to one of rest. In effect, the strength of the Army in the field was reduced by 25%, while on paper it appeared the same. All this at a time when intelligence reports confirmed the build up of enemy forces and their intention to launch an offensive early in the year. Cabinet totally failed to recognise the warning signs, and ignored Haig’s prognostications of doom. For once, Haig was right, and Lloyd-George was wrong. The line was allowed to be lengthened, and the fighting strength of units reduced at the precise moment that a major offensive was anticipated. It was a decision for which the Army was to pay a terrible price a short time later. A great many battalions were disbanded at this time because of the shortage of men, and this was inevitable. But the re-organization of these into smaller divisions gave a false sense of security.

Following the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917, Russia had declared an armistice, and early in 1918 signed a peace treaty with Germany at Brest Litovsk. As soon as the fighting stopped, large numbers of German divisions were released from the Eastern Front, and provided a massive reinforcement. By March, they had 192 divisions on the Western Front: the Allies had 173, but this included British, French, Belgian, Portuguese and American, some very weak, and some totally inexperienced. This expansion of their army gave the Germans one last chance to mount an offensive, and break out of the stalemate in the trenches. In the event they mounted three major attacks: two of them fell on Jack Likeman, and one on Tom Allison.

In the last week of January, the Suffolks moved up to take over a new sector of the line to the south-west of Arras, but further north than Bullecourt. This was along the road between the villages of Wancourt and Guemappe. This road lay on the west side of a small river, the Cojeul, beyond which the ground rose steadily to the east. The front line was on the far side of the river on the top of the ridge and overlooking the village of Cherisy. The reserve line was back at Mercatel. I have visited all these villages and their cemeteries in the pleasant French countryside.

On 3rd February Jack celebrated his 36th birthday. His birthday present was a reinforcement of 152 men and 8 officers from the 8th Suffolks, which had been disbanded. Much energy was expended on deepening and improving the defences. There was an air of expectation: since 1914, all the offensive action on the Western Front had been by the Allies. Now it seemed that the Germans were about to take the initiative. On 17th February Jack was admitted to the Field Ambulance for 3 days; no reason is given in the War Diary. Perhaps he was sick; maybe he had a bout of malaria. There is no suggestion that he had been wounded on this occasion.

The 3rd Division was positioned to the south of the Arras–Cambrai road. It was part of the First Army, which then had 14 divisions and a front of 28 miles. To the south was the much weaker Fifth Army, with 12 infantry and 3 cavalry divisions, covering a front of 42 miles which included the extra 28 miles that had been taken over from the French. As always, the junction between the British and French forces was a weak point in the defence. The brunt of the German attack by 76 divisions would soon fall on the weakened Fifth Army, which would retire in disorder, giving up all the gains of 1916 and 1917. The Germans would penetrate almost to the gates of Amiens, and be stopped eventually by the Australians at a small village whose name was once known to every Australian schoolboy, Villers-Bretonneux. But Ludendorff’s plan to roll up the British line from the south, and reach the Channel Ports would not succeed, and the Third Army would manage to hold Arras, which was the key point in Haig’s defence.

As February turned to March, the tempo of training increased; trench raids continued. It was cold, and greatcoats continued to be worn. Preparations for an attack continued, and on 11th March Jack issued an instruction, “Orders in the event of a Hostile Attack”. Battalion HQ was to be in a cellar near Wancourt Church. The main line of resistance was to be the Reserve Line, from which counter-attacks would be launched if the enemy penetrated the Front and Support Lines. However, Jack urged everyone to hang on to their positions even if surrounded, and await the counter-attack. Pigeons still get a mention as one of the means of communication. It is clear from these orders that Jack felt frustrated in his role as a commander by the lack of information received at Battalion Headquarters after the battle commenced, and that this limited his control of the battalion. Subordinate commanders were very much on their own at these times. Such is von Clausewitz’s famous “fog of war” , and it hasn’t changed much, even with modern technology.

The German offensive code-named Michael commenced at 5 am on 21st March with a gas barrage, and the shelling of positions in the Cojeul valley; the two German armies carrying out the attack had 6000 guns between them. The 3rd Division had been in the line already for 52 days; and at this time it was deployed with all three brigades in the line, each brigade front being held by one battalion. The Suffolks were holding the front for the 76th Brigade on the left of the division.  Advancing troops were seen at 9am to the north and south of the battalion front.  A small lodgement by the enemy was ejected. At 1pm a second attack by the Germans only reached some disused advanced positions in front of the wire. At 5.30pm the enemy withdrew. The line was held. Further south the Germans attempted to cut off the Flesquieres Salient, which marked the junction between the Third and Fifth Armies. Although they Germans made considerable inroads into the 6th and 51st Divisions, they did not get as far as they had planned in the first 24 hours.

The following day, 22nd March, the enemy was seen in the early afternoon moving along the road from Dury to Hendercourt-les-Cagnicourt, which lay beyond Cherisy and roughly parallel with the front line; but no attacks developed. During the night, which was quiet, orders were received to with draw to the Reserve Line, which lay behind Wancourt, and in front of Neuville-Vitasse. So much for the battalion plan for resisting an attack.  The move was commenced at once and completed before dawn. The 8th Brigade was to the south and the 15th Division to the north.  During the day, the enemy occupied the vacated positions as far as Wancourt, but was held up by small arms fire.

 On the morning of 24th March a heavy barrage commenced, and it was observed that the 15th Division was under attack. Later the attack widened to include the Gordon Highlanders on the left of the Brigade, but it was held. Overnight the Suffolks were withdrawn from the line to strengthen the defences of Neuville Vitasse, which occupied them for the next two days. Then on the 27th they relieved the Gordons, taking over the left of the Brigade and Divisional front.

At 3am on 28th a heavy barrage commenced and continued until dawn, when the right hand battalion of the 15th Division to the north was seen to be withdrawing. This left the Suffolks’ left flank in the air. A dense mass of German infantry was seen to be advancing behind their barrage. The left flank forward company (Y) was forced to face the enemy to the north instead the east and slowly disintegrated, while the supporting company on that flank (X) tried to make contact with the retiring elements of the 15th Division. Meanwhile the right support company (W), with its own left flank in the air, had its right flank turned by the withdrawal of the KORL on the right. The right forward company (Z) had been reduced to isolated pockets of men in shell-holes. The two front companies fought back to back until, completely surrounded and with ammunition spent, they were forced to surrender. The rest of the battalion also looked like being outflanked on both sides and encircled, and Jack wisely gave the order to withdraw into the village and establish contact with the remaining KORL and Gordon Highlanders. This was effected, but the enemy secured a foothold in the village before dark.

 The following day, in spite of the continuing barrage, the battalion was relieved by the 21st Canadian Regiment, and moved into billets at Rivière, near Blaireville, a few kilometres further back, and thence to Sombrin. They had lost 14 officers and 411 other ranks. Many of these were casualties of the artillery, since the third line trenches were wide and shallow, and not ready for an attack. The Times and the Morning Post

(2nd April 1918) spoke in glowing terms of the conduct of the 3rd Division, and especially of the last stand of the Suffolks forward companies, suggesting that it was a suitable subject for a painting; but I doubt if Jack saw it this way. He had been forced to give ground to the enemy, about five kilometers in all, and had lost over half his men as casualties or prisoners of war.

Fortunately for the Allies, wet weather now took a hand, and the German advance on Amiens to the south began to bog down. The line which the Suffolks handed over to the Canadians was never lost, and although the Germans could now plainly see Arras, they could not to reach it, nor could they swing north behind it and roll up the British line as they had hoped to do.

The 3rd Division was now transferred to the First Army in the north, where the next blow was expected. The 51st Division went with them. Haig’s plan was for them to replace two Portuguese divisions, which he did not consider capable of resisting an enemy attack. Accordingly on 1st April 1918, Easter Monday, the Suffolks  marched to Liencourt, and embussed for Camblain-Chatelain near Bruay en-Artois, to the south-west of Bethune. Here Jack relinquished command of the Suffolks to LtCol Stubbs, who had returned from his six months in England. It was a very different battalion from the one he had left behind before Passchendaele.

Jack was posted to take command of another battalion in the 76th Brigade, the 8th Kings Own Royal Lancaster Regiment. This was a Service Battalion, like the 12th Gloucesters (i.e. the men has signed on for the duration of the war). The King’s Own was the 4th Regiment of Foot, raised in 1680, and had been granted the title “King’s Own” by King George I in 1715. The Suffolk Regiment, which was the 12th Regiment of the Line was not raised until 1685 !

 The KORL were at Dieval, a few miles to the south of Camblain-Chatelain, and drafts of up to 300 men joined them there to replace the losses of Neuville-Vitasse. The 14 divisions of the First Army now had a front of 33 miles. An attack in this area was anticipated, as it was vital ground for the protection of the Channel ports. These were the only hope of escape for the BEF if the German offensive in the south reached Amiens and thereafter Paris.

 This new German offensive was given the code name “Georgette”. Its aim was to push in the Allied line between Ypres and La Bassée Canal on a front of about 25 miles, and after taking Armentières (and its ‘mademoiselle’ too, no doubt), to advance to the important railway junction at Hazebrouck about 15 miles further on. From there the Channel ports would be at the mercy of the Germans.

The Canal runs east to west from La Bassée to Béthune, and is a considerable obstacle to an advancing army; on the northern side the line was held by the two Portuguese divisions, four brigades in all. The Portuguese were unreliable, as there was a revolution taking place at home, which was where most of them wanted to be. Besides they were not accustomed to the rigours of the wet and cold winter. The Germans saw this as a weak point in the line, and were anxious to attack before the Portuguese divisions were replaced. 

The German attack began on 9th April 1918, and the Portuguese, out-numbered four to one, caved in. Later that day, Jack’s battalion was put on one hour’s notice to move, but they did not finally move until the night of 11th, when they were bussed to the Hinges area. There they were temporarily placed under command of the 8th Brigade (still part of the 3rd Division). This was the day on which Haig issued his famous Order of the Day. “Every position must be held to the last man: there must be no retirement. With our backs to the wall, and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end.”

Having secured the bridge over the Canal at Avelette, the KORL began to dig a reserve line between the villages of Locon and Le Hamel in touch with the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry (KSLI). Heavy shelling by the enemy commenced. During the morning of the 12th April the front line battalions of the Brigade, the Royal Scots and the Royal Scots Fusiliers, were seen to be withdrawing, and there was concern at Brigade HQ that there might be a gap in the line. Confusion reigned. Patrols were sent forward, but no enemy was found. The heavy shelling all along the line continued. Jack was summoned urgently to a conference with the GOC, Brigadier General Fisher. Four machine guns, the 8th Trench Mortar Battery, and the 438th Field Company of Royal Engineers were placed under his command to strengthen his position. There was still no contact with the enemy, and contact with other formations also was unreliable. The fog of war had descended yet again, this time enhanced by real mist from the low-lying meadows. Small groups of men from various units, including the 51st Division, trickled back to the Canal, and were incorporated into its defence.

In fact the enemy was advancing from east to west across the brigade front at Locon, and had penetrated as far as Le Cornet Malo where they captured the HQ of the 152nd Brigade which was holding the left flank of the 51st Division.  But this was as far as they were able to advance; the next day they reached the Clarence River at Robecq and approached the Canal between Hinges and Busnes, but they had no hope of crossing either obstacle, and their attack petered out. They had advanced about two miles on 13th, but the British centre at Vierhouck, in front of Hazebrouck, stood firm.

Within a few days, the situation eased, as the enemy turned his attention to the right flank of his advance, where he had had some success and had advanced three miles to the south-west of Bailleul. To protect the ground he had gained, he had to turn north against the dominating high ground of Mont des Cats, but he did not capture it. Georgette was finished.

The 3rd Division remained in much the same position for the next six weeks, and although periodically shelled, they were not attacked. On 21st May the Germans released mustard gas on the Division, causing over 1000 casualties; if this was intended to be the prelude to a fresh attack, it was not followed up. At the beginning of June, the battalion moved into the divisional reserve at Chocques, and Jack left for six months tour of duty in England. The war was over before the six months were up. As he climbed aboard the steamer to take him across the Channel, he must have reflected on the events of the previous nine months, and no doubt he felt lucky to be alive.

On 21st June Jack was appointed Temporary Lieutenant Colonel; he remained a substantive Captain, but the new title indicated that he would continue to hold the rank of Lieutenant Colonel for the duration of the war, and not just for the length of his current posting. He had been an Acting Lieutenant Colonel while he held command of the Suffolks and the KORL. He was now posted to command the 1/16 Battalion of the London Regiment (Queen’s Westminster Rifles), a battalion which belonged to the 169th Brigade (56th Division) and had fought on the Somme and at Ypres.

The QWR was a Territorial Battalion, as its numerical listing indicates, but we do not have a War Diary to show where it was stationed in June 1918. In January 1919 they were located at Southborough, near Bromley in Kent. The battalion depot was at

58 Buckingham Gate in Westminster, at the back of Wellington Barracks Presumably it had been sent home to act as a holding battalion for amalgamations or disbanding of other units. We can only guess what feelings Jack had in this posting; I imagine he was glad of the rest and the opportunity to be with his family (little Jack was now seven), but probably also eager to get back to France where the tide had turned and was running strongly against the Germans. In July the Allied offensive on the Marne began, and in August the offensive on the Somme, followed by the assault on the Hindenburg Line.

The Armistice

In November 1918 the Armistice was signed, and the guns fell silent. Of course, Jack was not out of a job, as he had gained his Regular Commission, but the prospects of a career in a peacetime army were uncertain, and he was only 36 years old. With the armies going home, and the Suffolks reduced to its usual peacetime strength of two battalions, Jack must have wondered what he was going to do.

In January 1919 Jack wrote to the Secretary of State for War, asking for a posting to the Egyptian Army; no personal introduction or acquaintance is referred to.  He received a charming personal reply from K.C. Procter,[i] whose position is not mentioned, but who lived in Room 141 at the War Office. The letter reads as follows,

 “My dear Colonel, Thank you for your letter. I’m awfully sorry about Egypt but I am afraid it is definitely a wash out.  I return your application as I thought you might like to bring in another one asking to be sent anywhere where the sun is shining !  If you will return it to me, I will push it on to the right people. I think, if I were you, I would make more of a story of your African experience; they might do something, but I’m afraid the Egyptian Army is definitely off. Yours ever.”

 Whether this contact at the War Office paid off or not, it is hard to say. But it was not to a place where the sun shone that Jack was next to be posted: on 7th April 1919 he received a telegram ordering him to report to the Tower of London the following day, for embarkation for Archangel on the 9th. The telegram came from Room 134 at the War Office, just up the corridor from K.C. Procter.

K.C. Procter does not appear in the Army Lists of the period, and so was presumably an Under Secretary in the War Office.

British troops had been in North Russia since March 1918, and were reinforced later by French and Americans, and a few Australians. When the Germans and Russians concluded the Treaty of Brest Litovsk, the immediate effect (as has been noted earlier) was to allow the transfer of a million German soldiers to the Western Front. The Allies were naturally eager to see the war on the Eastern Front re-opened, and wished to give support to the counter-revolutionary elements, or White Russians, whom they hoped would carry on the struggle against Germany. The latter were however more interested in carrying on the struggle against the Bolsheviks.

Major General Edmund Ironside took over as Commander in Chief in October 1918; his orders were also rather vague, but he set about securing the rivers and railways against the Bolsheviks. Ironically the first serious confrontation with the Russians did not take place until after the Armistice, so the Allied forces had some difficulty in understanding why they were still there – indeed there was a brief mutiny of the Yorkshire Regiment at Seletskoe on February 26th, a place where Jack was soon to serve.

During the extreme Russian winter, defence was the only reasonable strategy, and the troops lived in wooden blockhouses and rarely ventured outside. With the coming of spring, the cold was replaced by intolerable heat, and the tundra (which was little more than a vast peat sponge) became home to millions of mosquitoes and horse-flies. The operation was now focused on holding the railway line from Vologda to Archangel, and the River Dvina and its tributaries, navigable only in summer. These routes were the only possible means of linking up with the surviving White Russian forces. These forces, however, being made up mostly of Bolshevik deserters, were of doubtful value, and by early 1919 it began to look as if the entire operation was going to be futile.

On March 3rd, Winston Churchill told the House of Commons that it might now be necessary to send reinforcements to North Russia in order to guarantee the successful withdrawal of the troops already there. The government promptly called for a volunteer force of 8000; nothing was said about fighting the Bolsheviks, although Churchill may have still cherished the fantasy of overthrowing them – but not with 8000 men.

Jack sailed from Tilbury as ordered on 9th April with a contingent of reinforcements. They embarked on the ss Porto, formerly a German luxury liner the Prinz Heinrich, which had carried the Crown Prince on a tour of German colonies before the war. At the outbreak of war, she was in Portuguese waters, and was seized by the Portuguese and handed over to the British for use as a troopship. She arrived at Murmansk on 19th April. Jack’s first job was at the HQ Tactical School, teaching Russian officers. We do not know where this was located, but it is reasonable to assume that it was in Archangel. The first of the volunteer brigades, the 238th, arrived in Archangel on May 27th under the command of Brigadier General Grogan VC.

Among his group of young Lieutenant Colonels was A.E.Percival, the ill-fated GOC at Singapore in 1942, who won a bar to his DSO on the Dvina; also Sherwood-Kelly VC of the Inniskillings, a Temporary Lieutenant Colonel like Jack, who was later sent home for insubordination. Once back in England he wrote to the Daily Express, revealing his concern that the volunteer force, raised for purely defensive purposes, was in fact being used in furtherance of some ambitious offensive plan. Essentially this letter exposed the unpleasant truth about the North Russian intervention, that there existed in some parts of the Government a hidden agenda, namely the overthrow of the Bolshevik Government. The ‘ambitious plan’ was an advance up the Dvina to Kotlas to form a junction with the White Russian Army of Admiral Kolchak, who would then move his headquarters from Siberia to Archangel. One wonders how many of the volunteers shared Sherwood-Kelly’s tender conscience; for the most part they volunteered because they were eager to fight.

The second contingent, under the command of Brigadier General Sadleir-Jackson, arrived a month later. Soon after there followed a series of mutinies among the supposedly loyal Russian soldiers. Kolchak was forced out of Perm on the Trans-Siberian railway by the Reds, and his army began to melt away. Perm was in any case over 400 miles from Kotlas. Hopes of a junction with Kolchak were now abandoned, and Ironside was ordered to withdraw all his forces before winter. To facilitate this, a decisive blow was to be struck against the Bolsheviks on the Dvina front. This commenced on 10th August, and the strategy employed was no less than the opening phase of Ironside’s plan for advancing to Kotlas. The British carried all before them and advanced 10 miles, and were thus able to disengage without further loss.

The disengagement offensive on the Railway Front began on August 17th. Selitskoe was a stronghold on the Emtsa River, a tributary of the Dvina, which provided a link with the Vologda-Archangel railway at Emtsa. Selitskoe was the place of the mutiny of the Yorkshire Regiment earlier in the year. The Selitskoe Column was one of two columns of Russian troops which were part of the Vologda Force, (the other was at Onega, far away across the railway) and its garrison was mostly those “loyal Russians”, who had proved anything but loyal. The Vologda Force was commanded by Brigadier General Turner.

During the winter months, when campaigning was impossible, the troops of both sides retired to blockhouses, and adopted a passive defensive role. With the rivers frozen over, movement was very limited. So it was essential for Ironside to complete his withdrawal during the few summer months, or be trapped in Russia for another year.

Jack’s name does not appear in any of the official records that I have inspected for this campaign. We know from his own notes that he was Commandant of 9 HQ Tactical School in June and July 1919, and that he was deputy commander of the Selitskoe Column from 1st August, presumably during the fighting in that area that preceded the withdrawal to Archangel.

Jack was awarded the Order of St Stanislas (Second Class, with Swords) by General Miller, the White Russian Commander at Archangel on 25th September 1919, the day that he embarked for home. The citation reads:

“ In recognition of your valuable services in the re-generation of the Russian Army”.

What this amounted to is speculative: General Ironside was quoted years after by General Morgan in his book on the Allied Occupation of Germany, as having referred to Jack as “one of the bravest officers in the British Army”. So he must have been personally known by Ironside, and presumably he took part in the fighting; perhaps in the attack on Emtsa on 29th August, in which Sgt Sam Pearse of Mildura won the VC.

Jack was also mentioned in dispatches by Ironside, the fourth time he received this honour, and in September 1919 he was granted the brevet rank of Major. This quaint custom allowed him to wear the rank badges of higher rank, although he was only entitled to be paid at his substantive rank. It also granted a reduction in the time in rank required before consideration for promotion. In practice this meant that on his return from Russia, when he had to relinquish the temporary rank of Lieutenant Colonel, he became a Major and not a Captain; I have no record of his promotion to substantive Major, but it was certainly not until 1926, and indeed may not have happened until his retirement.

Back in London in October 1919, Jack was attached to the 2nd Battalion of the Suffolks, which was on home service. But he did not intend to stay at home any longer than necessary. Once again he visited the War Office, and on this occasion was fortunate enough to meet Brigadier J.H. Morgan, an erudite Oxford lawyer who was Deputy Adjutant General. Morgan had been appointed the senior British Representative on the Allied Control Commission in Germany. He had originally been sent to France in 1914 as a civilian to investigate War Crimes, and had been put into uniform to facilitate this.

Jack went to see him at the War Office in late 1919 when Morgan was on leave from Germany to ask if he could join the Control Commission. Morgan wrote later,

“ I had already chosen, after personal interviews in Cologne and London, the full complement of British officers for the Effectives Sub-Commission, but I was so impressed by Likeman, that I determined to find room for him and, with General Macdonough’s support, I succeeded. It was a lucky day for me when I met him - he was one of my most loyal supporters on the Commission.”

General Macdonogh was the Adjutant General at that time. So it was, that with the temporary rank of Major, Jack left for Germany in January 1920, and remained there for the next six years until the Commission closed down. His self-taught knowledge of French and German gained him an appointment as official interpreter. There are many family photographs of these years, but they are too faded to include in these pages. Most of the people and places are not identified.

Article 169 of the Treaty of Versailles required Germany to hand over all war material in excess of the quantities allowed within two months of the treaty coming into force. The role of the Commission was to supervise the disarmament. The Commission was divided into a number of Sub-Commissions to oversee disarmament in specific areas, e.g. the “Fortifications” Sub-Commission. The “Effectives” Sub-Commission, of which General Morgan was the commander, had the responsibility of disbanding of the old German Army and Police, and the supervision of their reconstruction along lines acceptable to the Allies. This included the end of conscription, which had been the mainstay of the German army for decades before the war. Other Sub-Commissions were responsible for the inspection of armaments factories and chemical plants.

It was widely known then, and universally known now, that Germany had no intention of disarming; the six years of the Commission’s activity were years of obstruction and deception on the part of the Germans, and for all its efforts the objectives of the Commission remained unfulfilled. In December 1925 the Treaty of Locarno dissolved the Control Commission, and (inter alia) withdrew the Allied occupation forces from the Rhineland in recognition of Germany’s compliance with the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles. It was political naïvety of the style which led to the Second World War.

The Commission started its work in January 1920. There were just under 400 officers, drawn from the five victorious nations, Britain, France, Belgium, Italy, and Japan, and they were distributed around Germany according to the specific tasks which had been assigned to them. Individually, therefore, they were weak and vulnerable, and the Germans with characteristic arrogance lost no opportunity of humiliating them.

The accounts are remarkably similar to those of the UN weapons inspectors in Iraq after the Gulf War, when they attempted to monitor Iraq’s dismantling of her weapons of mass destruction; they were lied to, offered personal abuse, and finally thrown out. The end of such behaviour in the history of the world has always been another war.

For the first year and a half, Jack was stationed at Stettin, north of Frankfurt and north-east of Berlin. Here he distinguished himself by standing up to the Germans while inspecting Security Police and Reichswehr in barracks. In the summer of 1922 he moved to Munich, where a new Infantry School had been established. Among the more notorious of the citizens of Munich at this time was Adolf Hitler. Hitler made his political debut in November 1923, when he launched an abortive attempt to overthrow the State Government of Bavaria, the so- called “Munich Putsch”. Following his failure, Hitler spent 13 months in prison, and used the time to write “Mein Kampf”. It is not recorded that he and Jack ever met, but Jack would have been well aware of the menace of the National Socialist Party.

Following the winding up of the Commission in December 1925, Jack returned to England, and after a brief attachment to the 2nd Battalion of the Suffolks at Colchester, was posted to the 1st Battalion on their return to England from Gibraltar. He and Gladys were living in Camberley in Surrey in 1930, and it was from here that Little Jack commuted to London when he started work in 1927. Jack had no prospect of advancement in the peacetime army at home, and he knew it. He blamed it on his lack of education. He was not a Sandhurst man, and with the return of peace, came the return of social prejudice. War hero or not, he didn’t have a chance.

Jack remained with this battalion until he reached retirement age (50 years) on 3rd February 1932, and on this day he was finally promoted to substantive Lieutenant Colonel. One year later, almost to the day, Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany. It might have been supposed that Jack’s personal knowledge of Germany would have secured him a post in one of Britain’s Intelligence organizations, but it did not. These were also citadels of the Establishment. Instead Jack was offered a job as a civilian in Recruiting, and spent the next two years in Brighton as Assistant Recruiting Officer

for the SE Area. In March 1934 he moved to the Central London Recruiting Depot, and in July the same year he was appointed Chief Recruiting Officer for the Wessex Area and Aldershot Command, based in Salisbury. He and Gladys moved to Wylye a short distance from Codford where the 12th Gloucesters had trained in 1915. On a date unrecorded, Jack became Commandant of the SW Recruiting Division, which took him to Bristol, where they lived at 4 Redland Park. This was the period from which two letters have survived from his brother Bill in India, mentioned in Chapter 2. Jack retained this post until his final retirement in March 1944. The grounds for retirement were “ill health” unspecified; he was 62. I presume that he was put back into uniform on the outbreak of war in 1939, and he was awarded the Defence Medal. This medal bears the head of George VI, the fourth sovereign whom he had served in uniform.

Gladys retired also; she had been working in the Post and Telegraph Censorship Department. She and Jack retired to South Devon, where they bought a house at Dartmeet in the middle of Dartmoor, where Jack could fish for salmon and indulge his passion for gardening. It was isolated, especially in those days of petrol rationing, and without mains power or telephone. Cooking for Gladys was on a primus stove, and rarely with bottled gas. In retrospect a better choice could have been made, because the place was inaccessible, and they were an ageing couple. But as children, Peter and I enjoyed our summer holidays there, travelling down from Paddington to Newton Abbott by steam train, playing with the river (the East and West Dart rivers meet at the bottom of the garden), gathering driftwood for the winter fires, and exploring the Moor. These were the years before Dartmeet became known as a “beauty spot” and the destination of Coach Tours. There was nearby Widecombe, of Uncle Tom Cobbeley fame, and the dread prison at Princetown, built by prisoners in the Napoleonic Wars. And fresh salmon, and clotted cream, and raspberries, all great luxuries in the late 40s, when everything was rationed or unobtainable.

Grandfather was a distant and grumpy old man in our view, and never told tales of his amazing life, of which we knew nothing. He used to have a sleep every day after lunch, and woe betide us if we made a noise and woke him. He once sent us money to see the film “Where No Vultures Fly”, which was made in Kenya; but I have to say that I knew virtually nothing about him until after my father’s death, when some of his papers came into my possession. I much regret this, as he wrote down so little of his experiences. I do not think my father knew very much either, as I only recall him passing on a couple of details about his father, both of which later proved inaccurate !

But he was clearly not always as we saw him; as a younger man he had been good-looking, popular, and intrepid. Absolutely fearless, as General Morgan described him. But he had never learnt how to talk to children, not even his own son. Such is life. Jack and Gladys had little money, as Jack’s pension was not indexed, and the inflation between 1932 and 1952 was prodigious. They sold cut-flowers and petrol to augment their income. I know that Jack applied without success for the post of Chief Constable of Devon; I imagine that he was by then too old. He put the house in Gladys’s name to avoid death duties; this was a disaster. In 1954 she developed ovarian cancer, and on 13th August she died in Ashburton Hospital. I remember being taken to see her about a week before she died; she already had ascites, and was having paracentesis. Jack may have treated her with little consideration in her lifetime, but I believe he truly loved her, and was lost without her. In the next chapter I relate a story about a shrub, of which she had been particularly fond, that he cherished after her death.

Jack passed the next few years living alone, in deteriorating health. He had osteoarthritis of his hips, and had difficulty getting about. The large garden got away from him. My father used to go down for a weekend from time to time to do heavy chores, but because of the isolation and distance had only a limited time there. At least in later years he had the telephone connected. Peter and I both together and separately visited our grandfather a couple of times, hitch-hiking, and later in a rented car, but we had little to say to each other. When I passed my A Levels in Greek and Latin, he commented to my father that perhaps French and German would have been more useful; of course he was absolutely right, but he didn’t say it to me.

Jack had a few minor strokes, and had hypertension. He was finally persuaded to sell the house, and move into rooms at “Laburnum” at 13 West Street, in Ashburton. Everything was sold at Sotheby’s, including two beautiful French clocks that my father much admired, and other personal treasures. Ultimately I became the owner of a Russian icon which had failed to sell, (I assume it came from Archangel), and of his sword and decorations. The sword was made in 1906, and I have carried it on parade on many occasions; I have willed it to the next of Jack’s descendants who receives the Queen’s Commission.

I have no record of the date of Jack’s move to Ashburton, but it was not long before his death on 7th January 1963. He was a month short of his 81st birthday. The terminal event was a stroke, but he died in his own bed, with his Colt pistol as always under his pillow. Heavy snow fell on the day of the funeral, and the hearse required chains for the last journey to the Torquay crematorium. There is a simple slate memorial plaque on the churchyard wall at Ashburton, naming Jack and Gladys. When I was last there in 1986, I had to peel back the ivy which had already begun to encroach on it. If ever there was a reminder that the paths of glory lead but to the grave, this was it.

His will was brief and precise, as befits a soldier. It was made in 1955 after Gladys’s death; Little Jack was his sole heir. I have not located the probate assessment of its value. So passed on a great man; he came from nowhere, yet he achieved more than most in his day. Yet I suspect that if he could be recalled to pass judgment on his own life, he might reasonably say, “I did well, but I never quite made it”.

More chapters to come…