Tag: East Surreys

I would be so glad to receive these things

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5th February

Today saw another General Court Martial take place in Bailleul, where the 15th Brigade remained in billets. This court martial is interesting in that it deals with an officer: Captain Montagu Dalston Turnbull of the 1st Bn. East Surrey Regiment. Gleichen is president for this case.

Turnbull was born in 1886 to Charles and Ellen Turnbull, residents of Blackheath, Greenwich. Charles is listed as a “man of own means” and a “Gentleman” in census reports. Montagu attends Tonbridge School in Kent and then joins the Army as a Special Reserve with the 4th Bn East Surreys.

Turnbull had only joined his fellow East Surreys from England on the 21st January. According to the 15th Brigade’s diary an alarm was set off by him that the enemy were concentrating for attack. Airmen’s views the next day contradicted this. As we saw on the 3rd February, the army was clamping down on poor sentry duties rather severely. The East Surrey’s diary for the night of 4/5th February 1915 reads, “At 3am Headqrs. tested communication with forward battery regarding rapidity of Artillery support when unexpectedly called for at night on unregistered target”. Was this initiated by the hand of Captain Turnbull? It certainly sounds like modern marketing speak for “we made a massive cockup”.

Did Turnbull prove to be unsuitable for front line life? His CO, Major Patterson, certainly thought so. There’s a damning note at the end of the East Surrey’s war diary for February 18th 1915. Captain Turnbull had been sent back to England. When he arrives, Turnbull is listed at a serving member of the 1st Battalion. When he leaves he belongs, once more, to “4/th E.S.R”.

The next place I’ve found him is in The London Gazette, ever-reliable record of the comings and goings of British Army officers, “Captain Montagu D. Turnbull resigns his commission. Dated 4th August, 1915.”

What had gone on in the intervening months? Did frustration of not being able to fight get the better of him? Or was there a darker tale behind Turnbull’s fall from grace. Did he go to prison? Whatever happened, on the 17th December, he joined the 11th (Queen’s Own) Royal West Kents as a private. Did he want to get back to the fighting? Or did a white feather send him back to the army? He describes himself as a farmer on his service papers, although how much farming went on in Greenwich is hard to say.

Perhaps life as a private didn’t suit him either or the training was too much for him because he went missing between 26th and 31st March 1916 and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Turnbull had every intention of returning to duty according to submitted evidence in his service records. I wonder if the submitter of this information and the occupant of 50 Vanbrugh Park, a Miss Sales, was anything to do with his reluctance to return to barracks. This could have been one of two sisters: Gertrude Annette Sales or Violet Guinevere Sales (aged 29 and 28 respectively in 1916), daughters of Arthur Sales, a Government Lighting Contractor.

Luckily for Turnbull, he was sent overseas, to Italy, before the arrest warrant catches up with him. Later on, he was sentenced to 10 days C.B. which I take it means Confined to Barracks.

The next time I’ve found the hapless Turnbull, I’m sorry to say that he’s been killed in Flanders on the 27th April 1918, presumably during the German Spring Offensive. He’s buried at Hagle Dump Cemetery near Poperinge in Belgium. He died a Lance Corporal.

He left a pitiful collection of objects which were returned to his mother: 2 identity discs, half a franc, some postcards and a mascot; a supposedly “lucky” black cat pouch. Lucky for some.

On the back of the effects form, his mother, Ellen, has written a plea to the army. She hasn’t received the things she wanted most: A pocket notebook and a small leather photograph case. She writes “I would be so glad to receive these things”.

Water, water, everywhere

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7th January 1915

The wet weather destroyed much of the hard work done to the trenches by the East Surreys and the Dorsets. Water ran freely up over the bottom of the trenches. At some points men stood up to their waists in freezing water. The left hand end of Sector C, to the left of the Dorsets in Sector D, was totally flooded.

So, for Frank and his “Bhoys”, it would have been a godsend to hear that, at the end of a quiet day, they were being relieved by the 1st Bn Bedfords. This was completed by 7.45pm. The Dorsets marched to billets in Dranoutre.

One man is listed on the CWGC as having been killed today. James Griffiths was another territorial reinforcement; a proper cockney, hailing from Bow in the East End of London. His death is not listed in the war diary.

The winter rain was affecting people back in Britain too. Like last year’s flooding, much of the Thames burst its banks between Marlow and Windsor, and all the way down to Chertsey and Teddington, leading to widespread damage and overblown prose from journalists.

Super furry animaux

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1st December 1914

The Dorsets didn’t enjoy a very long rest but, if the East Surrey’s war diary is anything to go by, they might have stocked up on winter clothing which had arrived at Dranouter the previous week. This included fabulously bushy fur jackets made from goatskins.

Image showing men of the 11th Hussars in the trenches at Zillebeke during the winter of 1914-1915
Not a yeti. Men of the 11th Hussars in the trenches at Zillebeke during the winter of 1914-1915. IWM Q 51176

In the afternoon they marched via Neuve Église and relieved their old friends, the East Surreys. The Dorsets were now in trenches, according to the diary, to “the north of Wulverghem-Messines Road”. I’ve indicated it on the map. Frank and the rest of A Company went into the reserve trenches alongside the Battalion HQ dugouts.

The 15th Brigade’s war diary documents that I’ve downloaded from the Public Records Office, although it’s meant to include August to December, only goes up to September. I wonder if the papers are lost or if they are just not digitised yet. Luckily some of the Dorsets’ trench maps for early December are tucked into the 14th Brigade’s records.

Peppermints and perfumed soap

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### 29th November 1914

Let’s begin today’s post with a deceptively bucolic description of the local terrain by Count Gleichen:

Imagine a bit of rolling country—rather like parts of Leicestershire,—fair-sized fields, separated mostly by straggling fences interspersed with wire (largely barbed), and punctuated by tall trees. Patches of wood in places, spinney size for the most part. Low hills here and there—;Kemmel, Scherpenberg, Ploegsteert Wood,—but all outside our area. For villages, Dranoutre, Neuve Église, Wulverghem, and Lindenhoek, of which the two last were already more than half shot to pieces and almost deserted. Opposite our right was Messines—a mile and a half in front of our line,—its big, square, old church tower still standing; it may have had a spire on the top, but if so it had disappeared before we came. Nearly opposite our extreme left, but out of our jurisdiction and in the sphere of the Division on our left, was Wytschaete (pronounce Wich Khâte), one and a half miles off.

14th Brigade handed over control of the Dranoutre area to 15th Brigade in the morning. All the troops in trenches, including the Manchesters and the East Surreys, came under Gliechen’s command. The 14th Brigade moved with its ambulance and baggage train to Saint Jans-Cappel four miles to the west, just over the border in France. The 15th Brigade had just arrived from there after a short rest. Gleichen stayed with the local Curé…

who liked the good things of this world … and did not disdain to make the acquaintance of an occasional tot of British rum or whisky, except on Fridays.

The Dorsets received orders to gauge the Germans’ strength in front of them. Another quiet day is reported in the diary. The Germans kept them on their toes during the night with two outbursts of rifle fire.

At home the Daily Telegraph reports the war has gone quiet in France and Belgium all along the line.

The newspaper is still banging on about Christmas present ideas for the men. Peppermint lozenges and perfumed soap (bad breath and B.O. being a big no no when hunkered down in a stinking trench) should included be offered as small gifts for those family members who are “maintaining the honour of the Country”.

There are also recipes for feeding wounded soldiers. What they do to a fillet steak possibly breaks the Geneva Convention. After the steak has been hammered flat and fried for 10 to 15 minutes I am sure the men could have used it as a bullet proof vest. Thankfully, a letter from Ethel Jonson offers to set up a society to put recent Belgian refugees* to good use and teach the English to cook. She labels English cuisine as being “lamentably inferior to that of Continental cookery”. Plus ça change.

*Did they get tax credits, I wonder?

Ten dud thuds

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26th November 1914

There was heavy rifle and machine gun fire from the Germans in the night which had died down by the morning. But no attack was made. This pattern of rifle fire at night rising “to a roar on both sides” is recorded in The History of the Dorsetshire Regiment 1914-1918.

More orders were received from 14th Brigade about counter sniping. Frank, as a marksman, would surely have been involved in this activity. The trenches were so close that I imagine not having sights didn’t really make much difference.

I have a hand drawn map signed by Major Fraser that I am currently redrawing (I’m not sure of the copyright issue with Public Record Office scans) which shows the German lines as close as 50 yards in places (46 metres in new money). I am not sure of the date but it looks like it was copied from one drawn by the East Surreys on the 20th November so it can’t be too far after today’s date. Later Dorset trench maps change orientation from landscape to portrait.

Although little shelling was reported along the 14th Brigade’s sector, at around 2pm a large amount of shells landed over the Dorset stretch of the line. 10 out of the 16 shells didn’t explode – or were “blind” as the 14th Brigade’s diary puts it. This is also recorded in the Dorsets’ diary in less detail.

3 Dorset men were killed with 4 wounded. The CWGC records more: 6 men died, although one of them is buried up in Balleuil so may have died of wounds. The Dorsets’ diary records “situation quiet”. I think quiet is a relative term here.