Poet – Edward Shilito
Born in 1872, he was a Free Church minister in Kent, Hampshire and London. He did not serve in the First World War. His verse and prose on religious subjects featured in newspapers and periodicals. One such publication was The Nation which was under the discriminating editorship of Harold Massingham it did, however, have a record of printing ‘honest, questioning work of good quality’.(1) Edward Shilito died in 1948.
Poem – Invalided
HE limps along the city street,
Men pass him with a pitying glance;
He is not there, but on the sweet
And troubled plains of France.
Once more he marches with the guns,
Reading the way by merry signs,
His Regent Street through trenches runs,
His Strand among the pines.
For there his comrades jest and fight,
And others sleep in that fair land;
They call him back in dreams of night
To join their dwindling band.
He may not go; on him must lie
The doom, through peaceful years to live,
To have a sword he cannot ply,
A life he cannot give.
Painting
Gilbert Rogers
The Royal Army Medical Corps at Messines during the 1917 Offensive
He enlisted as a Private in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) on 5th November 1915 aged 34 and was immediately sent to the RAMC Training Camp in Eastbourne. He then completed pre-deployment training in Codford, Wiltshire and joined ‘N’ Company, 35 Coy RAMC. In 1918 he was tasked with managing a group of RAMC private soldiers, all professional artists to document the medical history of the war and the war work of the RAMC. In July 1918 he returned to France in this capacity, to brief artists, choose locations and to make preparatory drawings for his own work. On their return from the front, the artists worked from studios in Fulham in London and produced approximately six hundred paintings, sculptures and models featuring war work both at home and overseas. Gilbert Rogers was awarded a Military MBE in the Peace Gazette of June 1919 for his work on this art project. After producing his most memorable works during this war period, he ceased to paint for the rest of his life.
Read more about the at and the artists here https://www.theypressalient.com/post/art-artists-the-ypres-salient
Mowed Down Like Sheep
The 25 April 1915 is a day that brought catastrophe to 7th Battalion Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders and to the towns and villages of Falkirk District. The 7th Battalion were seen as Falkirk District’s Battalion. The men were all serving Territorials, work mates and friends. The battalion had just returned from summer camp when war was declared. Like all Territorial Battalions they had been formed as part of the 1908 Haldane reforms of the army and as Territorials their role was to provide home defence. There was also an option by which they could volunteer for service abroad.
To a man the men of the 7th Argyll’s signed up for overseas service. It was five weeks after war had been declared when the men met up at Stirling Castle on 16th September and that same evening the battalion departed on their journey south to Bedford. They left Bedford on 11th December and on 14th December they embarked for France onboard the ‘Oxonian’ however, a fire onboard meant that they had to disembark. On 15th December they boarded the ‘Tintoretto’ and sailed for Le Harve disembarking, after a short delay in the approaches to the port, and on the 19th they departed Le Havre by train bound for St Omer arriving there on 20 December and from St Omer they marched to billets in the village of Helfaut. They stayed here until the 3rd January 1915, when they moved onto Hazebrouck on 4th January, Bailleul on 5th and arrived in Nieppe on 6th January. The battalion joined the 10th Brigade, 4th Division on 6 January 1915 and immediately began trench instruction and training.
The account of the action on 25 April 1915 can be found here https://www.theypressalient.com/post/25-april-1915-a-bloody-day-at-st-julian
The casualties of the 7th Argyll’s were twelve officers and 425 other ranks:
Officers - 6 killed, 6 wounded Other Ranks - 100 killed, 175 wounded and 150 missing.
In May 1915, The Falkirk Herald featured letters from wounded men that they had sent home to their relatives. Because of censorship of news, the local press relied on families providing information not available from official sources. Letters sent to relatives and featured in the Falkirk Herald in May 1915 gives us a graphic account. Under the heading ‘Thrilling Experience’ they reported a letter received from Falkirk man Private C P Johnston, wounded in the foot during the action: ‘We have had a very busy time lately, and have been practically wiped out in the recent heavy fighting. Our brigade got a terrible cut up and there are very few left in our battalion. We lost three-fourths of our officers, and I heard there were only sixty of us who answered the call… We advanced to within 120 yards of the German trenches. As they kept up a terrible shell fire we got orders to retire, and I had just fallen back about 20 yards when I got hit, but with the assistance of one of our chaps I managed back to a farm where I got dressed, and lay there with many others until it was dark. Then we were taken back to the dressing station by the ambulance van.’
Under the heading ‘Germans Poured Lead Into Us’ Private Henry Sharp of Tryst Road, Stenhousemuir, wrote to his wife: ‘… Daylight was in when we made the advance, and the Germans poured the lead into us for all they were worth. After we went through some fields, I was just entering another field when I spotted a place to take cover 20 yards away. I only got about six yards when I was shot right through the leg, just a little above the ankle, and the result is my leg is broken…. Captain Jones saw me drop and minutes later he dropped. So he told me when we were lying on the stretchers. My cousin, Harry Turnbull (Denny) got three wounds. I have not seen any of them since…. I nearly lost my life three or four times after I was wounded, but all’s well that ends well.’ (Henry Turnbull, 18 East Borland, Denny, Service No. 1569, Age 19, missing and listed on the Menin Gate. https://www.theypressalient.com/post/henry-turnbull
Private William Scott, ‘A’ Company, of 95 Wallace Street, Grahamston, received a commendation for his part as a stretcher bearer from Brigadier General Hull. His account of the action was featured under the heading ‘MOWED DOWN LIKE SHEEP’ he wrote to his wife: ‘By the time you receive this you will very likely have heard about the cutting up that the 7th got on Sunday, (25 April). There were hardly any who were not killed or did not get some kind of wound… Our men were getting mowed down like sheep. It was something awful… I got a slight wound on my left knee and also on one of the fingers of my left hand… The way that I got hit was that a shell burst on our dressing station to which we carried our wounded. Nearly all the stretcher bearers were in at the time, as we had been at it for eight hours without a break, and we were tired out. We had to take the wounded down to the RAMC advance dressing station, which was about one and half or two miles down the road, out of the way of the shell fire. Still, they were not very safe there, as shells were dropping all around it.’
Read more about evacuating and treatment of the wounded here https://www.theypressalient.com/post/evacuation-and-treatment-of-the-wounded
Notes
1. Poetry of the Great War An Anthology
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