Wars and ConflictsΒ permalink
surviving from 1914 - 1918
This discussion has been closed.
-
Message 1.Β
Posted by Mckay1402 (U5278290) on Thursday, 11th November 2010
Simple really. I just want to know if any British soldiers survived from the earliest engagement at Mons through to the armistice. Withouth trawling through millions of records would it be possible to find out?
-
Message 2
Posted by Pete- Weatherman (U14670985) on Thursday, 11th November 2010
Harry Patch The last Tommy past away last year RIP.
-
Message 3
Posted by Stoggler (U14387762) on Thursday, 11th November 2010
Harry Patch wasn't conscripted until 1916, so doesn't meet the critera
Good question by the way. Would like to know that myself
-
Message 4
Posted by Mckay1402 (U5278290) on Thursday, 11th November 2010
Also he was invalided. I mean someone who served literally all the way through the war.
-
Message 5
Posted by Eliza (U14650257) on Thursday, 11th November 2010
This might help!
The Old Contemptibles.
I can't spot numbers, but it had 178 branches in the UK, and more abroad, so there must have been quite a few. -
Message 6
Posted by Amphion (U3338999) on Thursday, 11th November 2010
If you go into your local library, or the central library for your area, then they should have microfilches of the newspapers for your area. Find the filche which relates to 1914/1915. Find columns of letters which were printed in the newspapers in the early days of the war. (Not so much after 1916, because of censorship). which are written by men at the front. They usually have titles such as 'wounded by shrapnel', or 'In the Ypres fight.' Check the names of those who wrote the letters against the Commonwealth War Graves Society's records of those killed during the war. If their names do not appear, then it is very likely that these men survived. There are also quite a few books written by those who endured the war.
One good book is Lawrence Atwell's Letters From The Front, or Captain J.C. Dunn's, The War The Infantry Knew 1914-18. -
Message 7
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 11th November 2010
A. Just looking at my copy of "General Jack's Diary 1914-18.. The Trench Diary of Brigadier General J.L. Jack DSO" it looks like he fits the criteria.
The first entry included was July 28 when he was with the Cameronians on exercise in North Perthshire . The first time they had been there "since 1689, when, under Colonel Cleland, who was killed, they defeated a large body of Highlanders at Dunkeld...
The past month's tension in Europe has been greatly increased by the news that Austria has declared war on Serbia"
The photos of Jack in this book published by Eyre and Spottiswoode in 1964 show the remarkable ageing that he underwent during those four years.
B. As I noted in a thread that I started and got "pulled" a few weeks ago, Henry Williamson, author of "Tarka the Otter" seems to have joined up in 1914, and fought all the way through- according to the editor's notes on that description of "Another Kind of Western Front".. [Incidentally the recent Antiques Roadshow programme from the British Museum featured someone who has some beams that were taken out of HMS Victory c1932 and purchased by Williamson for six pence each]
Cass -
Message 8
Posted by ambi (U13776277) on Thursday, 11th November 2010
'Henry Williamson, author of "Tarka the Otter" seems to have joined up in 1914, and fought all the way through- according to the editor's notes on that description of "Another Kind of Western Front".'
From memory I think Williamson did join up right at the beginning but was invalided home at some point (I think his very autobiographical hero Phillip Maddison served all through the war in the Chronicle of Sunlight series) -
Message 9
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 11th November 2010
ambi
The fly-leaf note on my 'Tarka' says that he "served in France throughout the First World War"-- but of course deployments were cyclical with occasional rear leave in French towns and villages, and precious 'Blighty Leave'. But all of that was surely just the nature of "active service".
Cass -
Message 10
Posted by LongWeekend (U3023428) on Thursday, 11th November 2010
mckay
One that springs to mind is Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis, who started the war as a Lieutenant in the Irish Guards and finished it as a Lieutenant Colonel, having served on the Western Front throughout. He then joined the British Military Mission to Poland and ended up commanding the Baltic Landswehr in Latvia against the Bolsheviks.
Viscount Gort was another, as was Montgomery.
I think Dunn's "The War The Infantry Knew" notes those in the Royal Welch who achieved this distinction.
LW -
Message 11
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Thursday, 11th November 2010
I have just looked at my copy of "Dunn" and found only a list of those who contributed pieces to the book.. Perhaps I have not looked thoroughly enough!
While looking, however, I noted the entries that went right into 1919, with the months from November to May being taken up with the process of demobilising the Welsh.
On May 26 they proceeded to an embarkation camp and went aboard the 'Iona" on May 29 to sail back to Wrexham.
Perhaps this gives some of the answer to a recent poster who asked who "tidied up" the Western Front. In April 1919 the Evanses note that their zone had "gone completely Aussie, for large numbers of troops were engaged in burying or reburying their numerous dead, left where they fell since their historic advance on August 8, 1918.Most of the actual work was done by troops freshly drafted from England, men who had not previously been in France."
A couple of days later (April 26, 1919) the "Band Boys" who had 'broken the bounds' many times before, "strayed to a large dump".. Tragedy ensued. "Some bombs were accidentally exploded. One boy was killed and three others wounded. The dead boy was buried with full military honours at the Austral Cemetry on the Amiens-Villers road: he was 15, probably the youngest British soldier to be buried in France. When his companions rejoined at Wrexham, from hospital, they were wearing would stripes!"
Cass -
Message 12
Posted by Amphion (U3338999) on Sunday, 14th November 2010
Your response Cass raises the question, considering the amount of unexploded/live... shells/ammo still being found on the western front to this date, one wonders how many people have been killed or maimed in this way during the years since the First World War.
Michael Palin's programme, The Last Day Of World War One made in 2008, makes reference to the fact that Flanders farmers are still turning up unexpolded shells/ammo.... What must be the odds of them not going off, unless, of course, they are duds? -
Message 13
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Sunday, 14th November 2010
Amphion
A couple of weeks ago I was buying petrol (well diesel) in Dijon, and the woman in next car in the queue advised me not to go towards the city because they had found an unexploded Second World War bomb.. It reminded me that the week before I think at Rheims tens of thousands of people had been evacuated from their homes while other 2ww bombs were dealt with.
But the population density in France is not the same as in the UK, and one gets the impression that French farmers tried to get on with business as usual along the Western Front..Somerset Maugham wrote a short story about a peasant girl who had an affair with a German soldier near her farm, and came back to his "love" after the war because she was pregnant. She strangled the baby at birth.. And there have been a couple of cases of multiple infanticide in France this year too.
Unfortunately I think I left to my old school library when I went of to University my copy of a book with documents about Napoleon. One of them said that at Boulogne looking across towards England he said to his companion that he would bleed France so white that it would never live again. .. And I still recall the very bleak Nature of the war zone still when I cycled across the North of France in 1963. .. I am cheered each time I now traverse and see Nature working its magic.
But a 1949 novel that I read earlier this year entitled me "Take me to the end of the World" just underscored what a traumatised place France was after three German invasions.. At the end the "heroine" gets her wish as she is cremated and goes up in a smoke.
Cass -
Message 14
Posted by Sixtus Beckmesser (U9635927) on Thursday, 18th November 2010
I seem to recall reading that the last of the Old Contemptibles died in 2005.
-
Message 15
Posted by Mike Alexander (U1706714) on Friday, 19th November 2010
The longest serving soldier I can think of off the top of my head would be Captain J C Dunn, who was a distinguished medical officer with the Royal Welch Fusiliers. His book "The War the Infantry Knew" covers most of the war, and I believe he was present for the vast majority of it.
-
Message 16
Posted by arty macclench (U14332487) on Sunday, 28th November 2010
My grandfather was an infantry lieutenant in 1914 who served at Mons.In 1918, having commanded his regiment at the front for over a year and earned a DSO and 4 MIDs on the way, still only a substantive Captain but a Brevet Major and Temporary Brigadier, he finished the war commanding an Infantry brigade.
He was supposed to have had a charmed life but died young as a result of his WWII service so I never knew him. -
Message 17
Posted by Old Contemptible (U14718369) on Thursday, 9th December 2010
Frank Richards DCM MM ,2nd Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers wrote a superb book from the viewpoint of an ordinary private soldier. It is well worth a read as a taster.
The short answer is yes there were many. However there were not many that served with the same battalion throughout. For example a battalion consisted of approximately 1000 men roughly 30 of whom were officers.
The 2nd Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers had 10 men who served from start to finish. You have to take into account that the battalion was severely depleted on several occasions and was consistently being brought back to strength with fresh reserves.
Of these ten 3 were officers and all were commissioned from the ranks. -
Message 18
Posted by Allan D (U1791739) on Friday, 10th December 2010
I doubt that it was that unusual although the BEF originally consisted of a small force of regulars, just like the BEF despatched to France in 1939. Despite popular myth soldiers did not spend the whole war knee deep in mud standing in the trenches until they were either killed 'going over the top' or invalided out but were subject to regular rotation (usually every four weeks during quiet periods on the front), rest and relaxation in secure areas to the rear as well as regular home leave as Cass has pointed out.
So the chances of survival were reasonably high although the numbers would be small since British forces at the beginning of the war were relatively small - it was only during 1915-16 that the regulars were overwhelmed by Kitchener's volunteers and the the nature of the British Army was transformed. I would imagine that those who served with the original BEF in 1939 and were still fighting under Montgomery's command on the North German plain in April-May 1945 would be equally small.
About this Board
The History message boards are now closed. They remain visible as a matter of record but the opportunity to add new comments or open new threads is no longer available. Thank you all for your valued contributions over many years.
or Β to take part in a discussion.
The message board is currently closed for posting.
The message board is closed for posting.
This messageboard is .
Find out more about this board's
Search this Board
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ iD
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ navigation
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ links
Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Β© 2014 The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.