10-11-2019, 09:52 AM
1
My family at war.
After my maternal Granny died we found a diary and postcard album from The Great War under her bed.
Her three brothers plus my maternal Grandad and his two brothers all went to war, all from Gloucestershire, and all joined local regiments. One of them never came home.
Great Uncle William, one of my Granddad's brothers joined the Somerset Light Infantry and had this taken at the age of 18 just before he left for war. He looks apprehensive.
He returned a year later to convalesce after being wounded. He looks confident, battle hardened, and assured.
A year later he was killed, aged 20, at the Battle of Passchendaele and has no know grave. He is remembered on the Tyne Cot Cemetery Memorial.
Great Uncle Sam seated second from left.
Stamped and dated 19th August 1916, written in pencil it begins, "What do you think of this dirty little throng, I guess we look serious we had it took the day we come from the trenches …"
He and his friends had just come out of the front line, had this picture "took", converted to a postcard, and sent home to his sister.
It is a beautiful, poignant snapshot in time. Uncle Sam made it home along with at least one of his comrades, but I have no idea if any of the others survived.
A few extracts from his 1918 diary.
Having travelled from the trenches of France the diary begins when he was in Italy. He fought from crevices or holes blasted in rock. Whenever a shell landed, it would spray the soldiers with both shrapnel and lethal shards of stone.
He was a signaller, and this entry shows some of the codes used.
On arrival in Italy he went into the front line at Asiago.
A week later he was relieved and moved into a support position where he later saw Prince Edward.
A week later he was back in the front line before being relieved again.
There are no more entries after June but I know he was in Italy in July. He was probably involved in the fighting that ended the war in Italy on November the 3rd.
From the postcard album.
Unused postcards brought back by one of my Granny's relatives.
Destruction in Belgium, 1914.
French soldiers in Northern France.
Venice Hospital after bombardment by the enemy.
A captured German aeroplane.
Great Uncle Ted, another of my Gran's brothers.
He fought in France, Gallipoli, Egypt, and Italy. He was there at the end of the war in Italy just like his brother Sam.
Soldiers embarking in Egypt for Gallipoli.
My Grandad was in the Royal Field Artillery.
It took a lot of men to man each gun.
After the war he emigrated to become a farmer in Australia in 1919. Three years later he sent for his fiance, my Gran. She sailed alone and they were married the day after she landed in Oz, having had the banns read on the boat on the way over.
Would anyone wait three years now, with communication only by letters taking eight weeks each way?
He died when I was one, so I have no memories of him.
Then there was Great Uncle Vic, my Gran's brother-in-law. He was a staunch socialist and believed it was wrong to fight and take the life of another.
He became a stretcher bearer and won the Military Medal for bravery.
I only discovered a few weeks ago that my paternal grandfather also served during WW1. This came as a surprise as my Grandma hated guns, and hated it when my brother and I played with toy guns. Perhaps the war was the reason why.
He died when I was two, and I have no memories of him either.
In the back of the postcard album was some French and German money that was brought back as souvenirs.
Red for the blood that was spilled.
Black for the mourning of those left behind.
Green for the new growth on the fields of battle.
The leaf at eleven o'clock, symbolising the time when the guns fell silent.
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