Ole Parr. L/14296 Private John Parr, 4th Bn Middlesex Regt.

[ss002d6252]

An interesting article in the Mail which suggests that Pvt Parr was not killed by enemy action and was instead killed accidentally.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2608849/First-British-soldier-die-WW1-probably-shot-friendly-fire-incident-French-Belgians-soldiers-not-German-forces-previously-thought.html

Craig

[Moonraker]

Craig has made a rather more

useful contribution

than mine about Jon Cooksey's theories.

Moonraker

[ss002d6252]

The other thread has been locked for comments to be made in place on this one. I hadn't seen the post on this one when I posted.

It's an interesting issue as they obviously saw someone they thought were German cavalry but it does make you wonder if it was a friendly patrol and a case of mistaken identity on both sides.

Craig

[Ghazala]

This is the Sunday Times article today... Cooksey writes that the spot where Corporal Thomas fired the first British shot of The Great War at Casteau is a mile away from the monument commemorating this. I stood at the monument in the early 80's with Rose Coombs and Ted (Bumble) Worrell who said he was stood next to Thomas when he fired the shot. Bumble was adamant that the monument was at the correct spot.

.....................

The first British soldier to die in the First World War was not killed by the Germans but was probably shot accidentally by Belgian or French allies, according to new research.

The sacrifice of Private John Parr, 17, who lied about his age to enlist in the army at 14, is due to be honoured in an Anglo-German ceremony at St Symphorien cemetery near Mons in Belgium. A senior member of the royal family will visit his grave on the August 4 centenary of the declaration of war.

It has emerged that on the night Parr died the closest German soldiers and cavalry were at least 10, and probably 15, miles away.

Jon Cooksey, a military author who has studied German troop movements and war diaries, said: There was no German soldier around to shoot at him. John Parr must have died either of friendly fire . . . or as the result of an accident.

Cooksey, whose findings will appear next month in The Retreat From Mons 1914: North, to be published by Pen and Sword Books, added: No contact with the British Expeditionary Force near Mons had been reported that day, because there had been nothing to report. Every German cavalryman or officer would have been eager to take credit and receive a recommendation from his superiors.

Parr, a reconnaissance cyclist with the 4th Battalion, the Middlesex Regiment, was last seen on the night of August 21 when he was sent out to find two missing platoons. A fellow cyclist, Lance-Corporal W Beart, returned alone.

Almost 70 years later Beart said he had a glimpse of Uhlans or German cavalry and that he never saw Parr again.

In the confusion of war nobody paid much attention to the fate of Parr, a dairymans son from north London. Before joining the army in 1912 Parr, who was just 5ft 3in tall and weighed eight stone, had worked as a golf caddie.

His body was found by the Germans after their victory at the Battle of Mons on August 23 and they buried him at St Symphorien, a memorial to the men of both armies. His grave faces that of Private George Ellison, the last British soldier killed in the Great War, on November 11, 1918.

Parrs headstone declared that he died on August 23, but this was changed to August 21 in the early 1980s in light of Bearts recollection. Parrs mother, Alice, was kept waiting for five months months until January 23, 1915, before she was told of his death.

Cooksey and his co-author Jerry Murland also expose other myths about the opening salvoes of the war.

Captain Charles Hornby, a cavalryman, was widely credited with being first British officer to draw blood on August 22. According to his superior, Major Tom Bridges, Hornby was successful at running his man through with his sword in Casteau and later received the Distinguished Service Order.

But German accounts examined by the Berlin-based historian Sebastian Laudan show that no German troops were killed or seriously wounded in this encounter.

The book also claims that a popular memorial marking the spot where Drummer Edward Thomas fired the first shot of the Great War is more than a mile away from the true location.

[joseph]

Hi,

I wonder if any research has been done with regard to our French and Belgian allies on the day in question, can they shed any light on it, did they see a bicycle patrol?

Probably is not a fact based on facts just an assumption.

Regards Charles

[ss002d6252]

I wonder if any research has been done with regard to our French and Belgian allies on the day in question, can they shed any light on it, did they see a bicycle patrol?

I was thinking the same - they clearly shot at someone and someone clearly shot back. In modern terms it could have been a 'blue on blue' - did the French and Belgians keep war diaries in the same way as the British ?.

Craig

[spof]

French war diaries and regimental histories can be found here http://www.memoiredeshommes.sga.defense.gouv.fr/fr/article.php?larub=3&titre=premiere-guerre-mondiale

I'm sure Belgium will have something similar.

[ss002d6252]

There's clearly a reference to the Germans encountering British troops (whether these were the were men of the Middlsex or not I don't know - where they wrongly recorded as cavalry ? )
http://archive.org/stream/militaryoperatio01edmouoft/militaryoperatio01edmouoft_djvu.txt

It was only on the 22nd August that an " English cavalry squadron was heard of at Casteau, 6 miles " north-east of Mons, 4 and an aeroplane of the English 5th " Flying Squadron which had gone up from Maubeuge was " shot down. The presence of the English on our front " was thus established, although nothing as regards their " strength." What is more convincing perhaps than even this state- ment is the opening paragraph of von Kluck's operation orders for the 23rd August, 5 issued at Hal at 8.30 P.M. on the 22nd ; all that he could tell his corps commanders was : " A squadron of British cavalry was encountered to-day " at Casteau, north-east of Mons, and a British aeroplane, " coming from Maubeuge, was shot down near Enghien."

From what I can see Casteu and Obourg are only a couple of miles apart and the date seems to fit with the time period (allowing for the uncertainty in the date of death).

Craig

[Guest]

Bit more on the BBC not sure how much it adds?

Mike

[ss002d6252]

Bit more on the BBC not sure how much it adds?

Mike

That's very interesting Mike - the theories all seem to rest on absence of evidence which, of course, is not proof something didn't happen.There must be some evidence somewhere of him surviving past the 21st if he wasn't killed to the 23rd.

It would be interesting to find out when L/Cpl Beart recalled the action on the day - if it was years later then there's a chance he remembered it wrongly and got the date wrong.

Craig

[Ghazala]

This is an extract of an article by Valentine Lowe writing in The Times today...

"The cemetery at St Symphorien is so well hidden, tucked away in a wood on the edge of farmland outside Mons, that most visitors would pass it without noticing. Like John Parr, a 17-year-old boy who is buried there, it seems devoid of any significance.

Last night all that changed. As dusk fell at the going down of the sun, what better time to remember the dead? the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry were joined by David Cameron and the Archbishop of Canterbury for a ceremony at which they honoured Parr and every other young man who went to war with dreams of glory only to die a pointless, tragic death.

It was an event that was both intimate and epic, the sharing of tales of the horror of war in a setting of such bucolic charm that it was hard to conceive that it was just a few short miles from the British Armys first major clash with the Germans at the Battle of Mons.

Parr was the first British soldier to die, shot in a skirmish on August 21, two days before the fighting proper began along the Mons-Condé canal. A few yards from where he is buried lies the grave of George Ellison, the last British soldier to die in the war.

It was not until January 1915 that Parrs mother, Alice, was told he was missing, and not until the end of the war that she was told he was dead. At St Symphorien, his great-niece, Iris Hunt, read out a letter Alice had written to the War Office.

I have not heard from him at all, she wrote. I am very anxious as it is now ten weeks. If anything has happened to him by this time, someone would have wrote me. She ended it with the words: An early reply will oblige.

St Symphorien was originally a German cemetery, a gift from a Belgian landowner who gave it on condition that the dead of both sides be treated with equal respect. British and German soldiers are buried together beneath the firs. Above them, watched by an audience that included the German president Joachim Gauck, English and German musicians and singers performed together".

[mhurst]

.St Symphorien, which will be the venue for one of the main commemorations on August 4 for the centenary of the start of the war, is not like the other war cemeteries of France and Belgium, where white headstones stretch across open spaces in endless rows. It is hilly and thickly-wooded, full of hidden nooks and corners, with graves in squares, circles or small groups.

There is a reason for this: St Symphorien started off as a German cemetery, and a German war cemetery is a dark, solemn place compared with its British equivalent. When John Parr was laid to rest, it was not by his colleagues but by the Germans, who placed his remains and those of the other British dead from Mons alongside their own.

Actually, the Le Cateau cemetery, along the Cambrai road, just outside the main town, is similar. It is also wooded and contains the graves of German and British soldiers, two of German women (presumably nurses) and several Russian POWs.

[Chris_Baker]

For the record. From Pte Parr's service record:

and

From Red Cross records released yesterday:

[Chris_Baker]

More from his service record:

[Ghazala]

" I have seen Sordet's cavalry march through Inchy on the eve of Le Cateau, I have seen the Iron Corps of France march through the square of Ypres, I have seen the 1st Canadian Division marching to St Julien before the gas attack, I have seen Indian troops going into action for the first time on European soil, I have seen Australians on their way to attack Poziers, but I have no remembrance to equal that of the old regiments of the "B.E.F" marching to the battle of Mons." from "The Breaking of the Storm" by C.A.L Brownlow (Methuen & Co 1918).

[AndrewThornton]

I know this is a very old thread, but I have been researching the origins behind the story of why Private Parr was recorded as having died on 21 August 1914 and the evolution of the story that has developed over the past forty years or so regarding the circumstances of his death. It may be of interest.

 

https://ourwar1915.wordpress.com/2021/05/06/private-john-henry-parr-an-investigation-of-the-evidence-behind-his-story/

[ss002d6252]

31 minutes ago, AndrewThornton said:

I know this is a very old thread, but I have been researching the origins behind the story of why Private Parr was recorded as having died on 21 August 1914 and the evolution of the story that has developed over the past forty years or so regarding the circumstances of his death. It may be of interest.

 

https://ourwar1915.wordpress.com/2021/05/06/private-john-henry-parr-an-investigation-of-the-evidence-behind-his-story/

The date issue is interesting from an admin point of view.

The information with the Record Office and the Effects Branch came from the same source, but via separate notification from France. The AG at the base forwarded the collated deaths separately to the War Office and to the Records Office on duplicate copies of form 2090A. It seems that this dual notification is what often leads to the differences in dates between the effects and SDGW (which used the Record Office details), especially so where a range in deaths was originally given.

 

If both the Record Office and the Effects Branch have the same date then logic suggests that any error would be pushed back to the AG or earlier in the chain.

Craig

[AOK4]

On 06/05/2021 at 16:09, AndrewThornton said:

I know this is a very old thread, but I have been researching the origins behind the story of why Private Parr was recorded as having died on 21 August 1914 and the evolution of the story that has developed over the past forty years or so regarding the circumstances of his death. It may be of interest.

 

https://ourwar1915.wordpress.com/2021/05/06/private-john-henry-parr-an-investigation-of-the-evidence-behind-his-story/

I just discovered this post (as I am guiding a group in and around Mons next Saturday) and find it extremely interesting and well-researched. There may be one possible lead to investigate further.

Jan

[RedCoat]

Lt Younger proceeding forward with billetting party was fired on in error by French picquet, he retired with his party towards Le Cateau where No 1 Sec: Div A.C. 5th Div also mistook the party + fired killing Br Ketteridge + severely wounding Cpl Atkins.

15 Brigade RFA War Diary - 21/08/1914.

Clearly Blue on Blue incidents on the days leading up to Mons were more common than one would think. Perhaps Parr was the victim of a similar such incident, but who really knows. 

Poor old James William Ketteridge from Tottenham was shot to death the same day, he lies un remembered in Montay Communal Cemetery. 

Cheers

[AndrewThornton]

On 20/04/2014 at 17:26, Ghazala said:

This is the Sunday Times article today... Cooksey writes that the spot where Corporal Thomas fired the first British shot of The Great War at Casteau is a mile away from the monument commemorating this. I stood at the monument in the early 80's with Rose Coombs and Ted (Bumble) Worrell who said he was stood next to Thomas when he fired the shot. Bumble was adamant that the monument was at the correct spot.

.....................

The first British soldier to die in the First World War was not killed by the Germans but was probably shot accidentally by Belgian or French allies, according to new research.

The sacrifice of Private John Parr, 17, who lied about his age to enlist in the army at 14, is due to be honoured in an Anglo-German ceremony at St Symphorien cemetery near Mons in Belgium. A senior member of the royal family will visit his grave on the August 4 centenary of the declaration of war.

It has emerged that on the night Parr died the closest German soldiers and cavalry were at least 10, and probably 15, miles away.

Jon Cooksey, a military author who has studied German troop movements and war diaries, said: There was no German soldier around to shoot at him. John Parr must have died either of friendly fire . . . or as the result of an accident.

Cooksey, whose findings will appear next month in The Retreat From Mons 1914: North, to be published by Pen and Sword Books, added: No contact with the British Expeditionary Force near Mons had been reported that day, because there had been nothing to report. Every German cavalryman or officer would have been eager to take credit and receive a recommendation from his superiors.

Parr, a reconnaissance cyclist with the 4th Battalion, the Middlesex Regiment, was last seen on the night of August 21 when he was sent out to find two missing platoons. A fellow cyclist, Lance-Corporal W Beart, returned alone.

Almost 70 years later Beart said he had a glimpse of Uhlans or German cavalry and that he never saw Parr again.

In the confusion of war nobody paid much attention to the fate of Parr, a dairymans son from north London. Before joining the army in 1912 Parr, who was just 5ft 3in tall and weighed eight stone, had worked as a golf caddie.

His body was found by the Germans after their victory at the Battle of Mons on August 23 and they buried him at St Symphorien, a memorial to the men of both armies. His grave faces that of Private George Ellison, the last British soldier killed in the Great War, on November 11, 1918.

Parrs headstone declared that he died on August 23, but this was changed to August 21 in the early 1980s in light of Bearts recollection. Parrs mother, Alice, was kept waiting for five months months until January 23, 1915, before she was told of his death.

Cooksey and his co-author Jerry Murland also expose other myths about the opening salvoes of the war.

Captain Charles Hornby, a cavalryman, was widely credited with being first British officer to draw blood on August 22. According to his superior, Major Tom Bridges, Hornby was successful at running his man through with his sword in Casteau and later received the Distinguished Service Order.

But German accounts examined by the Berlin-based historian Sebastian Laudan show that no German troops were killed or seriously wounded in this encounter.

The book also claims that a popular memorial marking the spot where Drummer Edward Thomas fired the first shot of the Great War is more than a mile away from the true location.

Just for the record, the story of William Beart being with Private Parr when he was killed is another embellished element that needs correction. Attached is a letter written by Chum Beart, then a member of the Bromley and Farnborough Branch of The Old Contemptibles' Association, which was published in 'The Old Contemptible' of July 1962. Note him not mentioning any connection with Private Parr...

In fact, it was Beart's research that prompted the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to change the date on Private Parr's headstone from 21 August to 23 August 1914, which was done in 1963.

 

Edited 25 March by AndrewThornton