8905 l/cpl E. Ray 1st S.Staffs

[enoch beard]

hello all,

looking for any further information on the following-

8905 l/cpl Edward Ray 1st South Staffs.

died of wounds 24/01/15

buried Merville communal cemetery Nord, France

born- Dudley, Worcs

enlisted-Walsall, Staffs

residence- Atherstone, Warwicks

disembarked France 12/8/14 with 2nd S.Staffs

1901 census list a Edbert Ray aged 9, born Dudley, living Walsall

thanks for looking!

Enoch

[Chris_Baker]

The battalion war diary mentions that they were in trenches near Rue Delpierre. I believe that this was the Well Farm position. 1 OR was noted as being killed by a trench mortar that day.

[enoch beard]

thankyou,chris

[brindlerp]

January 1915, extracted from "The Seventh Division" by C.T. Atkinson.

" January saw little change in the situation except that the water problem grew increasingly serious. A violent storm on December 28th had flooded all the more low-lying trenches, in places to a depth of two feet and more, and many of the communication trenches were so bad with mud and water that men preferred to go above ground and risk being sniped. It was decided to start construct-ing posts on bits of high ground in rear for use in case floods should compel the evacuation of the front line. The flooding of the front-line trenches put a stop to sapping out towards the German lines, and all efforts had to be concentrated on keeping our own lines habitable and defensible. Trenches and dug-outs filled with water, and by the end of the first week in January quite half the original trenches had had to be abandoned. By damming short stretches of trenches and pumping vigorously it was possible to maintain garrisons in parts of the front line. By heightening the parapet and constructing wooden platforms above the water-level these garrisons could be kept more or less out of water, but on the whole the labour devoted to righting the water was wasted and would have been better spent in taking earlier to the construction of breastworks, which proved on the whole satisfactory. These were formed by making retrenchments behind the fire-trenches and throwing up thick parapets with high command: the abandoned trenches then served as effective wet ditches. This necessitated much cutting of brushwood to make hurdles for revetting, but the breast-work line was certainly healthier and more comfortable than swamped trenches. Redoubts were also constructed as points d'appui in rear of the front system, and this method was gradually extended into one of arranging for "defended localities." Groups of houses were loop-holed and prepared for defence, trenches and breastworks being dug to connect them up and the hedges round them wired. This plan was calculated to economize men and afford equal or even greater security. But considerations of security were not so much in the mind as usual because the Germans enjoyed no immunity from the water trouble and were also forced to abandon their front line in places. The 21st Brigade was able, by damming up streams and ditches which ran from our lines towards those of the Germans—here on a slightly lower level—to divert water from our trenches to theirs and had the satisfaction of seeing them busy baling and pumping and of sometimes getting a shoot at them when so employed. They too were forced to build up high command parapets. When patrols did manage to get across the swamp which No Man's Land had become in many places they often reported the Germans hard at work baling water out of their trenches, and occasionally our machine-guns and rifles got targets in Germans who were forced to expose them-selves owing to the flooded state of their lines. But with so much water about a serious attack was out of the ques-tion, and even patrol activity was much reduced. What offensive action could be indulged in usually took the shape of bombardments of the enemy's trenches or of houses and villages in rear which he was believed to be using for billets. Co-operation between the guns and the infantry had now been systematized, and whenever the artillery devoted some of their carefully doled-out shells to bombarding houses in rear of the German lines our rifles and machine-guns were warned to be on the look out for targets. Occa-sionally also working parties which our patrols had located were effectively shelled or caught by machine-gun fire. Considering the meagre quantity of ammunition available, what the guns did to assist the infantry by keeping down the German artillery fire was really remarkable. One gets such entries in the C.R.A.'s Diary as this : " Jan. 25th, a good day for us ; we destroyed a sap-head (55th Battery), a mortar pit (106th), a M.G. emplacement (12th), and silenced another M.G. (12th). Very little reply from hostile artillery." Still, with an expenditure restricted to 76 rounds per 18-pounder for the whole month, just 5 rounds in two days, with the 4.5-inch howitzers only allowed half that amount, and the 4.7s and the 13-pounders of the Horse Artillery barely exceeding the 18-pounders' allowance, these opportunities were necessarily limited, and the month passed away without the Division attempting even a minor enterprise; the casualty list, 2 officers and 68 men killed, 6 officers and 193 men wounded, and 1 officer missing, showed clearly the nature of the month's operations, while a sick-list of 33 officers and 1,613 men admitted to Hospital proved conclusively that the weather and the conditions of the trenches had caused more serious wastage than the enemy. Still, the sick-rate was really remarkably low and most creditable to those responsible for combating the possible causes of invaliding, especially " trench-feet" and frost-bite. Conditions in billets were getting better now, things like the washing and drying of clothes were getting organized, a Divisional shoemakers' shop had been set up and proved a great boon, repairing 2,000 pairs of boots in a month. The arrival of a special Sanitary Section was another step towards better conditions, and if the addition to the Division of a third Field Company of R.E.—the 2nd Highland Field Company (Territorial) joined on January 17th—was primarily an advantage from the military point of view, for each brigade and each section of the line now had its own Field Company attached, it was indirectly beneficial also in providing more skilled workmen for the multifarious requirements behind the line, all of which contributed to the greater comfort and better health of the Division. "

Regards

Richard

[enoch beard]

thankyou, brindlerp for the information, i will have to keep digging!

enoch