DUTY DONE: 2nd RWF in the Great War

[Muerrisch]

There is a possibility that my arm will be twisted to author a new, very revised edition. The first quarter turn has been applied.

Firstly, please do Pals have any errata to get me to put right?

Secondly, are there bits we don't need?

Thirdly, are there any obvious omissions?

Fourthly, any other suggestions?

If there is a new edition, we will not use the same printer: the paper and ink did little justice to the book. I have many superb illustrations queueing up to go in, some to replace frankly poor ones in Mark I.

Now is your chance to kick some sense into the project up front!

[Rob Connolly]

I haven't read your original - blimey there are a lot of authors amongst the Pals here! - but am currently re-reading "The War The Infantry Knew" after recently reading "Goodbye to All That", doubtless to be followed by Sassoon & then Richards. What does your book bring to the topic that those others don't?

[Muerrisch]

You are encouraging me to brag!

DD chapter headings:

LIST OF CONTENTS

Page

List of Illustrations ii

Abbreviations iii

Foreword vi

Acknowledgements 1

Introduction 2

1. The Battalion 4

2. Fire and Move 7

3. Reinforcements 14

4. The Original Officers 18

5. Officers: The later arrivals 49

6. Some Other Ranks 90

7. Headstones and memorials 103

8. Wales or Birmingham 108

9. Succession of Commanding Officers,

Adjutants and Regimental Sergeant Majors 110

10. Noms de guerre, errors, omissions and evasions 114

11. Statistics of the Officers 119

12. Statistics of the Other Ranks 131

13. Some casualty lists 150

14. Gallantry and other awards 161

Annex A. Bibliography 169

Annex B. Index 171

Foreword

By Brigadier D J Ross CBE

Colonel, The Royal Welch Fusiliers

This excellent book presents valuable additional research on probably one of the most chronicled battalions in British military history. Many will be familiar with the works of Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, both of whom served in the 2nd Battalion, and other famous authors whom David Langley refers to. As a Regiment the Royal Welch are indeed fortunate and privileged that so much has been written of its history. Many other regiments will have had similar experiences, but it is this unique collection of histories that sets the 2nd Battalion apart.

Close scrutiny can be a cruel and unforgiving judge, but the 2nd Battalion rose magnificently to every challenge faced. It was first raised in 1756. It served continuously from 1858 until 1948 when it was disbanded. Subsequently reformed in 1952 for the Malayan emergency it was finally placed in suspended animation in 1957. Its losses of some 1,140 men in the Great War were a clear reflection of the sacrifices made. The author has followed a similar path to Captain Dunn whose purpose in compiling ‘The War the Infantry Knew’ was to give a more balanced story to the 2nd Battalion. Followers of the history of the Royal Welch Fusiliers will not be disappointed as ‘Duty Done’ provides further documentation on this unique battalion.

I am most grateful to David Langley for his detailed and meticulous research in pursuit of a true record. The Regiment and historians will be very grateful for this revealing and fascinating account of the 2nd Battalion.

Introduction

‘In trenches I’d rather be with this battalion than with any other I have met’

Second Lieutenant Drake-Brockman, East Surrey Regiment, attached to 2nd Battalion Royal Welch Fusiliers, quoted by Robert Graves in Goodbye to All That

The 2nd Battalion of the Royal Welch Fusiliers [2RWF] served on the Western Front throughout the Great War 1914-1918. Their war was chronicled in The War the Infantry Knew [TWTIK], edited, compiled and partly written by their long serving Medical Officer, Captain Dunn. The book is an acknowledged classic. The battalion was fortunate in its other soldier-authors, with major contributions by Private [Pte] Frank Richards Old Soldiers Never Die [OSND], Second Lieutenant [2Lt] Siegfried Sassoon, primarily his Diaries [sD] and Memoirs of an Infantry Officer [MOAIO], and 2Lt Robert Graves Goodbye to All That [GTAT]. Also of value is Dudley Ward’s The Regimental Records of the Royal Welch Fusiliers [23rd Foot] [RRRWF] but, as it is a regimental record rather than a battalion one, is necessarily selective and episodic. Its main value in the context of Duty Done is the extensive quotations it contains, most notably from Stockwell and Picton Davies. Major EL Kirby has recently published a work of great scholarship on the regular officers commissioned up to 4 August 1914, Officers of the Royal Welch Fusiliers, and John Tyler, as yet unpublished, has produced Biographies of RWF Officers, 1914-1920, together with an excellent archive of decorated Other Ranks [OR]. Both these latter have been consulted.

The prospective reader could well ask what is the purpose of yet another book featuring such a well-documented battalion. The answer is that all the above books serve as a means of sharpening the curiosity and raise questions as well as provide answers. My original research was without thought of writing a book, but it grew into one, recording casualties, graves and memorials, decorations, names of all the members of the battalion who can be identified [some 250 officers and over 1300 other ranks], the stresses of battle and movement, the succession of Commanding Officers, Adjutants and Regimental Sergeant Majors and a host of other issues found along a ten-year trail. My title is a quotation from Dunn’s introduction, in which he describes TWTIK as ‘a record of a long spell of duty done in the face of difficulty and discouragement’. There is also a rather satisfying pun. My subtitle uses the regimentally preferred [and official since 1920] spelling ‘Welch’. This is discussed at more length in Chapter 7.

Essential tools for a study of any battalion in the Great War are the unit War Diary [WD] held in the Public Record Office [PRO], the official publications Officers Died in the Great War [ODIGW] and Soldiers Died in the Great War [sDIGW] and the Army List [AL]. The staff of the Regimental Museum at Caernarfon gave me much assistance, notably in tracing photographs and allowing sight of Captain Dunn’s marginal annotations in his personal copy of GTAT [including ‘rot’ (twice), ‘hyperbole’, ‘fiction’ and ‘balls’]. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission [CWGC] makes available extracts from their data base so that it is possible to obtain flawed but useful lists of dead [from all causes, home and away, all ranks] and where they were buried or commemorated, together with all material entered into the cemetery registers. Regimental obituaries of war survivors in the regimental journal, Y Ddraig Goch [The Red Dragon], mostly of the officers, proved of some use in filling gaps, although they are at best secondary and rose-tinted sources. The most recent additions to the sum of knowledge are in many ways the most precious. These additions result from the release by the PRO of such ‘Other Ranks’ personal files as survived the fire and flood of the Blitz of 1940 and subsequent weeding, and the files of the officers, subject to limitations on the release of records of those who served after about 1922. Here it may be useful to interpolate. The term Rank and File [R and F] is used in several ways in the War Diary and other sources. Technically, it meant full corporals and below and excluded drummers, who had an historically different status. ‘Other Ranks’ [OR] are ranks below commissioned officers. My personal preference is to use the term ‘soldiers’ for all ranks, rather than, as sometimes seen, reserve it for the OR, as it seems to me that all who serve in the Army are soldiers. An effort has been made to clarify these various usages where needed.

Any book, however cross-referenced to other books, must be able to stand alone. It should also be as reader-friendly as possible. For these reasons I have included, with permission, some photographs which have been published elsewhere, notably in later editions of TWTIK, because there seem to be no good alternatives. Regarding my illustrations, they are of varying quality. Some are only marginally usable, but the view has been taken that a poor image is sometimes better than no picture at all. The use of numerous footnotes or endnotes has been largely avoided, even at the risk of accusation of lack of academic rigour. Indeed the first draft of this book had such footnotes, and reading it came to be like wading through Flanders mud. The evidence for this or that statement is there for those who need it, in the sources indicated, and there is a complete bibliography of these at Annex A. A list of abbreviations is to be found at pages iii. to v., and the aim has been to define each abbreviation on the first occasion it appears in the text. The index at Annex B is almost entirely one of people. This is appropriate, as the book is above all else about people, not places, events or the manoeuvring of large units such as brigades and higher formations.

TWTIK is not beyond constructive criticism. There are some minor errors and omissions which have been identified in my Chapter 10. Perhaps more importantly, TWTIK’s maps are not easy to use [although full of intimate and vital detail] and fall short of a modern reader’s expectations. Accordingly, my Chapter 2, which is the one most about places, includes maps which were published initially in a contemporary weekly record, The Great War , edited by HW Wilson. These seem to have the immediacy of those far-off days and, one hopes, add to the understanding of the travels of the battalion. One other aspect of TWTIK has been found less than helpful. The TWTIK index usually quotes the highest rank attained by an individual, even if attained post-war, making it difficult to be sure if an identification is unique. My approach with officers has been to try to use the rank held on joining the battalion, or the rank held at the beginning of the war if the officer was an original. For ORs such an aim has proved unattainable, and their ranks are either those encountered in TWTIK, or rank at death, or acquired from consulting any source.

One definition of an expert is ‘one who knows more and more about less and less until finally he knows everything about nothing’. I do not pretend to know ‘everything’ about 2RWF, indeed it is unknowable at this remove even if it could be defined. As for ‘nothing’, these contributions are offered as footnotes to Dunn, to Richards, to Graves and Sassoon, to the War Diary, to the CWGC, the PRO and all the other sources. It has been for me a labour of love. Any historian with a focus on people rather than events must walk a tightrope between dry-as-dust reporting and emotional attachment to his subjects. I confess to shedding tears, some in the Public Record Office, many in cemeteries. I hope that Captain Dunn would have understood and that his spirit will not write ‘balls’ in my margins. After all, he too believed that the battalion was worth a book.

Hope that helps.

[Jonathan Saunders]

From a purely personal point of view I wish there had been more on C.S. Owen - although he left 2nd bttn to take command of a battalion of another regiment, he was an original member of the 2 bttn that went to France (to best of memory), an interesting and fiery character and of course was given his own Brigade in 1916.

I assume more on Owen falls outside the remit?

Regards,

Jonathan S

[Muerrisch]

I have noted 'more on Owen', indeed I have more !

He turned a fine oath, and make Frank Richards blush, which is going some.

[Jonathan Saunders]

Anymore you have I am sure will greatly add to my respect for the man!

From Alan Thomas: "A Life Apart"

The Colonel of the sixth’s a fine chap,” murmured the Adjutant. “He’s known as “the Fire-Eater!" Good luck!” ...

As the adjutant at Staples had told me, the Colonel was known as “the Fire-eater”. The nickname suited him. Picture a man of middle height, clean-shaven, without an ounce of surplus flesh, an eve as clear as a crystal, a tongue as sharp as a razor and a command of language that a sailor would have envied. Whatever other faults the Colonel had, he was without vice of hesitation. No one could have called him a ditherer. He never left you guessing: in conversation as in action, he went directly to the point. Toughness was all: and when we were out of the line he saw to it that neither officers nor men lacked opportunities for strengthening their fibre. A favourite game of his, particularly when new officers joined the battalion, was to hold a riding ring. The officers who couldn’t ride were given the liveliest mounts: and the Colonel, standing in the middle of the ring, had fun forcing the pace with his whip and telling the tyros where, so to speak, they got off...

Luckily I never met the full force of his personality. When I joined the battalion I was too junior for him to take much notice of (I had already learnt to ride and passed his test without mishap) and at the end of my first month he was given a Brigade and left us...

I also have The Times obituary for him somewhere - do you have this already?

[Muerrisch]

No .... I have the regimental obit. but not the Times. Would be grateful some time.

[Jonathan Saunders]

Can you send me your current email address via members and I will forward it on. Dont know how to attach to an email via GWF I am afraid.

[Muerrisch]

Thank you, will do immediately.

[jnorthall]

Do I buy a copy now or wait for the next edition?

And would you consider doing a 'podcast' for the GWF at some point?

[Jonathan Saunders]

Thank you, will do immediately.

Sent.

If for any reason they are not legible please don’t hesitate to email me back.

Regards,

Jonathan S

[Muerrisch]

Do I buy a copy now or wait for the next edition?

And would you consider doing a 'podcast' for the GWF at some point?

Good question ..... there is only a handful of copies [literally] left of the existing version, and no guarantee that a new edition will ever see the light of day. The regimental museum have 10 copies left, I have about the same. There are no others in new condition anywhere else.

I do not undercut the museum.

I could no more do a podcast than walk on water.

[jnorthall]

What a shame on both fronts!

[Hywyn]

With there being not many of the 1st Edition left does this mean that the value of my mint condition copy is on the up!!

I'm picking bits and bobs up in the 1914/15 papers about 2nd RWF men from the Caernarfon area early on in the war. Coming home wounded etc. It may provide some meat behind some of the numbers. I will email them to you as and when I get them should you wish. PM me your email.

Hywyn

[Muerrisch]

Yes please, PM to follow.

[Krithia]

Its would be nice to see some more on the Adjutant, Captain John Charles Mann MC (killed at Black Watch Corner, September 1917). I have begun researching his wartime career and have found some good references in “Memoirs of an Infantry Officer” by Sassoon, “The War the Infantry Knew” by Dunn, “Goodbye to all that” by Graves, “Old Soldiers Never Die” by Richards and “Siegfried Sassoon” by Wilson. Would you have any more info on him, or his brother who was killed with 16RWF earlier in 1916?

regards, Krithia.

[Muerrisch]

Second Lieutenant John Charles Mann. Mann was born 17 July 1894 in Finchley, the son of an accountant. He attended Bedford Grammar School and was a member of the OTC for three years, gaining a B Certificate. When he left in 1912 he became a clerk, and was living in Sutton, Surrey when he joined the London Rifle Brigade on 7 August 1914. Private 9976 Mann, 5 feet 6 ¾ inches, chest expanded 36 ½ inches, was 20 years and one month old and was myopic, corrected by glasses. He went to France 4 November 1914 and applied to join the Special Reserve of Officers, being commissioned into RWF 8 April 1915 and promoted Lieutenant 22 November that year. Mann arrived with 2RWF 26 September 1915 and became Acting Adjutant 9 December. For almost two years with brief interludes he held the appointment of Adjutant, serving the battalion and a succession of Commanding Officers with distinction. He was mentioned in WD for distinguished conduct on the Somme 20 July 1916, and spent two periods on brigade staffs. John was awarded an MC 3 January 1917 and received his medal from Major General Pinney a few days later. In the St George’s Day action 23 April 1917 near Arras he greatly distinguished himself, and was hospitalised May 26 1917 for nearly two months at Le Havre General Hospital. His official file records that he was wounded in June 1917 but WD merely has him ‘to hospital’ and so possibly sick. His PRO file notes that he became an Acting Captain 8 October 1917 but was killed 26 September during the Third Battle of Ypres, shot either through the throat [TWTIK] or the head [OSND]. Captain Mann was posthumously Mentioned in Despatches on 18 December 1917. He died single, intestate, and leaving £142..12..0. [about £4400 in current value]. The only effects returned to his father were a cheque book and an advance book. John Mann has no known grave and is commemorated at Tyne Cot. His father wrote to the authorities and drew attention to the loss of his other son, Second Lieutenant RL Mann, 15RWF, in November 1915 after only two months at the front. John Mann’s PRO folder is WO 339 35300

[Krithia]

Many thanks, there was a bit there that I didn't know. For your info his brother, Robert Leonard was with 16th Battalion, not 15th ( I think, but happy to be proven wrong).

[Muerrisch]

The October 1915 AL has 15th battalion .... not necessarily correct.

[Krithia]

I haven't got that Army List, however hav based the info on CWGC, the Artist Rifles Gazette (1916) and a photo and write up in "Dulwich College War Record" on page 166 and a further one on page 302 of the Dulwich College Register. The RWF museum also have him listed as 16th Battalion. Robert was initially commissioned into 3rd Batt RWF and attached to 16th Batt RWF. I understand that he is also mentioned in "The Times", "Sutton Advertiser" and "Surrey County Herald", however no battalion is stated. I also have some letters between his brother Charles and some fellow officers in 2RWF, so will check these to see if they add any more evidence to his brother being oin 16RWF or not.

I cannot understand why the Army List shows 15th as the battalion, unless its a mistake. I know for sure he was in 3rd and 16th, but I suppose possible he was in 15th for that month or so.

[Muerrisch]

A bit of background for you.

All Special Reserve officers were initially 3rd [sR] battalion, and were posted from thence to fighting units.

The 15th were the London Welsh, and served in F&F.

AL is not infallible.

Have you checked London Gazette? It is the official record of officers movements etc.

[Krithia]

No, I haven't, but have just found a copy of the War Diary that puts him in 16RWF. I'll search through the LGs to see if he ever served in 15Btn. Thanks. I'll email you about the letters for his brother.

[Muerrisch]

I have every AL from 1882 o 1925 so will have a look to see if there is any service in 16th mentioned prior to 15th.