Letter Of Condolence
Read the article: Letter Of Condolence
AS BRAVE AS A LION
& WORKED TO HIS LAST OUNCE
IN THE CAUSE
OF HIS WOUNDED COMRADES
PRIVATE HERBERT PERRY MM
Unless I am mistaken, this is an extract from a letter of condolence sent to Private Perry's parents by his senior officer, or perhaps by one of his friends in the Field Ambulance. There are no quotation marks around the words but they sound very immediate and very heartfelt as they mix a deeply conventional image - "as brave as a lion" - with the original, if slightly clumsy, image of someone working to their last ounce.
Perry had served with the Royal Army Medical Corps since he'd come to France in July 1915. At the time of his death he was with the 55th Field Ambulance under the command of the 18th Division. Field Ambulances were not vehicles but mobile medical units consisting of about ten officers and over two hundred men with responsibilities ranging from stretcher bearer to surgeon. There's a informative article about Field Ambulances on the Long Long Trail site .
We don't know what role Perry fulfilled but we do know that in September 1917 he was awarded a Military Medal 'for bravery in the field'. We don't know how or when he was wounded but we do know that he died of wounds in a base hospital in Le Havre.
BELOVED BY
OFFICERS AND MEN
CORPORAL GEORGE BASIL BROWN
George Basil Brown, "Beloved by officers and men", was a nineteen-year-old acting corporal serving with the 32nd Battery 8th Brigade Canadian Field Artillery. He was killed in action on 14 November 1917. The 8th Brigade's war diary described the day:
"In the afternoon enemy put on "Area" shoot with 5.9 and 8" H.E. and shrapnel. Two mguns (machineguns?) 30th battery and two guns 24th Battery knocked out.
Casualties - 1251575 Gnr. L.O.Liddell (24th Bty) killed, and two gunners wounded.
306623 Gnr. Kennedy H.E., 30th Battery killed, three gunners wounded. No. 305598 A/Cpl Brown G.B. (32nd Bty) killed, and two gunners wounded. Three gunners 43rd Battery wounded.
At night enemy shelled positions with gas, using some phosgene and Yellow X."
IN THE WORDS OF HIS COLONEL
HE WAS AN EXAMPLE TO ALL
SECOND LIEUTENANT DOUGLAS FITCH
Douglas Fitch's father has quoted from the letter of condolence he received from his son's colonel. There's more information from this letter on a brass memorial plaque in St Andrew's Church, Kingswood, Surrey:
"A most gallant officer, beloved of his men. Throughout the hard and dangerous work of the last few weeks of his life he never spared himself and he was an example to us all."
There is even more information in the Marquis de Ruvigny's Roll of Honour. His Battery Commander wrote of him:
"Always thoughtful for others, whether they were his brother officers or the men of his section; always cheerful, he had a wonderful effect on us all and I think it was a good deal due to his influence that the battery has faced a very hard gruelling without a murmuring."
And his captain wrote:
"His unfailing cheerfulness and unconcern through the heaviest shell fire and greatest discomforts were wonderful ... There was no more popular officer in the brigade and the men of his battery and especially those of his own section, almost worshipped him."
Douglas, who served with 'C' Battery 162nd Brigade, was killed in action just ten days before his twenty-first birthday. He was his parents only child.
"HE WAS THE BRAVEST MAN WE HAD"
HIS CAPTAIN
GUNNER WILLIAM DAVID LLOYD
The family of every soldier killed in the war received a letter of condolence from his officer. His words may only have been conventional platitudes often repeated - although one cannot criticise because how difficult must it have been to write something personal and meaningful that would bring comfort to the bereaved. So who knows how many times Gunner Lloyd's captain had used this phrase about one of his soldiers, but does it matter? However, we do know that Lloyd was a brave soldier, we know this because he had been mentioned in despatches.
His mother, Agnes Lloyd chose his inscription. You can sense her pride in the captain's accolade, and the comfort she took from it. At the age of 16, according to the 1911 census, Lloyd had been a "hall boy mansion". I think this means that he was a general helper in a block of mansion flats not in a large mansion. His father was a house painter, his mother a cook in a private house, and his fourteen-year-old sister an apprentice dressmaker. He served in the 37th Battery 27th Brigade Royal Field Artillery and was killed in action on 2 October 1917.
"LOOKING AFTER HIS MEN"
CAPTAIN CHARLES ROBERT FORBES HAY-WEBB
The Times
January 5 1917
"Captain Charles Robert Hay-Webb, R.F.A. killed on December 28, aged 22, was the third and only surviving son of Mr C.R. Hay-Webb of Moohtapore, Behar, India, grandson of Mr T. Bonville Were, of Hay Broadclyst, Devon. ... he passed into Woolwich in January 1912, and was gazetted in July 1913 to the Royal Field Artillery. ... He went to the front in January 1915, was severely wounded in the second battle of Ypres on 30 April 1915, and was on medical leave for 11 months. He returned to the front in November [1916]. His eldest brother, Captain Allan Bonville Hay-Webb, died of wounds in Gallipoli in August 1915.."
"The third and only surviving son"; there's nothing to say how the unnamed brother died but it wasn't in the war. Mr and Mrs Charles Hay-Webb had one remaining child, a daughter called Adele.
Captain Hay-Webb's mother chose his inscription. It is in inverted commas, and whilst I would suggest that she is quoting from a letter of condolence, the words create a lovely image of an officer still looking after his men, the prime responsibility of an officer, in death as he had done in life.
"A GOOD SOLDIER
AND A REAL HERO"
HIS CAPTAIN
DRUMMER ALEXANDER WILLIAM BURR
Alexander Burr was killed at Beaumont Hamel on 1 July 1916. His body lay undiscovered until March 1928 when, in the absence of an identity disc, it was identified by the initials A.W.B. on the ring it was still wearing.
Drummer Burr was a bandsman, but don't get the idea that he was beating his drum as the soldiers went into battle that morning. That might have been his role in earlier wars but in 1916 he would have been a stretcher bearer, or perhaps a messenger boy. Either way he would have been in the heat of the battle - so much so that it was impossible to recover his body.
His inscription sounds as though it is quoted from a letter of condolence from Burr's senior officer. And however conventional the sentiments, and however many times the Captain had written it, the words evidently brought consolation to Burr's widowed mother - 'a good soldier', 'a real hero'. But they weren't necessarily empty words. My father was a soldier. He served in Burma during the Second World War and for the rest of his life the highest form of praise he could bestow on a young man were the words, "He would have made a good soldier".
HIS CAPTAIN SAID
"NO BRAVER SOLDIER EVER LED
MEN INTO BATTLE
LIEUTENANT ERIC STARMAGE HAMILTON LANE
Eric Lane was born in Nova Scotia and was working for the Bank of Montreal when the war broke out. He volunteered in November 1915 and initially served in Canada,where he was put to guarding munitions. In May 1917 he crossed the Atlantic and in February 1918 he joined the Canadian 85th Battalion, the Nova Scotia Highlanders, in France.
An obituary on the Bank of Montreal's memorial website, which will have been provided by his family, states that at the time of his death he was Second-in-Command of 'D' Company. The obituary tells us that:
"During the Canadian attack which broke the Drocourt-Queant line in front of Arras on September 2nd 1918, he was killed while leading his men through enemy wire, in the face of intense machine-gun fire from a strong enemy outpost."
Eric Lane's father chose confirmed his inscription, which must come from a letter from his Company Commander. It proves yet again the value family's placed on these letters of condolence.
"HIS WAS THE JOY
THAT MADE PEOPLE SMILE
WHEN THEY MET HIM"
LT. S.L. REISS
LIEUTENANT RONALD WILLIAM POULTON PALMER
"By the death of Lieutenant Poulton Palmer Rugby football has lost one of its most brilliant exponents. As a three-quarter back - he could play either in the centre or on the wing - his name will go down to posterity as probably the greatest player of all time."
The Times 8 May 1915
Poulton captained the English side during the 1913-14 season leading England to a 10-9 victory against the Welsh, 17-12 against the Irish, 16-15 against Scotland and 39-11 against the French. In all the close run games it was generally agreed that Poulton's contribution, both as player and Captain, had tipped the balance.
After his death it distressed his father that the newspapers concentrated on his sporting career. In the memoir Edward Poulton wrote of his son he was keen to point out that to Ronald rugby had only been a game. His main interest was Boys Clubs to which he had devoted much of his free time since his school days. Wherever he went, Rugby, Balliol, Manchester or Reading, he helped out at these clubs on a weekly basis. He believed firmly that by talking, teaching, playing and praying with these boys, who came from poor and disadvantaged families, he could help them break the cycle of poverty and deprivation which so reduced their chances in life. As a good sportsman he was greatly admired by the boys but he never overestimated the impact he was having on them. Describing one club evening he reported to his sister: "I think it was rather successful, and they were fairly quiet - that is to say they only whistled and talked and threw chairs about".
After Oxford Poulton went to work for his mother's uncle, G.W.Palmer, in the family biscuit business of Huntley and Palmer in Reading, as his heir. It was 1912, and when his uncle died in 1913 Ronald adopted the name Palmer as he promised his uncle he would. This is how he comes to be known as Ronald Poulton Palmer.
In 1912 he also joined the Territorials, the 4th Battalion the Royal Berkshire Regiment, believing that "in no other position could I so place myself that my training at Oxford [in the OTC] might be of use in a future war". And when the war broke out he volunteered for foreign service, even though his family felt strongly that his first duty was to the company. In response to his family he told them that although he considered war to be a ridiculous way for two countries to resolve their differences, he was a trained soldier, his country required his services and everyone should obey their own conscience. In a letter to his parents, who were in Australia when the war broke out, he put it rather less pompously: "You cannot realise in Australia what is happening here. Germany has to be smashed, i.e. I mean the military party, and everybody is volunteering. And those who are best trained are most wanted and so I should be a skunk to hold back".
After all the drama and excitement of mobilsation the battalion spent seven months in training and home defence in Chelmsford before embarking for France on 30 March 1915. Edward Poulton later expressed his regret at his inability to speak of anything personal on Ronald's last leave; he said had not wanted to cast a shadow over the occasion but was sure that his son "knew he was loved; he knew the fears we felt, speech was not needed to tell him this".
If Poulton's family hadn't felt able to speak to him his friends not only felt they could but did. William Dimbleby from the Reading Boys' Club wrote later, "His heart was not in it at all. He went solely from a sense of duty and as an example to others". And his landlady in Chelmsford claimed, "He didn't want to die, he had everything on earth ... he couldn't imagine anything better in heaven". One of his very best friends, William Temple, later Archbishop of Canterbury, recorded his last evening with Poulton in his diary. Poulton had said:
"I don't want to be killed yet; there is such a lot I wanted to do, or try anyhow." I asked if he felt sure he would be killed; "Oh yes" he said, "sure of it". I said nothing and again there was a long silence. Then he suddenly said, "Of course it's all right; but it's not what one would have chosen."
The 4th Battalion went into the trenches on 4 April. Poulton wrote home regularly, constantly referring to the danger from snipers. "The snipers are very good shots. We had three periscopes smashed, and yet they only show 3" by 3" over the parapet and the German trenches are quite 500 yards away". Not surprisingly his family were obsessed by the need for him to take care. On 29 April he wrote to reassure them, "Don't worry about me in this respect ... I am always thinking of it and keeping my head down". However, it was only six days later that they received the following telelgram: "Regret your son killed last night. Death instantaneous. Colonel Serocold."
In the early hours of 5 May Poulton had been superintending a working party when he was shot through the heart. A brother officer assured Poulton's parents, "I reached him the moment after he fell but he never spoke or moved again". His father was one of many who felt sure that the Germans had made a point of killing him, knowing what a huge blow this would be to British morale. However, reports suggest that Poulton was caught by an unfortunate ricocheting bullet.
Whatever the cause, his men were devastated. As Lieutenant Crutwell told Poulton's parents, "When I went round his old company as they stood to at dawn, almost every man was crying". He was buried in Ploegsteert Wood on the evening of 6 May in the presence of his whole company. Captain Sharpe reported the event to his wife, "I wept like a child ... as did many of us". The next night the Albert Road Lads' Club in Reading, of which Poulton had been president, recorded in its Log Book, "The saddest day the Club has known. We could not hold a club, no one felt like it".
Poulton's inscription comes from a letter written by a Balliol friend, Lieutenant Stephen Reiss, to Ronald's father. Reiss was killed on 13 October 1915.
A POPULAR OFFICER
DEEPLY MOURNED
LIEUTENANT CLARENCE WILLIAM WOLFENDEN
Clarence Wolfenden was a consistent high achiever at every stage of his short career. An artillery officer, he was killed when the Turkish guns found the range of his guns on Plateau 400. His mother, a widow, chose his inscription.
"HE WAS A VERY FINE FELLOW
AND BRAVE, FOR HE KEPT ON
WITH HIS LEWIS GUN
ALL THE WAY DOWN"
THE PILOT
SECOND LIEUTENANT FREDERICK HORACE REED
This is one of the very rare instances when the War Graves Commission doesn't give an exact date of death. Frederick Reed, an observer with 6 Squadron RAF, was shot down on 23 October 1918. His plane crashed behind the German lines and he was taken prisoner. He died of his injuries sometime between the crash on the 23rd and the 27 October. That is why the Commission's records and his headstone give his date of death as 23/27 October.
Reed was buried by the Germans as an 'Unknown British Aviator'. On 16 September 1920 his body was exhumed and reburied in Englefontaine Churchyard - still as an unknown British aviator. The exhumation record shows that there was nothing in the grave to identify him, not even a uniform; he had been buried only in a ground sheet.
At the bottom of the form are the words, 'Dame Adelaide Livingstone Informed'. In September 1920, this remarkable American woman was head of the War Office mission to trace British soldiers reported as missing in France and Flanders. At some point Reed's body was identified and the details in the Graves Registration documents amended. This means that when in February 1975 the body was exhumed again and reburied in Terlincthen Military Cemetery (for what reason I don't know) he was known to be Second Lieutenant Frederick Horace Reed.