Famous, 1914–1918

Victor Piuk, Richard van Emden

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781848841970
• eBook ISBN: 9781844688241
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

The World War I experiences of twenty British soldiers who went on to find either fame or infamy.

Famous tells stories of the Great War from twenty of Britain's most respected, best known and even notorious celebrities. They include politicians, actors, writers, an explorer, a sculptor and even a murderer. The generation that grew up in the late nineteenth century enlisted enthusiastically in the defense of the country. Many would become household names such as Basil Rathbone, the definitive Sherlock Holmes; A.A. Milne, creator of Winnie the Pooh; and John Laurie and Arnold Ridley who found fame and public affection as the dour Scotsman Fraser, and the gentle and genial Godfrey, in Dad's Army. From politicians such as Harold Macmillan and Winston Churchill to writers including J.B. Priestley, and J.R.R. Tolkein, from sculptors like Henry Moore, to composers such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, their fame and influence continue even into the twenty-first century.
The authors Richard van Emden and Vic Piuk have discovered the exact locations where these celebrities saw action. They tell the story of how J.R.R. Tolkein led his men over the top on the Somme, where C.S. Lewis was wounded and invalided home, and how Basil Rathbone won the Military Cross for a trench raid (while dressed as a tree). Each story will be examined in detail with pictures taken of the very spot where the actions took place. There are maps of the area that will guide enterprising readers to walk in the footsteps of their heroes. 

CHAPTER ONE

A A Milne

If a special order had gone round the British Army: ‘For your information and necessary action: Milne is joining us. See that he is given the easiest and best time possible, consistent with ultimate victory,’ I could not have had more reason to be grateful to my commanding officers.

AA Milne, It’s Too Late Now

IT IS HARD TO IMAGINE any connection, no matter how unlikely, between Jane Austen and the pock-marked Somme battlefield, but there is one, albeit rather tenuous. During the carnage of the Great War, almost anything was possible in extremis and in August 1916, in a dugout just hours before an attack, there seemed to be nothing more apposite than for the author AA Milne to talk about literature, and great literature too. Overhead, as he spoke, the enemy shells slammed into the ground, and intermittent machine gun fire spattered the trench parapet.

Before he enlisted in the army, Alan Alexander Milne, creator of Winnie the Pooh, was already known as a playwright and assistant editor of Punch magazine. Yet the international acclaim that would make him one of the most familiar writers of the twentieth century to children and adults alike was still a decade away. Not that either fame or fortune was on his mind on 12 August 1916. Survival was uppermost in his thoughts, and as the battalion was due to go over the top in a few hours, it was by no means certain that he would live to see the next dawn.

Milne was serving as a Second Lieutenant in the 11th (Service) Bn Royal Warwickshire Regiment. It was his first time up the line and an attack on a heavily defended German trench was set for later that evening. As the battalion’s new Signalling Officer, (the previous incumbent had been wounded in the head only a few hours before) Milne was supposed to be asking the men under his command a thousand and one technical questions. Instead, he found himself engaged in a long discussion about literature with Lance Corporal James Grainger, formerly a Welsh miner and now an experienced soldier, who had served with the battalion since it came to France, a year previously. He would be the perfect person to help turn Milne’s theoretical knowledge of signalling into something more practical for a battlefield. Instead the quiet, genial NCO was more than happy to trade ideas about the novel and in particular Jane Austen, for whom they shared a passion.

For over two weeks, British forces had been attacking a German line known as the Intermediate Trench. This had appeared on aerial reconnaissance photographs taken on 21 July, and was situated midway between the village of Bazentin-le-Petit and a low ridge beyond. Ever since the photos had been reviewed, the capture of this long trench had become critical to the wider objective of taking the ridge and High Wood, which dominated the surrounding landscape. Battalion after battalion had been sent in to take the Intermediate Trench, which the Germans defended tenaciously. The most recent attacks, in early August, had seized two-thirds of the trench but a further three hundred yards were still in enemy hands, a sandbagged and barbed wire barricade being all that separated German from Briton in the same trench. The 11th Warwicks, with support from other battalions in the Division, were to attack at 10.30pm on the night of 12/13 of August and seize the remaining portion of the line. A bombardment would precede the attack.

Two days earlier, on 10 August, the battalion had taken over five hundred yards of the front line, just to the north of Bazentin-le-Petit. Much to Milne’s frustration, after 18 months’ training as a signalling officer, he had been given command of an infantry platoon. However, he had been told that he could accompany the existing Signalling Officer, Kenneth Harrison, and three other men, into the line to gain some practical experience. The plan was to run out telephone cable through to the front line trenches by a devious route so that during the forthcoming attack communications with battalion and brigade headquarters could be maintained. On the day before the attack, Milne followed Harrison, laying cable as they went, but as they neared the front line a salvo of German shells burst overhead. Harrison was struck on the back of the skull by a shell splinter that punctured his helmet and entered his head. Surprisingly it was not, at first glance, a serious wound. Nevertheless, he was sent down the line and eventually to England. He never returned to France. Milne was now the new Signalling Officer, in which capacity he had gone to the signallers’ dugout to introduce himself to Lance Corporal Grainger and the other men in the section.

The following morning, 12 August, Milne set out at 4am and laid another telephone line, ‘elaborately laddered according to the text books, and guaranteed to withstand any bombardment’. He then returned to battalion headquarters to await the start of the battle.

In the event, two companies would lead the way, attacking over ground that varied between 150 yards and 200 yards in width. They would be supported, if required, by two further companies, while battalions on both flanks would lend assistance, the 10th (Service) Bn Loyal North Lancashire Regiment bombing down the Intermediate Trench from the section already captured. Once in the trench, the men of the Warwickshire Regiment would consolidate the position.

Heavy calibre guns unleashed the preliminary bombardment during the afternoon, ending at 7.00pm just as the sun set. These guns were followed by lighter artillery which would pound the objective and sweep the ground behind to stop enemy reinforcements. However, the heavy bombardment was the last thing the Warwicks’ Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Collison, wanted. ‘Not only would it render the trench uninhabitable to our men, should they succeed in taking it,’ he later wrote, ‘but it was plain intimation to the Hun that we contemplated some action against him in the near future.’ He contacted brigade and asked for the guns to cease fire but his request was refused.

At 9pm the Germans retaliated, plastering the British communication trenches and the Warwickshires’ battalion headquarters with shells of every size. The headquarters was an old German dugout deep below ground, and facing, of course, the wrong way. Here, Milne sat round a candlelit table with the commanding officer and two other officers, a major and the battalion adjutant. All communication with the front line was cut almost immediately, to be followed by the line to brigade headquarters.

We sat there completely isolated. The depth of the dugout deadened the noise of the guns, so that a shell-burst was no longer the noise of a giant plumber throwing down his tools, but only a persistent thud, which set the candles dancing and then, as if by an afterthought, blotted them out. From time to time I lit them again, wondering what I should be doing, wondering what signalling officers did on these occasions. Nervously I said to the Colonel, feeling that the isolation was all my fault, ‘Should I try to get a line out?’ and to my intense relief he said, ‘Don’t be a bloody fool.’

It had been difficult for the infantry to keep their composure. For over half of those waiting to go, this was only their third week in France. They had arrived at the end of July in a draft of 388 men. The War Diary notes that only 63 of these men had ever seen action before, and of the rest, most had received just 13 or 14 weeks’ training. Few had ever thrown a Mills Bomb and none had fired a Lewis Gun. These men, led mostly by new officers, had been set the already difficult task of taking the Intermediate Trench – and that was before the German bombardment.

Colonel Collison wrote:

The delivery of an assault under such conditions was a test that would have tried veteran troops, but the bravery and devotion of the officers, and the steady valour and example of the old remnants of the original battalion provided the necessary impetus, and punctually to time the leading line of stormers left the trenches and advanced against the enemy.

The men made their attack behind a shrapnel barrage that lifted as they went forward. Almost immediately they came under intense enemy machine gun and artillery fire, and although a few pressed on, none of the men got to within twenty yards of the German trench. On the left, part of one company became so confused in the dark that it ended up jumping into a British sap that ran at right angles to the objective.

Soon afterwards Private Hunt, one of two headquarters orderlies, arrived with a message. The attacking companies were in no need of support or assistance. ‘This was very welcome news, as it was naturally inferred that the attack had succeeded,’ recalled Collison in a memoir in 1921. ‘These hopes, however, were soon dashed.’

The attack had failed completely. At 2am a runner reached battalion headquarters to explain the situation, reeling off the names of a few of those who had died, some of whom Milne recognised. The Major then stood up and buckled on his revolver; he would go and reorganise the surviving troops. It was a signal for Milne to stand up and buckle his revolver on too. The Colonel spoke to them: ‘Use your common sense,’ he said. ‘I simply cannot lose three signalling officers in a month.’ Milne promised, while wondering what the difference between common sense and cowardice was.

Milne told his sergeant that he intended to run a telephone cable up to the front line so communications could be restored and that he needed two men to go with him. ‘I knew nothing of the section then, save that there was a lance corporal who loved Jane Austen, unhelpful knowledge in the circumstances.’ The Major, followed by Milne, led the way, followed by a sergeant and a signaller who laid out the telephone line neatly and skilfully.

We passed one of the signal stations, no longer a station but a pancake of earth on top of a spread-eagled body; I had left him there that evening, saying, “Well, you’ll be comfortable here.” More rushes, more breathers, more bodies, we were in the front line,’ wrote Milne. The Major hurried off to collect what men he could, while I joined up the telephone. Hopeless, of course, but we could have done no more.

Milne pressed the buzzer and, much to his surprise, got through to the Colonel, telling him what he knew, and asking for a small counter-bombardment.

Then with a sigh of utter content and thankfulness and the joy of living, I turned away from the telephone. And there behind me was Lance Corporal Grainger.

“What on earth are you doing here?” I asked.

He grinned sheepishly.

“You weren’t detailed, were you?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, then.”

“I thought I’d just like to come along, sir.”

“But why?”

He looked still more embarrassed.

“Well, sir, I thought I’d just like to be sure you were all right.”

Which is the greatest tribute to Jane Austen that I have ever heard.

The battalion lost around sixty killed, and just over a hundred wounded. Of the five officers who led the attack, three were killed and two severely wounded, and the officer commanding the supporting company was evacuated with shell shock. Colonel Collison wrote a report for the divisional commander. Rightly proud of the efforts made, he defended his men against any possible accusation that they had not tried hard enough. ‘I may mention that I saw no man lying otherwise than with his face to the enemy.’ For a man whose dislike of the enemy was well-known, he gave them, on this occasion, the respect they deserved. ‘One must allow him the credit of a very stout defence.’

The last section of the Intermediate Trench was never captured but was surrendered on 26 August by 130 men of a Bavarian Regiment. Milne later wrote how he had grown to loathe the war. ‘It makes me almost physically sick to think of that nightmare of mental and moral degradation, the war.’ It was hardly surprising. Just three weeks into his service in France, he had seen enough death and injury to last a lifetime. Even out on rest, when he had first joined the battalion in a wood well behind the lines, long range artillery had speculatively dropped several high explosive shells amongst the trees, killing and maiming over fifty men including three officers. In the two weeks since then, another nine officers had gone, almost half the battalion’s complement.

The Disastrous attack of 11th Bn Royal Warwickshire Regiment on Intermediate Trench, 13 August 1916.

However, there was one death which perhaps touched Milne as much as any other, and it was that of the young officer with whom he had first travelled to France.

The two men had embarked on 20 July 1916, landing the following day. With Milne was Ernest Pusch, a nineteen year old subaltern with no experience of front line life. Milne recalled that he was a quiet boy and that he was rather embarrassed by ‘an under-garment of chain mail,’ which his mother had provided and made her son promise to wear. It was recalled Milne,

…such as had been worn in the Middle Ages to guard against unfriendly daggers, and was now sold to over-loving mothers as likely to turn a bayonet-thrust or keep off a stray fragment of shell; as I suppose, it might have done.

Although he faithfully wore it, Pusch was embarrassed and bothered about the garment in almost equal measure. He may have felt, believed Milne, that it was somehow unsporting, even a little cowardly, something that was not quite done. He asked Milne’s advice, ‘charmingly, ingenuously, pathetically.’ Milne told him to wear it and to tell his mother how secure it made him feel and that he was bound now to come home. It was nevertheless pathetic. ‘You may laugh or cry as you will,’ he wrote in a letter home.

Milne and Pusch joined a draft of seven other second lieutenants, all of whom were being sent from the base to the battalion. All nine were new to active service conditions and nerves were no doubt jangling as they arrived in the early evening of 25 July to be detailed off to their respective companies. The battalion was resting after its exertions earlier that month, although the sound of battle continued in the near distance, the guns thundering away day and night. With the battalion replenished by new drafts, it could move back up, close to the front line. On 6 August, Milne was sent forward with A and C Companies, along with the men of battalion headquarters to the southeast edge of Bazentin-le-Petit Wood, while D Company, with Second Lieutenant Pusch, was ordered to a position close to the edge of Mametz Wood, a few hundred yards to the south. The shelling was incessant, with the artillery duelling with each other throughout the night and the following day, neither side gaining the ascendancy. On 8 August, Mametz Wood was pounded again.

Milne never knew whether his young friend had taken his advice and worn the protective chain mail.

Anyway it didn’t matter; for on the evening when we first came within reach of the battle-zone, just as he was settling down to his tea, a crump [shell] came over and blew him to pieces.

In the statutory letter written to the officer’s parents, Colonel Collison, the Battalion Commander, assured them that he had died as gallantly as he had lived, an English gentleman. Such kind platitudes were not untypical of the time, but in this case they were also inevitable as there had been no chance for the Colonel to get to know this junior subaltern. Ernest Pusch was buried 900 yards southwest of the church in the Somme village of Bazentin-le-Grand but was later exhumed and taken ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: AA Milne
• Chapter 2: George Mallory
• Chapter 3: Arnold Ridley
• Chapter 4: Ralph Vaughan Williams
• Chapter 5: John Reith
• Chapter 6: Dennis Wheatley
• Chapter 7: John Reginald Halliday Christie
• Chapter 8: CS Lewis
• Chapter 9: Basil Rathbone
• Chapter 10: Nigel Bruce
• Chapter 11: Alexander Fleming
• Chapter 12: RC Sherriff
• Chapter 13: Bernard Law Montgomery
• Chapter 14: Ned Parfett
• Chapter 15: Tom Denning
• Chapter 16: JRR Tolkien
• Chapter 17: Winston Churchill
• Chapter 18: Henry Moore
• Chapter 19: JB Priestley
• Chapter 20: Harold Macmillan
• Chapter 21: Peter Llewelyn Davies
• Acknowledgements