Lincoln in the Great War

Louise Blackah

• Publisher: Pen & Sword Military
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781783831562
• eBook ISBN: 9781473866195
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: British History
• Index: History

Lincoln produced many heroes during WW1 including, Wing Commander Fiennes who was the Commanding Officer of 38 Squadron from 1916 to 1917 flying FE2b aircraft (known as the 'Fees') on patrol against raiding German Zeppelins over Lincolnshire and the surrounding counties. Also, a winged version of the Lincoln Imp adorned many of the First World War aircraft including the famous Sopwith Camel, manufactured extensively by Lincoln firms Clayton and Shuttleworth, Robeys and Ruston Proctor.This book also looks at how the experience of war impacted on the City, from the initial enthusiasm for sorting out the German Kaiser in time for Christmas 1914, to the gradual realization of the enormity of human sacrifice the families of Lincoln were committed to as the war stretched out over the next four years. The Great War affected everyone. At home there were wounded soldiers in military hospitals, refugees from Belgium and later on German prisoners of war. There were food and fuel shortages and disruption to schooling. The role of women changed dramatically and they undertook a variety of work undreamed of in peacetime. Extracts from contemporary letters reveal their heroism and give insights into what it was like under battle conditions, particularly from those of the Lincolnshire Yeomanry.

CHAPTER ONE

1914 – Eager for a Fight

To many people in Britain who followed the politics of the nation on their radios and in some cases via the newspapers, the main cause of Britain declaring war on 4 August 1914 was the assassination of the Archduke, alongside the invasion of neutral Belgium, and the biggest fear was that Germany would carry on across the European countryside until it reached the French coast. The next target would then be England itself.

With a strong sense of patriotism, and keen to protect their country and prevent this happening, many men began enlisting even before the call to arms had been given. Confidence brimmed; with ‘our boys’ joining with the Allies we would soon rout the enemy and all would be over by Christmas.

Recruitment posts sprang up across the county and queues formed as groups of friends, families and workers waited to offer their services. Smaller towns and villages were visited, on a regular basis, by a group of recruiting officers who would set themselves up in the local village or Church hall until they had finished their recruiting drive. Enthusiasm was high, and as Lincoln was a garrison town with its own regimental barracks, it was not difficult to attract the young men of the city and surrounding areas. For those working in rural occupations the thought of joining up offered the opportunity to travel and for adventure that many could only have dreamed of.

Many of the county’s inhabitants lived in poverty, and with large families and poor work prospects, the lure of a regular income was an incentive to many young men to join up.

Living in Lincolnshire, the obvious regiment of choice was the Lincolnshire Regiment, although recruitment was still carried out for other regiments depending on experience, numbers in the particular regiments, etc. As the years of conflict progressed, the recruitment offices would be tasked with increasing manpower in regiments that had suffered great losses and who were in need of more men to boost numbers. This saw local men in a variety of regiments based across the country. In small villages and hamlets in Lincolnshire, where the majority of men of enlisting age joined up, the effect was devastating and lead directly to poverty and hardship for the remaining family members during and post-war. Younger men, under the official age for enlistment, would often travel out of area in order to be recruited by people who would not recognize them and know they were underage and this often meant that they would be recruited into other regiments.

With no benefit system in place at that time, families cared for each other through good and bad times. Elderly, infirm parents joined the household of their children and were supported by them. Those families dependent on agriculture as an income were often struggling financially. Many were only employed, on a regular basis, during seasonal times of the year; for example, more manpower would be needed during harvest and potato picking time. Too many families found that there were times when finding work to provide an adequate income was virtually impossible, and even those workers with full time employment were frequently not paid enough to keep the family from suffering financial hardship. The situation was already causing unrest within the community, with debates and demonstrations becoming more commonplace long before the beginning of the Great War.

Large families were common, and with children leaving school aged fourteen, those families in very rural villages and hamlets found it almost impossible to find work. It is understandable that many of the boys who looked older than they were would try to enlist in order to bring much needed income into the home, but fathers would also enlist, perhaps in the hope that they would provide a steady income, and their sons may be able to fill positions left in the fields. It is debatable as to how many men in this situation joined up voluntarily, with the financial benefits being equally as important as their patriotism. As the months went on, and more men and teenagers joined up, the rural communities were beginning to struggle for manpower and we will take a look at the solutions to this problem later.

The Grimsby Chums

Lord Kitchener came up with a plan to increase the numbers of the Army without immediately bringing in conscription. He suggested that men who were joined by a common link, such as working in the same place, living in the same village or town, and those who shared common pursuits, could all join up together. This was an excellent plan, as it led to the men encouraging each other, and the recruiting offices began to be busy.

In some places large numbers of men were recruited, and if the majority of the battalion was from the same area, they were nicknamed ‘Pals’; for example, The Barnsley Pals and the Accrington Pals.

In the Grimsby area posters were pasted across the town and surrounding villages. Printed by the Lincolnshire Regiment, the posters read, ‘Wake up Grimsby! Young men do your duty. Join now with your pals. 500 men from all classes must be recruited at once.’

The men of Grimsby responded immediately, bringing their friends, family and co-workers along with them. Men from other villages and towns near to Grimsby, such as Immingham, Caistor and Laceby, travelled to Grimsby to join up, and the ranks increased quickly. Joining up with someone that you knew made it more of an adventure, and let us not forget that when enough men were recruited, wherever that may be, village, town or city, they would march the men off to their training centres or to catch a train. It became a spectacle; English pomp and ceremony at its best, and one that boys and men alike aspired to be part of.

The men decided against using the term ‘Pal’ for what was to become the 10th Battalion, instead choosing to be known as The Grimsby Chums and they remained the only ‘Pals’ battalion to use the word ‘Chums’.

As was the case across the country, supplies and armaments were not readily available for the new recruits. It was also difficult to find active commanding officers for the new battalions, and initially, retired Army personnel were recruited to lead the men during their basic training. Retired George Bennet, who had been Captain of the 1st Lincolnshire R.G.A. Volunteers, took charge of the recruits, but was soon to be replaced by George Heanage as a permanent C.O. to the battalion.

As well as the lack of supplies such as uniform and weapons, the battalion needed to be trained en masse, and facilities across the county were sparse. Once again the resourcefulness and enthusiasm of the Lincolnshire people for ‘the cause’ was evident as the Earl of Yarborough offered the grounds of his estate in and around Brocklesby as a training camp for the men. Offers of assorted weapons from the general public, and even old Post Office uniforms, helped the battalion to begin to feel a sense of unification, and training began in earnest during the winter of 1914. This was the community working together to help their own men to prepare for their forthcoming task. The pride that the communities had for the men going off to war was immeasurable; if they could not go, for whatever reason, then they supported those that could.

By Spring 1915, the men were kitted out properly with uniforms and weapons from the Army, and were ready for the next stage in their training, which was to be in Ripon, and here they were to sharpen their rifle skills before moving, yet again, to Wiltshire. By this time the Grimsby Chums had been joined by other men, and along with the Northumberland Fusiliers, Royal Scots and a battalion of the Suffolks, they made up the 34th Division.

It was not until 4 January 1916, that the Grimsby Chums were sent overseas, and had not only their first taste of life in the trenches, but also a visit from Kitchener himself, the man who had been instrumental in bringing the Chums together.

The Battle of the Somme, on 1 July 1916, was to be the first big offensive that the Chums were involved in, going forward to attack the village of La Boisselle. The men had been aware of the bombardment of the enemy lines and believed that once the signal for the advance was given, they would be able to easily overcome those, if any, remaining alive in the enemy trenches.

Unfortunately, this was not to be the case, and as the Grimsby Chums advanced, they were mown down by the German machine guns and mortar fire. Of the 1000 men, 15 officers and 487 men were killed, missing or wounded after the first few days of fighting.

Back home in Lincolnshire, the news was sadly received. In some families more than one member had lost their life or been seriously wounded. The future of the community began to look bleak, after all, it was the man who was the breadwinner, and without him what would the future hold? So many of the men that had joined the Grimsby Chums had been young men who left behind their wives, young children and babies and with approximately 600 of the Chums losing their lives during, or as a result of, the conflict, there was hardly a street or family that was not affected by the loss of family, friends or workmates. For example, Wintringham Grammar School was to lose eighty of its ‘old boys’.

It has to be remembered that there was more than one way for a man to be affected by his time at the Front; men came home with wounds, amputations and suffering the after-effects of gas, which would affect their lungs and in some cases cause blindness or severe sight impairment. With such high casualty rates, there were men returning home all the time. Disability caused more hardship to the families, with many of the men not able to work and becoming dependent on their wives or parents to support them in practical and physical ways, as well as financially. There were of course, widow’s pensions and invalidity pensions, however the system was not ideal, with various rules and regulations that sometimes made it impossible for someone to claim what they needed. Often, they would not be awarded an adequate pension, or even a pension at all, if an injury was not physically seen, and those with blindness or amputations were often passed on to charitable institutions such as St Dunstan’s, which cared for those blinded during conflict. If awarded a pension, it was aimed to simply ‘keep a man from destitution.’

It was of course, not just the physical injuries that were a problem for the men’s families. Many men carried psychological wounds that would manifest in many ways such as violence, fear and inability to carry out simple tasks. These psychological impairments eventually became known as shell shock. We would recognize the condition today as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. With the constant noise from bombardment, appalling living conditions within the trenches, fear for their lives twenty-four hours a day, and the stress of watching their friends, and in some cases family, being killed in front of them, it was not unreasonable to expect some sort of repercussions. Often, men with shell shock and no visible physical wounds would receive no pension at all. This made life, post-war, very difficult for everyone and would have certainly been the case for the families of the Grimsby Chums.

The worst thing for the families of the Chums was the uncertainty surrounding the fate of their loved ones. This of course, was the same for so many families right across the country. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the war, the families back home were receiving telegrams advising them that their family members were missing in action, which was no consolation to the family as the uncertainty was worse than certain knowledge that the soldier in question had died. Sometimes, that telegram would tell them that they were presumed dead and in some cases a letter from the commanding officer would follow confirming this. Communities were tight knit, supporting each other as they read lists of casualties posted on the parish notice board or similar, and as the war touched most families in one way or another, understanding and sympathy was on hand.

The uncertainty as to what had happened and the realization that your loved ones had not been buried, as their bodies had not been found, or in some cases there was no log of a burial as the paperwork had been lost, or the burials would have been so quick that there may not have been time to complete the relevant paperwork, was torture to the families. Let us also not forget that occasionally the Germans would actually bury the soldiers themselves in an act of compassion, and in that case, once again, there would be no record of the burial place. In these cases, the stories of that family member would be passed down, keeping the memory alive, but in an age where it has became commonplace for relations to travel overseas to visit graves and memorials, there is still great sadness at not knowing where that relation had been laid to rest.

In 2001, there was great excitement from the area that had been the battleground around Point du Jour on the Vimy Ridge. A mass grave had been uncovered containing the remains of twenty men, and close by, another grave, that of an officer. Archaeologists began to very carefully excavate the graves. However, they were disappointed to find that there were no personal items and no military artifacts either, such as cap badges, paperwork etc, which would immediately enable them to identify the men. Thankfully, although decades had passed, there were still some pieces of the uniforms on some of the men that were intact, and from one of these scraps the archaeologists identified the men as having served with the 10th Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment, the Grimsby Chums.

Considering that there were records showing the loss of men from the 10th Battalion in such numbers that tallied with those found in the graves, it has been presumed that these were those men, but it has to be remembered that there were other battalions in this area and many of them also lost their lives, and their last resting places have also remained unknown.

The discovery of the graves has given the families of the missing Grimsby Chums some sense of closure. With the popularity of tracing ancestors, developing family trees and unearthing the stories behind those relations, the effect of the Great War still has a very personal effect on families to this day, especially so with the commemorations of 100 years since the beginning of the Great War. The loss of a brother, cousin, father or son, has been passed through the generations, and if not felt personally, the hurt and upset of previous generations is still remembered and keenly felt.

At the end of the Great War, the colours of the Grimsby Chums was brought back to England, and in a service of remembrance, placed in the Parish Church to stand guardian over the memorial to those fine Grimsby men and their fellow soldiers. Although faded now, the bloody stains of conflict and suffering remain as witness to the courage and sacrifice of the men and to the courageous acceptance of the loss by those who remained behind.

The Youngest Recruit

Initially, there was no need for conscription, as by January 1915, there were a million voluntary recruits across the country. Conscription was, however, introduced in January 1916, as the loss of men was so great in such a short space of time that conscription was necessary to replace numbers in the Army. To begin with conscription was for single men aged eighteen to forty-one, (volunteers could enlist from the age of seventeen) and by May 1916, they had to extend the conscription to include married men. Although the rules specified that the men could not be younger than seventeen, and had to be at least five feet three inches tall, there were many occasions where birth certificates were ‘lost’ and the applicant’s word was taken that they were of age. This happened right across the services, and with some of the boy’s ages difficult to tell by sight alone, there were many very young boys recruited into the ranks, marching alongside men much older and perhaps somewhat more prepared emotionally than they were.

Lincolnshire boasts that the youngest recruit during the Great War came from the county; Private Sidney Lewis joined up in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: 1914 – Eager for a Fight
• Chapter 2: 1915 – Deepening Conflict
• Chapter 3: 1916 – The Realization
• Chapter 4: 1916/17 – Seeing It Through
• Chapter 5: 1918 – The Final Blows
• Appendix