Apologies for the delay in updating the thread. Internet in the hotel in Amiens sucked, so I lost an entire post I'd almost finished and then couldn't get back online. However, that was the worst of the entire trip so I can't complain.
Day 2 was a real family history-centric day focused on a single member of my family. Please forgive the following background but it might help explain why I took this trip.
When I first got interested in family history (my sons will tell you that interest has evolved with marked obsessive qualities...in case you couldn't tell), I raided the--rather limited--family photo collection and went through them with my Mum to put names to faces. She drew blanks on these 3 military personnel.
These really piqued my interest, not least because the chap on the left is clearly an officer (well-cut uniform and Sam Brown belt)...and my family are common as muck. As far as I was aware, I was the first member of the family to earn a commission. The left-hand image suggested I was wrong. I was also interested in the chap in the middle because, well, I'm ex-RAF so I was intrigued to know I had a family member serve in the Royal Flying Corps.
I was fortunate to discover that the 1918 and 1919 Absent Voter Lists for my home town had survived and been transcribed. Looking for surnames that matched my family tree, I found that a William Gamble had 2 sons serving, one in the RFC (Jim Gamble) and the other in the Royal Navy (Ernest Gamble). It looked like I had a match. I then noted the address. William and his family lived literally across the street from my Great-Grandparents, John Lee and Mary Gamble. Mary was William's sister. And when I say "across the street", John and Mary Lee were at number 50, William and Louisa Gamble and their family were at number 49 - both my Grandma and my Mum were born in number 50. As a young child, my Mum was often sent across the street to show Auntie Louisa a new dress, or a new pair of shoes etc..
So I had 2 of the 3 servicemen identified. The officer was still a puzzle until another relative sent me a photo of William's and Louisa's gravestone which mentioned a "Beloved Son, 2Lt George Gamble, Died 24 September 1917." A little more digging and I discovered that George served in the Rifle Brigade, which matched the cap badge of the photo on the left. In short, the photos were of 3 brothers who were first cousins of my Grandma and lived across the street from her.
I'll cover some of Jim Gamble's activities later. Day 2 of my odyssey was focused on George. He enlisted as a volunteer in the Regular Army in early September 1914. By the time he landed in France in January 1915, he'd already been promoted to Acting Corporal. He spent the first 10 months of operational service with the 4th Battalion, the Rifle Brigade, in France. In November his unit was sent to Salonika in Greece and he stayed there for another 18 months, being promoted to Sergeant in that time. In the spring of 1917, he was selected for commissioning and returned to Blighty for officer training. He was commissioned on 27 June 1917 and went back to France to join the 2nd Battalion, the Rifle Brigade on 12 August. Thus the photo of him, which was taken in his home town, was taken at some point between those dates.
George joined his new unit on 24 August. It had just been relieved from time in the front-line trenches and was conducting company-level training to get combat replacements, including George, up to speed. They didn't have long to work up. On 11 September they moved to the Brigade Support position and 8 days later they took over the front lines from the 2nd Battalion, Royal Berkshire Regt. George was in D Company which, along with C Company, was initially in the reserve position, with A and B Companies in the front lines. On 23 September, C and D replaced A and B in the front lines.
Per the War Diary of the 2nd Berks Regt, they were defending the west bank of the River Lys in front of a hamlet called La Basse-Ville. That Diary provides map references and, thanks to a cool online app called TMapper (tmapper.com) I was able to pinpoint the start and end of the Rifle Brigade's position. Here it is on a contemporary map, side-by-side with a modern GoogleEarth image of the location. Note that the course of the River has been straightened since 1917 to make it easier for larger barges to navigate the waterway:
On the night of 23 September, the German forces (probably those in the red trenches east of the River) undertook a trench raid. According to a letter in George's service record, he heard the Germans cutting the wire in front of a neighbouring position and went to warn the other officer, 2Lt Claud Bruce Matheson, of the impending danger. Claud had been with the unit less than 48 hours! The Germans threw grenades into the British position, killing Matheson and two sergeants instantly and wounding George. He was evacuated to 26 Field Ambulance at Pont d'Achelles where he succumbed to his wounds on 24 September. He was buried at the nearby cemetery.
The site of Yank Post was near a sugar refinery that was destroyed in the Great War. Today, the entire area is a large truck loading/offloading facility, so I couldn't actually get to the exact spot where the 2nd RB line started in the north...but I could get pretty close because there's a cycle path along the river. Here's a shot looking generally southwest from the vicinity of Yank Post:
At the other end of the line (Halt Post) I drove onto a farm and, luckily, bumped into the young farmer and his wife. At first he claimed not to speak English. However, when I explained, in my badly broken French, why I was there, and showed him some pictures, he said, in almost perfect English, "By all means, walk around...just don't touch the electric fences for the cattle!" When I showed him the above map locations, he pointed out an access road that led to a modern dock that was virtually in the exact location I was seeking. So off I went and took this pic looking across to Deulemont where the German forces were situated:
Much of my research was informed by a wonderful book on the first liberation of La Basse-Ville in July 1917 by New Zealand units that was written as a labour of love by a Belgian lady. She graciously met me at a memorial and helped point out various locations so I could orient the modern village to the old WW1 maps. Here's a pic of her in front of a memorial she helped design and implement:
I also took some pics from the German positions looking back at George's defensive line. The factory chimney in the second image was built in 1922 and is the same chimney visible from the modern quay at the Halt Post location shown earlier in the post. The third image helps explain why the German positions were so far back from the river...you don't want to be digging trenches in a flood plain, plus you have open fields of fire if your enemy tries to attack your position:
George's evacuation route back to the Field Ambulance isn't very clear but it must have been long and, if he was at all conscious, incredibly painful. The most direct route is 9 km long via the road that leads from La Basse-Ville along the south end of Ploegsteet Wood (know ubiquitously to the Tommies as "Plugstreet") but that route was considered too dangerous. The 26th Field Ambulance, which was responsible for casualty evacuation listed combinations of stretcher bearers for 600 yards in the trenches, then wheeled stretchers on roads, tramways through Plugstreet Wood, and eventually motor ambulances. It must have taken a long time to get him to the 25th Field Ambulance...and certainly more than 9 km.
Here's a pic of the location where the 25th FIeld Ambulance was located, probably covering all of the brown area plus the greenhouse visible to the right. It's just a farmer's field but it's about 150 yards or so from the cemetery. While it's not much to look at, it's special to me because that's where George died sometime on 24 September:
George was buried in Pont d'Achelles Cemetery. Luckily his grave location persisted despite the location being overrun 2 more times during the Great War, firstly by the Germans during their Operation Michael offensive in March 1918 and then by the Allies later that summer as they pushed Germany back in the 100 Days Offensive that ultimately won the War.
There are interesting quirks in pretty much any CWGC cemetery, like these 2 graves, one British and one German, both killed on the same day and lying next to each other:
That's more than enough for one post. Next time I'll show you Claud Matheson and the two sergeants who were killed when George was mortally wounded...but that's for tomorrow. In the meantime, here's an artsy pic of Pont d'Achelles Cemetery, followed by one of a butterfly making use of a headstone to warm up:
More inane ramblings to follow soon.