Blundell’s School

January 5th 1916

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There are many families close to us who have lost a much loved son, brother or husband over the past year. However, we should not forget the suffering of those families whose boys are either lying seriously wounded in one of our hospitals or remain missing in action:

 

Capt. R. French

Captain Robert French (Royal Welch Fusiliers) was wounded on September 25th in the Battle of Loos. Having spent four days at a Base Hospital in Boulogne, he was admitted to the Empire Hospital in Vincent Square, London, on 30th September 1915.

He underwent an operation on October 17th but he remains paralysed, having no feeling in arms, legs or body and has no power of movement.

 

Edmund Gay

Capt. E. Gay

The London Gazette of November 6th  announced that Lieut. Edmund Gay (Norfolk Reg) was promoted to the rank of temporary Captain, effective 13 August 1915. However, he has been listed as “missing” since August 12th 1915 and we fear he was killed in the attack.

 

This time last year Mr & Mrs Campbell were in this very same position, not knowing whether their son Percy was dead or alive.

We must still hold out hope for Edmund.

October 8th 1915

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Robert Rawlinson 3

2nd Lieut. Robert Rawlinson (Border Regiment)

Yesterday’s edition of the Times bears the news that on 25th September, the first day of the battle at Loos, Robert Rawlinson lost his life.

A brother officer has written to Rob’s mother:

“I can’t help feeling you would like to know exactly how poor Rob met his death. The regiment was ordered to support the 8th Devons, who were to lead the attack and Rob was detailed to go with them to keep up communications between them and ourselves. It was a difficult job to do and he was chosen by the Colonel because of his ‘coolness and bravery’ under fire. He went off very cheerfully, delighted at being selected. The attack started at 6.30 a.m. on the 25th and poor Rob was killed just before getting to the first German line trench.

His death was a great blow to us all, for he was one of the most popular officers in the Regiment…”

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Also of interest in yesterday’s paper (although with no connection to the OPS) was the notification that Rudyard Kipling’s son John Kipling was wounded at Loos and is declared missing in action.

October 4th 1915

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We can now reveal that Noel Sergent is part of the 51e Batterie, 10e Artillerie, E.N.E. Secteur 194, Armee d’Orient and not far from where Pat Duff is stationed. Recently Noel was inspected by Sir Ian Hamilton, the Commander in Chief of our forces in Gallipoli:

Noel Sergent

Sous-Lieut JNB Sergent

“Sir Ian Hamilton came round the guns and spoke to me and said he had played golf at Valescure (Saint-Raphael, in France) and that the links were very bad, and then, just as he was going off, he turned round and asked me how long I thought the war was going to last. I wasn’t going to make an idiot of myself by making a wild guess, so I said we have had so many surprises that I couldn’t possibly tell. So he told me that in his opinion the war would last about another year, and that the Germans weren’t counting on having to go through another winter campaign, and that next spring something decisive would happen, and that decisive something would come from this side.

Pat Duff came and saw me the other day; he is very thin owing to a touch of dysentery, so I gave him the pomegranate skin which had just reached me. He brought me over papers – Sphere, Tatler etc and I was delighted to see him.

27/9/15. Yesterday I had the pleasantest morning I have had yet. I returned Pat Duff’s visit and, after about half-hour’s tramp, I came to a farm where I found some of my R.E. friends, who had been here but had moved up. I gave them some lemons I had brought in my pocket and then went Duff-wards.

I went up this ravine (from Gully Beach) for about ten minutes and came to a notice-board: 460 Battery Winter Quarters. I asked for Duff and was shown to the top of Gurkha Bluff. There I found him in his dug-out. He is so situated as to be able to see Imbros and Samothrace and the sea through the ravine; lucky devil! … The gun is a quite nice 4.2. I photoed it with Duff and friend standing by.”                         

 

July 10th 1915

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The next edition of ‘The Draconian’ is due to be published in August and we are grateful for news from Old Dragons at their Public Schools. Our Oundle School correspondent has contributed a good piece on the war work they have been doing this term:

“It is an ideal school for Dragons, as it is run on very much the same lines as the OPS, namely liberty and open air life. This term we have been doing very strenuous work, as we have taken advantage of the fact that we have the best school workshops in England, and we have been making munitions of war.

A firm in Peterborough is supplying us with the rough castings, which we finish and return to them to be tested. We started by doing various brass pieces of aeroplane engines and also mine-heads; these required turning on the lathes, drilling, planning and plenty of filing which needs some patience! Of course everything has to be done very accurately, the usual standard being that they should be correct to 1/2000th of an inch, and after the parts have been worked they are tested by the more experienced boys by means of micrometer screw gauges.

The firm was very pleased with the first lot of work which we returned and have now sent still more as the demand is so great at the moment, and they have also promised us more difficult and varied work in the future. It is possible to have 30 boys working in the workshops at the same time, and the work has been organised by forms, each form spending one whole day (7-8 hrs) at it each week…

Owing to the enormous demand we have now started working in double shifts of six hours each, so that the shops are being used for 12 hours each day, and the work is to be continued during the first month of the holidays by about 60 boys who have volunteered to stay, and are to be under military control…

I have written all this thinking that you might be interested to know how we at Oundle (and some other Public Schools which have now, I believe, followed our example), are doing some little active work, small as it may seem in comparison to the needs, for the Country.”

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We have received news from 2nd Lieutenant Robert Rawlinson, 2nd Border Regt., 20th Brigade, 7th Division, BEF, dated June 30th 1915.

Robert Rawlinson

2nd Lieut. Robert Rawlinson

“We came into the trenches on Sunday afternoon and all was quiet till breakfast time on Monday morning, when they dropped a few High Explosive (H. Ex.) Shells into our front line…

About 1.30 p.m. they started again and got the range perfectly. One officer and three men were blown to nothing; the shell pitched in the dug-out and all we found was the officer’s head and one shoulder; nothing at all of the others. Another officer lost his nerve and a third was wounded…

Tuesday was fairly peaceful till the early afternoon, when they shelled the next regiment on our right for a time; then all was quiet again till 5.45 p.m. when a fiendish rifle and machine-gun fire was opened on our right. We had sent up a couple of mines and had caught the Germans bolting. In less than half a minute the air was full of shells, shrapnel and rifle-fire. They shelled our lines too. I’ve never heard such a row in all my life; the H. Ex. Shells are most frightfully demoralising. One pitched with a deafening crash 15 yards to the right of my dug-out. Two hailstorms of shrapnel bullets splattered all round me when I was going along a communications trench and a bit of H. Ex. Shell missed my head by a foot. The old hands said that it was really bad shelling.

We didn’t lose many, but I saw two ghastly sights in it all. It gets on my nerves! I didn’t mind the sniping and shrapnel, but I can’t stand the H. Ex. shells. You don’t stand a chance with them…

The gunners think that the Huns are running short of shells; it has been very noticeable in the last ten days, so they say, and for every shell they send over they get about four back from us or the French.”

 

June 10th 1915

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Whilst many Old Dragons have been enduring the terrors of the trench warfare in France and Belgium, Lieut. Pat Duff, serving with the RFA in the Gallipoli campaign, has found some time for recreation and the occasional acquisition of luxuries; but even then there are reminders that the war is not far away.

Gallipoli Peninsula

The Gallipoli Peninsula

22/5/15 “I went and bathed on a beach facing Imbros and Samothrace, in beautiful clear water. On the cliff-edges were little wooden crosses signifying where men of the landing party had fallen at the first assault. It seems a funny thing to be bathing and enjoying oneself in the midst of all this, but one just takes things as they come and when one can enjoy oneself, one does.

27/5/15. I am with the Battery and living in the Eagle’s Nest, as we call it; incidentally not a bad name, as I saw a Sikh a bit further up the ravine feeding a young eagle, which he must have found here. The Sikhs are good to see in the mornings combing their long black hair; in this setting it puts one in mind of the Spartans before Thermopulae.

Had rather fun the other day; I had gone down to the beach and saw that the ship I came from Alexandria in was here. I managed to get on board and secure a bottle of fizz and a bottle of whisky.. Fizz was Heidsieck, and only 6/- a bottle because duty-free – you can have best brands of fizz at that price. Seemed funny to have it out here.

2/6/15. I had some plum pudding the other day which G’s people had sent; also the waiter at Buol’s had sent him a slab of turtle soup. This slab was watered down to make soup for all of us, and consequently tasted as if it was water that a turtle had had a bath in.

6/6/15. We have some long days now and again, getting up at 4 a.m. and going to bed about 1 a.m. occasionally; but sleeping practically out of doors makes what sleep one has go further…

The time one feels it most is about 2 p.m., when there is no shade of any kind; in the trenches the sun simply beats down on one and one’s clothes get full of sand; I got covered with sand and earth yesterday by a shell and it got all inside my riding breeches, annoying me very much.

The great comfort is having the sea so handy; by means of the communication trench we can go from the guns to the edge of a cliff and so down to the great and wide sea also without showing ourselves on the sky-line.”

 

May 27th 1915

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Attempts to break through at Gallipoli continue, where Pat Duff is currently with the RFA. Part of his job is to join the infantry in their trenches to identify suitable targets for the artillery. This, strangely, includes the Turks’ tea-time.

22/5/15. “I was in the observing station yesterday evening with G. We peered through our glasses for ages and could see nothing, until at last little puffs of smoke came out of one of the Turkish trenches, signifying that the Ottoman was making his tea.

This was more than we could stand, so we telephoned down to the Battery, ‘Action,’ and gave various angles and elevations with the result that the Turkish trench was heavily shelled, causing, as we hoped, AAD (which being interpreted means ‘Alarm And Despondency.’)

It is rumoured that the above condition prevails in the English Press regarding this expedition; not surprised.”

May 18th 1915

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Pat Duff (another of our 1911 Oxford Hockey Blues – see May 4th picture) is now a 2nd Lieutenant in the RFA with our forces in Gallipoli. He has some amusing stories to tell about our French allies.

9/5/15 “There have been some strenuous night attacks, and stray people dashing into one’s lines at night give alarming views of what is going on. The Frenchman gets rattled at times. One dashed into my lines two nights ago (being nearly shot by my guard).

I shouted ‘Francais, venez ici.’ He was a little man with a huge rifle and bayonet, and looked as if he were supporting a lamp-post. I asked what was happening, and where were his comrades.

He gesticulated and danced about saying ‘on crie, sauve qui peut. Rien ne va plus; les Turcs do this, that, and the other and I am a most miserable soldier.’

So I replied, ‘Courage, comrade; revanche, Marseillaise, Paris attaque, grande attaque.’

Upon which he took heart and returned whence he came, leaving me, however, a bit disconcerted, as that was the only news of the situation I had, and the shrapnel was very frequent and rifle fire seemed to be getting nearer. However, Frenchmen always get hold of the wrong end of the stick, so I decided to wait for confirmation, which of course didn’t come…

Great fun talking to the French tommies, and hearing how as the Corporal was about to bayonet a Turk, another Turk was just about to knife the Corporal when Alphonse and Pierre appeared behind the last-named Turk. As they go to kill him, a sniper appears in the rear.

‘But I am here, and tire mon fusil and lui make brûler la tête, which flees into two piece’ – whereat he waves his arms like a windmill.

15/5/15. There was rather fun the other day, though I didn’t see it. A hare got up and all the English, of course, leapt to their feet with fearful yells. Presently a French General came to complain of this behaviour: ‘à la guerre, comme à la guerre, et à la chasse come à la chasse!’  He explained that his enfants think it is the Turks who arrive when they hear the row. 

I must honestly say that I think this is going to be a long affair, but I hope to return some day.”

May 4th 1915

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A number of Old Dragons are involved in the battle that has been going on in the Ypres area since April 22nd. Donald Innes enlisted immediately at the start of the war as a despatch rider in the Motor Cycle Corps:

Donald Innes

Sgt. D. Innes

May 1st 1915. “On one of my rides I came across Treffry Thompson OD at Hazebrouk; he seemed very fit. Since Ypres is at present the centre of interest, perhaps a short account of it would not be amiss… 

One’s first view of the Cathedral reminds one of Magdalen tower; and the cloisters attached are very like those there also. The town has been smashed up more or less in zones, just short of and just beyond the Cathedral: where the shells fell short or overshot it. I was there the night before the attack on Hill 60, and then the Cloth Hall did not seem so very badly damaged, but of course I don’t know what this other bombardment has done.

The inhabitants seem to take things very philosophically, and one got a limited but quite excellent dinner there in a more or less patched up café. Where the shops are absolutely smashed, the owners sell their goods in the street outside.

With regard to the actual fighting, one sees very little of it and it is just a matter of chance if one happens to be there at the time, the trenches acting as a kind of touch-line inside which we play; so I will leave the description of that to ODs who are in the thick of it. 

I saw a little of Neuve Chapelle, and for an infantry man a modern attack can only be described as ‘Hell let loose.’ I thanked God I was a Despatch Rider. Our troubles are rather neatly put by one of the D.Rs in what he called the D.R’s prayer:-

From holes, shells, and motor ‘bus

Good Lord deliver us.”

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Donald Innes was one of the five Old Dragons to win Oxford hockey blues in 1911. All five of them are now in the Army.

1911 Hockey Blues

Standing: Donald Innes (Sgt. Motor Cycle Corps) and Patrick Duff (2nd Lieut. RFA in Gallipoli)

Sitting: John Brooks (2nd Lieut. Indian Army), Sholto Marcon (2nd Lieut. OBLI), Ronnie Poulton (Lieut. Royal Berks).

 

April 30th 1915

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We have further news from Ronnie Poulton. No sooner are troops out of the trenches than they are put to hard work. It does seem right to call it “Rest.”

Saturday 24th April. “We came out after four days in last night, and immediately went off digging, after ¼ hour’s RWPP profilerest.

The whole thing as a war is an absolute farce. This is honest fact. We went up to part of the line near here, which has a gap of 200 yards in it. Here Territorial Engineers are building a magnificent breastwork and parados and Territorials supply working parties. The joke is we are 120 yards from the German trench and about 80 from the German working parties. And we make a hell of a row, laugh, talk, light pipes etc and sing and nobody fires a shot, except one old sniper who seems to fire high on purpose; and yet when the flares go up, we stand stock-still so as not to be seen!!”

The period of so-called rest being over, Ronnie Poulton returned to do another spell in the trenches on April 27th, but he was only there for a day before going back into reserve for three days.

Having told us that snipers were not a thing to worry about at night, I cannot help but feel they should not be underestimated. Snipers are an ever present threat, clearly:

Thursday 29th April. “It is quite absurd to see the quite immovable landscape, with no movement of any kind on it and yet to hear the most accurate shots on our parapet, shots which have killed two men dead in the last two days, who foolishly put their heads up carelessly in a low part of the parapet to look back. Don’t worry about me in this respect.”

This is easier said than done. Parents, family, schoolmasters on the touch line of any rugger match – we  are always more nervous than the players, who are wrapped up in the game.

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Readers of the Times yesterday will have seen the letter written by our neighbour Dr. JS Haldane to Lord Kitchener, in which he confirms that the gas used by the Germans on our troops at Ypres last week was almost certainly chlorine or bromine.

Having witnessed a post mortem at a Casualty Clearing Station at the Front, he has returned with one of the man’s lungs for further examination in his laboratory at his home, ‘Cherwell.’ He is now involved in experiments to find an effective respirator for the troops. Apparently, so his daughter Naomi tells us, the ideas given in the press for various home-made appliances are totally ineffective.

As for Dr Haldane’s son Jack, who was the first of my boys to win the top scholarship to Eton, he is now Lieut. JBS Haldane of the Black Watch, improvising bombs to lob into enemy lines, so I am told.