New College

October 11th 1916

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AG Clarke

Lieut. Geoff Clarke (Rifle Brigade) was killed on the first day of the battle on the Somme. Further to what we were able to post at the time, a Sergeant P. Blunt has most kindly written to the family with further details:

28/9/16 “Well, as you know, on July 1st our Battalion was told off to attack a certain  part of the German line.

Lieut. Clarke, who was then our Battalion Bombing Officer, had rather a tough job and it was while going over towards the 3rd German line that I came across him. He was then slightly wounded, but refused all assistance and would insist on keeping going. He was again wounded, rather badly this time, but still refused all help and insisted on us to get along.

That was the last I ever saw of him; he was then lying in a trench hole. During the fighting and excitement that followed, I lost touch with him, but was told by a man who has since been killed that he saw a shell pitch into the hole that Lieut. Clarke lay in and he saw a body blown into the air.

When we returned from the third line, I went and looked for him, but could not see him anywhere…”

This is most painful reading for all those of us who knew him so well.

 

September 14th 1916

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Yesterday Oxford was honoured by a visit from His Majesty the King.

Having driven up from Windsor, the King proceeded to the Parks where he inspected a battalion of Cadets.  Captain Jack Haldane (Black Watch) also got in on the act, as he was at the time giving bombing instruction there. (Such is his fascination with bombs that in certain military circles he is known as ‘Bombo.’)

After departing the Parks, the King went on to the High St. to visit the 3rd Southern General Hospital and the RFC School of Instruction.

* * * * * * *

With Port Meadow becoming a military aerodrome for the training of pilots, maybe we can look forward to seeing some more of our Old Dragon aviators in the future.

Lieut. Geoff Buck (London Regiment and now RFC), who wired us back in July to say that he had returned home to train as a RFC pilot, has been keeping a record of his training (at Retford):

Buck, Geoff2/8/16. “We fly from 5-8 a.m., work in workshops and fly if possible 9.00 a.m – 12.30 p.m., and fly from 5.00 p.m. to dark. They give us three to four hours’ dual, and then we do about eight hours’ solo (including one cross-country). , and then (i.e after about a month, it depends on weather and machine) we go off to another station for higher instruction. Personally I have only had one flight of 35 minutes in a B.E. – but all in good time. Altogether it’s topping fun, but there is a lot of waiting about.”

5/8/16. “This is absolutely the life. I have done one hour’s dual control and can fly the bus by myself, but have never been up alone yet; they won’t send us up alone till we have done three hours dual. I simply love it! Better than skating, rugger, or even ski-ing. I want to be in the air the whole day long, but of course we have to do a lot of technical work too. Engines, motors, signalling, construction, theory, photography – and all is most interesting.”

16/8/16. “I did my first solo tonight in rather bad weather, made a perfect landing, and went to 700 ft. It was too perfect for words.”

On August 23rd Geoff moved to Narborough for further instruction.

23/8/16. I took my ticket thumbs up on the 19th. I flew to Norwich on Sunday, stopped the night, and flew back on Monday. Two machines crashed under me as I was starting to land (it was awfully windy and bumpy), and one pilot was killed, but I landed perfectly. Some game.”

We look forward to hearing more of Geoff’s exploits.

August 13th 1916

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Edmund GayCaptain Edmund Gay (Norfolk Regiment) was declared missing a year ago.

The Daily Telegraph reported about ten days ago that our Government understands that there are only nineteen officers and 359 other ranks known still to be in Turkish hands as Prisoners of War.

With regards the 290 officers (amongst whom Edmund is numbered) and 9,700 other ranks still missing, they feel that there are no longer any grounds for hoping they might be prisoners,

“and therefore it was consequently decided that the missing officers and men not accounted for must be officially accepted as dead. Effect is being given to this decision after due consideration of the circumstances of each individual case.”

There has still been no official confirmation of his death given to the family however, and until such time we will continue to list him as “missing.”

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Benham, FrankCaptain Frank Benham (RFA) was wounded by a German shell hitting his dug-out on August 5th. At the time he was in charge of a battery at Mametz Wood on the Somme.

On August 8th he was strong enough to be able to write to inform his wife of his situation and the matron on his ward has also written to say she hopes he will be strong enough to return to England shortly.

 

July 18th 1916

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Lt Robert Gibson

Lieut. Robert Gibson (South Staffs Regiment attached to 2nd Bedfords)

The letter dear Robert wrote to us at the end of June warned us that the ‘Big Push’ was imminent and that he was going to be part of it.

It was clear from all he wrote that he understood that, not withstanding all the planning and practising for the ‘Push,’  much of what happens in battle is a matter of chance:

“It lies in the lap of the gods.”

He has become the fourth Old Boy to have been killed in the last two weeks.

Lieut. Col. HS Poyntz, the commanding officer of the Bedfordshires, has kindly written to the family with his condolences and to give an account of the attack in which Robert was killed:

“On July 11th at 3.27 a.m. we were ordered to attack Trones Wood where very heavy fighting has been going on. It had been taken by us and re-taken by the Germans, so we were ordered to re-take it again.”

A fellow officer, 2nd Lieut. Primrose-Wells, was close by when Robert and his platoon attacked a position that, as the gods would have it, had not been destroyed by our bombardment:

“We estimate that there were 300 Huns in the wood when we attacked. Your son was on my left and he and his platoon were to enter the wood a little way up on the west side. The Germans had a trench all down the west side of the wood, which we did not know about and just where your son wanted to enter was one of their strong points.

He and his platoon opened fire and he fired several shots himself with his revolver, but the Huns had the advantage from the trenches, besides being excellent shots. Your son was shot and died instantaneously, not making a sound.

I had to advance over the same ground and tried twice to get his body in, but lost men both times, so we left it until we could finally get the whole wood. We were relieved after 48 hours of very hard fighting – hand-to-hand – and very nerve-wracking.

Two days after, when the wood was finally taken by the British, I asked the Colonel if I might go up again and get your son’s body and bury it, but he refused to let me go and our Chaplain with four volunteers went up and found the body and buried him in Maricourt Cemetery.” 

 

Robert had a very successful school career, winning scholarships to Winchester and New College Oxford. A teacher who knew him at Winchester said that, during an experience lasting over twenty years, he had never come into contact with a mind so naturally gifted for classical scholarship as Robert Gibson’s.

The following tribute has been written by a great friend of his, both at the OPS and afterwards at Winchester.

“… When he came to Oxford, he looked round for some kind of service into which he might throw himself, and so discover something about a stratum of society widely separated from that which he knew. This he found in the boys’ club which had lately been started by New College in St. Ebbe’s; and if he was anything like as successful in winning the confidence of his men as he was with these boys, he must have been one of the most popular officers that ever entered the army.”

His Headmaster at Winchester has written a capital letter to Robert’s father:

“Your one consolation will be that he takes a very white soul to the other world, that he lived a keen, joyous, wholesome, and honourable life, very free from any sort of stain.” 

No tribute could be higher, and it comes from one who loved him, and knew him through and through.

 

 

July 11th 1916

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AG Clarke

2nd Lieut. Geoffrey Clarke (Rifle Brigade)

It is with particular sadness that I have to give you the news of the death of Geoff Clarke. His brother, Capt. “Bim” Clarke (10th Gurkhas) received the telegram on July 7th and the notice of Geoff’s death is in the Times this morning.

Geoff, who was first thought to have been killed on July 2nd, was in fact a casualty of the initial attacks on July 1st. The Redan Ridge, north of Beaumont Hamel, was the objective of the 4th Division, which included Geoff Clarke’s Rifle Brigade. Although it must have been hoped that the bombardment of which we have read in the newspapers had obliterated the German defences, this does not appear to have been the case in this instance. When their time came to advance, The Rifle Brigade was repulsed with heavy losses.

Geoff was one of the few to reach the second line of German trenches, though twice wounded on the way. A fellow officer has kindly written to the family to explain the circumstances of his death:

“He led his bombers well on to his objective under a heavy fire before he fell, wounded, into a shell hole. One of our bombers dressed his wounds and Geoffrey continued to throw bombs into the enemy trench till he was killed by a Boche bomb.”

Geoff was the son of my predecessor, Rev AE Clarke, the first headmaster of the OPS. Geoff was only aged 3 when his father died and I have known him all his life. He boarded at the OPS, in the house run by his mother. He won scholarships to Winchester and then New College, Oxford.

He spent five years as an assistant master at the Royal Naval College at Osborne and then two years in Bethnal Green, helping to found Boys’ Clubs and studying the social and economic conditions. ‘A Text Book of National Economy’ resulted, for use in schools.

In 1914 he had attempted to enlist, but was rejected on medical grounds. He therefore undertook a course of physical training, first for Home Service and shortly after for General Service in the Royal Fusiliers (Public School Brigade). He obtained promotion to non-commission rank, and later received a commission in the Special Reserve 5th Rifle Brigade.

The last time I saw Geoff was at Tonbridge in 1915. He ‘spotted’ me in the Ford, and we had a pleasant lunch together and a long talk about old times and about the war.

 

July 1st 1916

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Lieut. Robert Gibson (2nd Bedfordshire Regiment) is one of a large number of Old Boys to have visited us this term and we are delighted to receive news from him now. (I wondered where my pencil had gone…)

Lt Robert Gibson29/6/16. “It is many weeks ago since I pinched the Skipper’s pencil to write you this letter in the train from Oxford to Paddington. Unfortunately 7 more candidates for the 6 seats got on at Didcot, and writing became impossible. Perhaps it is for the best, as you would hardly be interested in a description of the ‘Reading flower-beds’ or ‘Trafalgar Square on a wet Friday in war time.’

Leave was a very pleasant interlude and preparation for future efforts; for this front is a very noisy one these days and I think the staff fondly hopes it is to become a mobile one. The gunners are having gala days, and the sins of the batteries are visited on the men in the line by the discriminating Teuton.

The men, however, are quite willing to put up with occasional retaliation, provided they can spend most of the day lounging over the parapet watching Fritz’s hearth and home going up in a cloud of smoke and barbed wire. It was not often they have had the opportunity of watching such a drama from the orchestra stalls, and I think they mean to do a lot of stage-work before long.

Raids have been the order of the day for the last six months, with the object of wearing out the enemy and keeping him awake; our regiment did one a short time ago with complete success; all they need is very careful thinking out, no detail should be left to the imagination.

For instance with regard to place, tell a party to get into German trenches between such and such a place clearly marked on the map, show them the place in the actual trenches, and even so they will lose their way in No Man’s Land on the night of the event. If you want to guarantee success you must dig the German trenches involved (by aeroplane photo) on some ground behind, and practise them by night for several days before, and it is the same with all the other details of the raid.

Our fellows knew their job and did it very well. All of which pleases the Staff, annoys the enemy, and keeps Tommy’s tail up. We have got bigger fish to fry now; and I think from the spirit of our own men and the French on our right, that something will be done.

Still, when we have done our best and the Boche his worst, you come back to the old saying of men who fought with their hands at close quarters, not in lead and steel at 1000 yards and more:

Greek

(Ask someone in VIa to correct accents before publication; my Greek alas is slipping from me. I hope the war will be over before I forget the lot).

Best love and luck to all Dragons, militant and expectant.”

 

In case your Greek is also a little rusty, the snippet above translates as:

‘It lies in the lap of the Gods.’

Indeed it does.

 

(The reports in today’s edition of the Daily Telegraph (pages 9 & 10) leads one to think that the big “Push” is imminent).

 

March 29th 1916

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Lieut. Jack Haldane (Black Watch) has recovered from the wounds he suffered last May and since August has been training soldiers in the use of hand and rifle grenades. It is not surprising to learn that some of his methods have been, shall we say, unorthodox.

JBS Haldane“Among the things which we occasionally did as demonstrations was to catch lighted bombs and throw them back, or more accurately, sideways, out of the trench.

I had a one-eyed and rarely quite sober corporal who used to do this, but I sometimes did it myself. I admit that we used to lengthen the time fuse beforehand. Provided you are a good judge of time, it is no more dangerous than crossing the road among motor traffic, but it is more impressive to onlookers.

Some idiot asked questions about it in Parliament and got an army order issued forbidding the practice.”

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In the next edition of the Draconian we will be publishing this poem, which Jack has kindly sent us for publication:

An Intense Bombardment.
The earth is burning; through her smoke there looms
The wreckage of the immemorial years;
The fruit of all that labour, all those tears
Now in an hour collapses and consumes.
Those monstrous masses of black oily fumes
Are so much vaster than the men, whose cheers
In this apocalyptic din none hears,
They seem like angels who fulfil God's dooms.
The breastwork there, that with its long brown wave
Threatened the cities that we die to save
Boils as a cauldron, its defenders hurled
To darkness and confusion and the grave,
And overhead great black clouds densely curled
Hide from the sea the anguish of the world.
                               "Safety-catch."

 Jack was nick-named “Safety-catch” by his men, as he was always saying “Remember your safety-catch” when with the Black Watch in the trenches last year.

 

January 19th 1916

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On January 6th, the London Gazette published Sir Ian Hamilton’s final despatch as Commander in Chief of the Gallipoli expedition before he was replaced by Lieut. General Sir Charles Munro, who in consultation with Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, agreed to the evacuation.

In this report he refers to the 1/5th Norfolks and the events of August 12th 1915:

“… In the course of the fight, creditable in all respects to the 163rd Brigade, there happened a very mysterious thing. The 1/5th Norfolks were on the right of the line and found themselves for a moment less strongly opposed than the rest of the Brigade. Against the yielding forces of the enemy Colonel Sir H Beauchamp, a bold, self-confident officer, eagerly pressed forward, followed by the best part of the Battalion.

The fighting grew hotter and the ground became more wooded and broken. At this stage many men were wounded or grew exhausted with thirst. These found their way back to camp during the night. But the Colonel with 10 officers and 250 men kept pushing on, driving the enemy before him.

Amongst these ardent souls was part of a fine company enlisted from the King’s Sandringham estates. Nothing more was ever seen or heard of any of them. They charged into the forest and were lost to sight and sound. Not one of them ever came back.”                                            

Captain Edmund Gay (Norfolk Regiment) was one of this ‘Lost Legion.’ 

Edmund Gay

Capt. Edmund Gay

Private information has supplied the fact that Edmund was last seen getting over a fence or wall into a farm with a sergeant and another man. The man who last saw him was wounded and lay all night beside the body of another 1/5th Norfolk soldier and managed to crawl into our lines next day.

Until we hear anything certain, however, we must continue to hope that he is in captivity and did not perish in that attack.

The final evacuation of our troops from Gallipoli was completed with the withdrawal from Cape Helles on January 9th. During the campaign, of the 20 old boys of OPS and one member of our staff who served, we know of three who have been killed and two wounded.

It now seems highly likely that all the other Old Dragons are safely off the peninsula, as we understand from the Illustrated London News – hopefully correctly – that the operation was completed with astonishingly few casualties.

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.

November 29th 1915

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Capt. Jack Denniston (King’s Own Scottish Borderers) reports that a letter from fellow Old Dragon, Naomi Haldane (Lord Haldane’s niece), was of no help in getting him out of a spot of bother!

J Denniston

Capt. J Denniston

“You will be shocked to hear that I was arrested as a spy last night. It was great fun. I had to take a working party of 150 men up to the trenches to work. They were divided into three sections. I went with one section myself and left the other two to the sergeants. After settling up my own section and visiting one of the other two, I went to look for the third.

They were working in a rather obscure and unimportant little trench and I wondered about for some time, unable to find them. After wandering about a bit, I wondered into a keep. The sentry challenged me. I answered him and he said he didn’t know my name and seemed embarrassed. So to console him, I suggested that he should arrest me and take me to the officer commanding the keep. He said there was no officer but a corporal in charge. The corporal emerged from the dug-out and I abused him for being (apparently) asleep.

The sentry began timidly, ‘Corporal, this gentleman…’

‘Here, none of that!’ I interrupted. ‘You’ve got to tell him that you consider me a suspicious character and have therefore arrested me.’

He obeyed, rather coyly, and I then explained my position to the corporal, who seemed quite satisfied and let me go, without, however, being able to direct me to my destination.

Wondering on, I met a Scottish officer with another working party. I asked him to direct me, but he couldn’t. Then I said, ‘What’s the number of this trench?’

He then said he must detain me until I could prove my identity. I assented cordially…

‘Let’s see,’ I said. ‘I wonder if I have any letters on me, or anything which would convince you.’ I felt in my pockets, but could find nothing but the inside of a letter from Naomi Haldane.

‘I have a letter,’ said I, ‘from a friend of mine, but as she is the niece of the notorious Germanophile, Lord Haldane, I suppose it only makes things worse. He took this quite seriously and agreed that the letter was not satisfactory… He said he was sorry to detain me, but two German officers had been caught recently, wearing British uniform and that he had to be careful.”

Eventually Jack was recognised by one of the men in the machine-gun section of his company and all was well.