HZG First World War Bulletin, Number 5 - January 1915

Stanley Benskin Henson, another King's Bruton old boy

2/Lt. Stanley Henson, Somerset Light Infantry. Killed in action at Ploegsteert Wood, 19 Dec 1914

Stanley Henson was born on 20th June 1886 in Norwood, London, the eldest son of William John Henson, physician. He attended King’s School, Bruton, and later Pembroke College. Stanley Benskin Henson was an officer of the Special Reserve, originally from Wedmore in Somerset. This young subaltern had returned at his own expense from Penang Island, where he was employed as an officer in the Straits Settlement Police, to rejoin his regiment and was placed in command of a platoon in B Company.

In December 1914, the battalion was in Belgium holding the line in the infamous Ploegsteert Wood. The 1st Somerset Light Infantry’s Commanding Officer was informed on 12th December that his battalion would attack enemy troops who had occupied a small salient dubbed the ‘The Birdcage’ in the former British frontline trenches lying at the eastern end of Ploegsteert Wood, between the villages of Le Gheer and St. Yves. This attack was intended to occupy German attention and prevent enemy reserves being moved to oppose a French offensive further south.

The morning of 19th December dawned bright and clear and at 9.00am British 4.5” and 6” howitzers began bombarding ‘The Birdcage,’ although most shells fell short of the target. The assault troops were in position by 1.00pm with B Company lining the trench on the eastern edge of Ploegsteert Wood and C to its immediate rear.  The two leading platoons of B Company, led by 2nd Lt. Stanley Henson and 2nd Lt. Kenneth Dennys, began the assault promptly at 2.30pm, dashing forwards from the edge of the wood towards the German trenches 120 yards away, heavily encumbered with wire ‘mattresses’ and wire cutters.

 Although a direct bombardment by supporting mountain artillery and machine guns the half hour before had destroyed the heavily defended position at ‘German House’ it had failed to cut the wire in front of the enemy trenches. The unshaken German defenders immediately opened fire with machine guns and rifles and enemy artillery shells began falling in No-Man’s-Land. To add to the noise and confusion four 4.5” British shells fell short amongst the attacking troops after they had covered 40-50 yards causing heavy losses.

The heavy going through the deep clinging mud in No-Man’s-Land, pocked with deep water-filled shell-holes, made progress slow. Before reaching the German wire, Henson fell victim to a machine gun or rifle bullet.  As his CO later informed his grieving parents:

“As to the manner of your son’s death, I can only tell you he died a very brave man. He was leading his men in the attack on the German trenches, and had outstripped the rest of his company by about twenty yards, when he was shot through the heart and killed instantly. Those of his company who were fortunate to come out of the action alive speak in the highest terms of your son’s courage. He was a great loss to the Regiment.”

Under heavy fire the 1st Somerset Light Infantry’s attack stalled half-way across No-Man’s Land, despite gallant efforts by its officers to keep up the forward momentum. Since the ground was too wet to dig-in the survivors of the attack withdrew overnight to the former trenches in Ploegsteert Wood.

The abortive attack on ‘The Birdcage’ had cost the 1st Somerset Light Infantry dear, with five officers dead and one wounded and taken prisoner. 27 Other Ranks were killed in action, 52 wounded and 30 reported missing. Its only positive result was that the Germans had been driven completely out of the Ploegsteert Wood.

Henson’s body was recovered by the German troops from No-man’s-Land during the unofficial Christmas Day truce and returned to his regiment. Later that day he was laid to rest in what is now Ploegsteert Wood Military Cemetery.   

 

Some text reproduced from an article by TR Moreman

Eric Barnes, King’s Old Boy

Eric Barnes

Eric Barnes entered King's Bruton School in January, 1904, and left in July, 1912. He was a House Prefect, and a member of the cricket, football, and hockey elevens. After passing through Sandhurst he was gazetted as Second Lieutenant to the 1st Lincolnshire Regiment on February 1st 1914.
There are some boys who possess a certain indefinable charm which makes them general favourites. Barnes was one of these. One of the traits that made him such an attractive character was his cheerfulness; he was a born optimist, and genuine optimism is infectious. Another was the frankness so clearly expressed in all his features. A third was the keenness he displayed in everything he took up. He may not have achieved any great distinction either intellectually or in athletics, but he was an admirable specimen of the best type of all-round usefulness.
The fact that he enjoyed life immensely heightens the tragedy of his early death. Lt.-Col. Smith, his commanding officer, wrote:

‘He fell whilst gallantly leading his Company in the attack on a village (called Wytschaete), which the regiment had been ordered to take. He was struck by a bullet and never moved again. He died as he had lived, upholding the best traditions of the Regiment he loved so well, and his loss is deeply deplored by us all.’

Lt. H. Ingoldby, a brother officer, wrote:

‘It was a terrible battle when we came in contact with the enemy in pitch darkness. Eric was just near me in the advance, and when I got up to take a few men forward in a rush, he was the next to come, but, as I heard, immediately he stood up from the ditch we were lying in to lead his men forward under very heavy fire, he was shot straight through the head and, I believe, died immediately. I was so fond of him, and never have I known such a plucky little fellow – always eager and active in the firing line, regardless of shell or bullet.’

He is remembered on the Menin Gate Memorial at Ypres.

First of many

Harold Edwin Hippisley Killed in Action, 23/10/1914

Harold Hippisley

 Killed in action: Second Lieutenant Harold Hippisley, aged 24, a former pupil at King’s Bruton.

Recently Married

A School Prefect in his last year at King’s, on leaving school, he entered the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. He then spent time in land-agency work. He was about to secure a post under the Board of Agriculture when the War broke out. He obtained a commission as a Second Lieutenant with the 1st Battalion Gloucestershire Regiment. He went to France in August, 1914, and fought almost continuously from then until he was killed in defence of Langemarck. A particular sadness is lent to his death by the fact that his marriage took place on the very day of his leaving to join his regiment. 

Eyewitness Account

Hippisley was in charge of a platoon of A Company of the 1st Gloucesters, which was blocking the Langemarck-Koekuit road. The young lieutenant and his men gunned down hundreds of Germans – they could hardly miss – but still they kept on coming.  Private Barton, one of the few survivors of the day, takes up the story:  “About this time (10.30 a.m.), Lieutenant Hippisley, the platoon commander, was hit. The bullet struck the middle of the forehead. He was attended by his servant, Private Brown, who was under the impression that if he kept the brain from oozing out of the hole he would be all right. After a time he was convinced that the wound was fatal and that his master had no chance. He then divided his time between the parapet, where he would fire a few rounds, and then return to Lieutenant Hippisley.  Between his concern for his master and his desire for revenge on the Germans, he seemed to have gone crazy.”   His commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Lovett, writes:  “Hippisley’s company was occupying a trench which was heavily attacked by hostile infantry. There was a severe rifle fire by which his platoon lost sixty percent in killed and wounded. By the steadiness of the men at this point, due to the confidence in their officer, the situation was maintained. Had the enemy in their great numbers penetrated at this point, the result would have been most disastrous. I need hardly say how popular he was amongst everyone, and how deeply we deplore his loss.”  2nd Lieutenant Baxter describes how the left flank was exposed:  “The Germans enfiladed our trenches. The casualties began in real earnest. Harold doing his duty nobly was shot in the head. He died like a soldier and a gallant Englishman. The Gloucester Regiment are proud of him and I am proud to say he was my friend.”

Keen and Gifted Sportsman

Hippisley was an outstanding sportsman and leader; he captained the three major teams – Football, Hockey and Cricket – for an unprecedented three years, and he won the Ridley Cup three times. He had the rare distinction of playing cricket for Somerset when he was still 18, a few weeks after he left School. He also continued with his Hockey, playing for Somerset, as well as for the West of England in two international trial matches in the spring of 1914. He was a regular visitor at King’s between 1909 and 1914, playing for the Old Brutonians as well as in invitational teams in football, hockey and cricket. In his last cricket game at Bruton, in May, 1914, he scored 99 to ensure victory for the Bruton Nomads over the School. Intellectually he was not especially gifted by nature, but by honest and conscientious perseverance he achieved results which brought credit alike to himself and to his School. In athletics he was eminently naturally endowed, but here again it was not the success – which seemed to come so easily to him – that appealed most forcibly to those who watched his performances, so much as the spirit in which that success was won.

All That is Best in Public School Life

Essentially a trier, he never knew what it was to be beaten and was never satisfied with anything short of his best. The peculiar charm of his personality will be readily recalled by all who knew him here: modest and unassuming, healthy in mind as in body, cheery and equable in temper. He stood for all that is best in public school life, and has left behind him a host of friends to whom his memory will always be a treasured recollection. It is sad indeed to think of his life being cut short on the very threshold of so promising a career, and it is sadder still to think of the domestic happiness which we had all anticipated for him, coming to so untimely an end.

Dental hygienist

I went for a check-up the other day. I was lying back in the chair, enjoying the relaxed atmosphere you always get when anticipating discomfort and pain, and after my teeth had been examined, the dentist took it upon himself to give me a lecture on how to look after my teeth better. I let it wash over me like pink mouthwash. But then I had to see the hygienist. She (they always seem to be women – why is that?) had a poke around, and then asked how many cigarettes I smoked each day. Through a mouthful of her latex-covered fingers, I announced that not only did I never inhale, I also never lit-up; I have never smoked. A momentary silence.

‘Alcohol units per week?’ she enquired, in what sounded like an accusation. Now, I already think that the introduction of alcohol units as a way of measuring your consumption is a government-sponsored way of taking all the fun out of one of the few pleasures left in life. Every time I open my mouth to take another sip of the smoky heaven that is Laphroaig, I think of the health secretary and it spoils my evening. ‘You do drink?’ she said. I mumbled something about 21, knowing that’s below the recommended daily allowance. ‘Mmmmm,’ she replied. Another, longer, silence.

‘A coffee drinker, then?’ she enquired. I nodded, and mentioned espresso. Although I could only see her eyes, and only dimly through both my safety goggles and hers, I could see she was pleased to have discovered my dirty, little, teeth-staining secret. Would she reach for the intercom to announce my filthy addiction to her colleagues and the other orally-disgusting customers sitting in the waiting room? Or perhaps she would wait until she and her co-workers were down at the spa, sipping mineral water, and she would shock them ‘..and then he told me he drank coffee...espresso!’, and some of the younger listeners might actually faint with horror.

‘Coffee, eh? I thought so,’ she smiled. I could only imagine she was smiling because, of course, my mouth was so foul that she was wearing protective sheeting around her lower face. She picked up a probe from her toolbox, and as she began I arched my back so that only my heels and the crown of my head touched the chair. Some time later, with the enamel gouged from my teeth, I lowered my buttocks back onto her recliner, and she began a lecture about the benefits of flossing, demonstrating on a little dental model. With the aid of a mirror held to my face by her able assistant, I was encouraged to practise on myself. She then informed me that I was to return in a few weeks so she could see how I had been getting along with my new dental-hygiene regimen.

What if everyone behaved like dentists? Imagine if you went to buy a new pair of trousers and after being made to stand awkwardly whilst you and your current trousers were minutely examined, you would then receive a lecture on how to wear the new trousers correctly; on how to avoid unpleasant places to sit; on how, because of your disgusting lifestyle, your trousers were prone to damage from revolting stains, and that you should therefore change your lifestyle to ensure trouser-longevity. And if you happened to look above your head during this extensive lecture, you would be faced with a large, grinning, pink elephant with immaculate trousers holding a lint removal roller in his trunk. Finally, you would then be asked to pop back into the store in a few weeks to check that you were adhering to these sartorial guidelines.

Having got through the dental ordeal, I went straight to the café and ordered a large espresso.

Windows 10

Windows 10 Preview on Lenovo Miix 2 8

OK, so to be honest, I cannot see any significant differences so far. But then, my device is touch, and I would have expected the touch experience to remain the same.

Note: I installed the 32 bit version of the preview on my tablet because I have a 32 bit version of Windows 8.1 on it now.

But there are some differences. The Modern UI version of Internet Explorer seems to have gone walkabout. I’m sure it will turn up, and I certainly hope so, because the Desktop version is difficult to use with fingers – even fingers as svelte as my own.

Windows Technical Preview Build 9841

The installation, in my case an upgrade retaining apps and settings, was easy. I just launched setup from the ISO. But, it failed numerous times, and I’m guessing it was lack of free disk space. Having cleared some clutter, it proceeded normally. Cannot give you any figures for free space required, and I could be wrong anyway. I failed to install with 4 GB free, and succeeded at 7.5 GB.
I have also installed the OS into a virtual machine which is running within Hyper-V on a 64 bit Windows 8.1 Enterprise client. I will report back on this as I discover more.

Summary. Not much to tell as yet.

One device

 

First of many - a Psion Organiser, circa 1988

I’ve been conducting an experiment recently. I’ve been trying to determine if a single device can address all, or even most, of my day-to-day computing needs.

A bit of background. Over the years, I have been searching for the elusive perfect device. The one that you can work on, use to play games, and still fits in a pocket. I started this search before the Internet existed, and before mobile phones were portable. As new devices came along, I tossed out the old and bought the new. But in truth, it’s only in the last year or so when that elusive device has finally come within my grasp. And yet, has it?

The Next Generation Psion, somewhere in the early nineties.

My study has focused on two devices: a large mobile phone (6 inch display) and a small tablet (8 inch display). They both run a variant of the Windows operating system. Specifically:

• Nokia Lumia 1520 with Windows Phone 8.1
• Lenovo Miix 2 8 with 32 bit Windows 8.1

Now, I am using both of these as consumer devices. I ‘consume’ content, such as webpages, Twitter, videos, games and so on. I haven’t really tried to do much serious work on either of them. In fact, I am typing this report sitting in front of my extremely large and powerful Windows 8.1 laptop (Core i7 and lots of memory and an enormous display).
Here are my thoughts.

The Nokia 1520 with Windows Phone 8.1

Nokia Lumia 1520

The Nokia is not my mobile phone, although I have just stuck a Nano SIM in it. I use an old Sony Ericsson Xperia Ray running an old version of Android for that because it’s small and light and fits in a pocket and I can take it anywhere. So, the Nokia is a secondary device.

When I opened the box, I loved it. It’s sleek, and smooth (is that the same as sleek?), and has a wonderful display (1920 by 1080 – although I cannot see the text on webpages without glasses). Windows Phone synced my apps and settings with my other devices as soon as I signed in with my Microsoft account (one benefit of operating devices within the same ecosystem).

And then I started using it as my only consumption device. I put away the tablet and just used this. And it’s pretty good. The web browser works reasonably well, although it’s not quite as slick as IE on the tablet.

I was able to configure email, Skype, Twitter and the rest with relative ease, and for a week, I seriously considered selling the tablet on eBay.

But then a couple of things I didn’t like.

First, Skype on Windows Phone does not support SMS texting. Now, you’ll say ‘but it’s a phone, use the SMS feature of your telecom provider. And I agree, but I have always used Skype for SMS, and I want to carry on. So, this is irritating. It’s not the phone’s fault, nor even the operating system’s. It’s the version of the app that Microsoft provide. I guess I can live without it now I do have a SIM installed.

Second, and this is a big deal, the Bluetooth on the handset doesn’t support a keyboard profile. I hear you saying ‘what on earth would you want to add a keyboard to a mobile phone for?’ And I would remind you we’re searching for the one device you can stick in your day bag and do everything on, so adding a keyboard is an issue, potentially, at least. Without a keyboard, I cannot work. I don’t know my touch type rate, but its pretty fast on a proper keyboard, even the small (but perfectly formed) Microsoft Wedge I have. I am, after all, a writer.

Thirdly, there is not much inking support in the operating system. With the tablet, I can choose to use handwriting recognition as an alternative to the (crappy) onscreen keyboard. Not here. It’s the keyboard, onscreen only, or nothing.

Fourthly, and another killer. The micro USB port used for charging does not appear to support my OTG cable with the consequence that I cannot add memory sticks to the mix when I want to copy files or even to play media from an old memory stick. That’s irritating. It means I must plug the phone into my laptop and drag files across from that. I can live with that process, but someday, I’ll be out of the office, and someone will offer me a file on a memory stick and …. well, you get the idea.
Minor gripes include the fact that I cannot use Outlook for my email and contacts etc. I must use the Mail, Calendar and People apps. They’re OK, and in some respects, pretty good for a mobile phone, but this is inconsistent with the tablet. Interestingly, I have a POP3 email account. While the Mail app on the Nokia is cool with that, the same Mail app on the Windows tablet won’t let me access the mailbox, so I HAVE to use Outlook.

There is a procedure provided my Microsoft in which you use an Outlook.com account that acts as a middleman to bypass this issue. Essentially, your Outlook.com account retrieves your POP3 mail. You can then retrieve that mail from Outlook.com using IMAP. But I tried to get this to work and after an hour, I gave up. I’ve been working with Microsoft products for over 25 years, and it’s beyond me. Microsoft, please add POP support to your Mail app.

While we’re on the subject of Office, which is provided on the handset, I have found that slightly annoying. A large number of my documents won’t open in editing mode because of versioning issues. What? Work harder, guys. I shouldn’t have to save different versions of files to open on different devices. Although, of course, without a proper keyboard, editing is somewhat pointless anyway.

Having said all that, there are some things I love about the device.

In no particular order, I love the Nokia mapping apps. You can even download the maps to make them available offline FOR FREE. You can also choose to use a surfer dude to voice your navigation to your destination. He signs off with cool ‘No need to thank me, dude. It’s what I do. It’s who I am.’
I like Kids’ Corner. You just enable this feature and decide what your kids can access (games, movies, apps and whatever) and then you hand them your handset. They can only access what you setup. It’s a doddle.

There’s plenty of other stuff to like, and although I could never use the Nokia 1520 as a phone (because for me, it’s just too big for that), I have been carrying it around it my man bag for a couple of weeks and have yet to find a situation when I wished I’d had the tablet instead.

The Lenovo Miix with proper Windows 8.1

Lenovo Miix 2 8

I previously had a ten inch tablet running Windows 8. I found this to be just too big to carry around daily. It didn’t fit in my man bag, and it certainly wouldn’t squeeze into a pocket. Also, Windows 8 was pretty frustrating. eBay came to the rescue, and I managed to liquidate the device for the same as I paid from Argos.

I bought the Miix 2 8 because it was too cheap not to. £199 quid including shipping got me the 32GB version.

Now, a lot of folk bang on about available storage. They complain that after Windows is installed, there’s only 8GB left. Well, there is a hidden recovery partition that provides the fantastic feature of total device recovery for the small cost of about 5GB or disk space. So, zap that. No other OS provides  that. Now you’re up to 13GB, which is pretty good in a £200 device. And then you can add more storage through a Micro SD card (which you can move between Windows devices fairly seamlessly) and you can even plug memory sticks into the Micro USB port via an OTG cable.

Many people call storage ‘memory’, which, of course, it’s not. Pundits that cannot differentiate between storage and memory should be ignored.

Note that if you have enabled BitLocker on your SD card, Windows Phone seems unable to read the card. If you don’t know what BitLocker is, read on; this won’t matter to you.

What I like about this device is that because it’s proper Windows, I can, if I like, install any desktop app that I want. I installed Memory Map and then the WW1 trench maps I own. Brilliant. 

Note that one MAJOR frustration is that Windows 8.1 does not assign virtual comports to navigational software, such as commonly available GPS systems (including Memory Map). This means that although the tablet knows where it is on the surface of the earth, it won’t share this information with any desktop apps. There is supposedly a workaround piece of software available, but as with the Outlook.com issue above, I was woefully inadequate to the task of getting it to work.

Although the display has a lower resolution (1280 by 1024 I think), it’s actually more usable. 1920 displays sound great, but on a device this small, that can prove a challenge for all but the youngest eyes. It’s good enough to use all the apps and play all my videos.

And, of course, I can pair my keyboard, and mouse, to the device and work on it. I have used it to write some content, and it was fine. I wouldn’t want to write a novel on it (not being flippant here – I actually write novels), but for when the onscreen keyboard is not enough (and for me, that’s anything beyond simple text speak), it’s very handy. Mind you, when you add the 300 grams for the tablet, and 500 for the keyboard and its cover, and whatever for the mouse, you might as well have an Ultrabook and be done with it.

I like the Lenovo. BUT, and it’s a big but, I have never taken it out unless I planned on using it. That’s planned. I take the Nokia out just in case, even though I know I shan’t really need it. But the Lenovo is just a bit big for that. Even at only 8 inches.

Summary

I thought that at last, I had reached computing nirvana. The promised land of the single device. But I think that’s a fairy tale. It doesn’t exist – at least, not yet. So for now, I use the Nokia most of the time to view webpages, watch videos and the like. For work, I use a laptop. And the tablet? Well, that seems to be sitting on a shelf. In truth, I shall probably load Windows 9 onto it when I get the preview, and then we’ll see.

Rogues' Gallery

I've used all these over the years. They've all been OK in their own way, but never quite achieved what I was looking for.

Compaq Pocket PC - with Windows CE

This Jornada was a pretty good device. Again, Windows CE - but a 'proper keyboard'

This Sharp Zaurus ran Linux. Slide down the bottom to expose a keyboard

Windows Phone, about 2007 I think

Captain A S M Summers, Royal Flying Corps

Captain Summers' Cavalry Sword

A friend asked me to take a sword along to the Antiques Roadshow. It’s a First World War cavalry sword. My friend had done quite a bit of research about the blade, having determined from it’s serial number to whom it belonged.
The then Lieutenant A S M Summers took delivery of his sword in October 1909 from Wilkinson Sword. When war broke out, this former Yeoman officer was with the 19th Hussars. This regiment was attached to the infantry divisions in the BEF for the early months of the war, and Lt.Summers was assigned to the machine-gun detachment of his squadron.
He later joined the Royal Flying Corps as a pilot, and saw action with 60 Squadron RFC. Amongst his peers in August and September 1916 was Albert Ball, VC. Captain Summers, by then a flight leader, was killed in action on 15th September 1916 during the Battle of Flers–Courcelette.
I tracked down the following article that explains how he died. He was involved in an attack on enemy observation balloons using a new air-to-air weapons system.



Summers in front of his Morane fighter

In 1914 aircraft armament was a carbine in the cockpit and maybe a grappling hook trailing behind and below. Then, in only a matter of months, fighter plane fire power advanced to machine guns that fired through a rotating propeller and even wing mounted rockets which were crude but effective enough to be used by both the Allies and the Germans air services.

First air-to-air missile combat victory, Lt. A. M. Walters RFC Sept. 16, 1916 at the Battle of the River Somme

And so this sets up one of the great forgotten stories of WW I— a British pilot scores the very first aerial victory by air-to-air missile but then his accomplishment—and name—is lost in the drama and fog of battle. And even more ironically, this war fighter’s exploit was recorded in a large dramatic painting by a famous artist, but he was misidentified and so his historic action has only came to light when the painting of the air battle was discovered on the wall of a modest house in Bristol, Rhode Island almost 100 years after the historic aerial event.

The man who made air-to-air missile ordinance operational was Lt. Yves Le Prieur, a French army officer assigned to Japan before the war and who extrapolated the idea of turning fireworks into an airborne weapons system. Le Prieur’s rockets were just a cardboard tube filled with black powder, attached to a wooden stick fitted with a triangular knife blade to form a spear point. They were far from accurate and a little dicey when it came time to throw the electrical ignition. But a few forward thinking military minds recognized the possibilities, and for a short time in 1916, Le Prieur fire rockets became an important factor in air war strategy.
The story of Le Prieur’s rockets is fascinating and amusing. Le Prieur had to show the Generals that his idea worked before they would install them on an airship. So the inventive inventor took a Piccard-Pictet roadster, strapped on an actual airplane wing to which his rockets were attached, and then shot down a runway at 80 mph, blazing away. Apparently, whatever was destroyed this first rocket salvo did not embarrass anyone, and so M. Le Prieur became the first person to effectively prove that air-to-air missiles were a realistic war-fighter option.
All this then circles back to the story of the long forgotten painting (above) by an artist called Farre who personally captioned his work as an exploit of a “Lt. Summers.” This was to later cause much confusion because when research on the painting began, there was lots of information about an ace named Lt. Summers—but that fellow flew a different aircraft and all his victories were in 1918.
Finally, members of the League of WW I Historians solved the mystery, and here is the (edited) story they unravelled:

On September 15, 1916—the opening day of the Third Phase of the massive Battle of the Somme— RFC headquarters wanted the German balloons in the sector of the Flers-Courcelette assault all destroyed. General Trenchard (in command the RFC) visited No. 60 Squadron (which included the famous ace Albert Ball) and asked for volunteers to attack the balloons. Capt. Ball, 2Lt. A M Walters, 2Lt Euan Gilchrist, and Capt. A.S.M. Summers all volunteered. They all took off in (French) Nieuports armed with LePrieur Rockets.
Albert Ball and 2/Lt Walters found their balloons hauled down. They therefore attacked a formation of German planes. Ball fired off eight rockets but missed so he shot down the enemy fighter with conventional machine-gun fire. His wingman, 2Lt A M Walters, fired his rockets at one of the LVG two-seaters and saw a rocket hit the LVG in the fuselage, setting it aflame. The flaming LVG fell at Bapaume. This may very well have been the first air-to-air rocket victory against a heavier than air target.
Meanwhile, Gilchrist had destroyed his balloon and another was also destroyed and credited to Capt. A S M Summers, who was sadly shot down in flames by the anti-aircraft fire. Summers died in Nieuport 16, military serial number A136.
So, it was not actually Summers but Walters who destroyed an enemy airplane with LePrieur rockets. Lt. Walters fired 4 rockets. One hit the LVG and brought it down.

And there you have it. Lt. Walters, who actually made aviation history, and has languished invisible for a century, and would be forever unknown except for a diligent artist who captured that fleeting moment in a scene of celestial beauty and dramatic death.

This painting ended up in the USA because in 1918, the French government sent the artist and his war time artwork on a tour of the United States, ostensibly to raise money for the widows and orphans of slain pilots, but more likely to increase support for the US as it mobilized troops entering the European conflict. This painting was purchased in New York at the Anderson Galleries during the first exhibit on the tour, and then stayed with that family for three generations.

West Lydford Casualties, Le Cateau, 26 August 1914

Troops of the 4th Division at Le Cateau

On 26th August 1914, the 1st Battalion Somerset Light Infantry, part of the 4th Division of the BEF, were defending the village of Ligny near Le Cateau. During the day, they fought off repeated attempts by the Germans to outflank them. They were ordered to retreat later that day.

The British suffered around 8,000 casualties in the battle, two of which are young men from the village of West Lydford (Lydford on Fosse), Somerset.

Private 6749 William C Mintern (Alias: W ROSSITER). 1/Somerset Light Infantry, aged 26. Son of Fredrick W. and Ann Mintern, of 17, Market St., Yeovil.

Private 6748 Walter Tudgay. 1/Somerset Light Infantry, aged 30. Husband of Ethel Beatrice Tudgay and father of Irene Tudgay, of 42, High St., West Lydford, Taunton. Known to be a bell ringer at the local church. Walter's family lived the rest of their lives in West Lydford and are buried in the local churchyard.

Yesterday, the centenary of the battle of Le Cateau, today's bell ringers commemorated William and Walter's sacrifice by ringing the church bells at St Peters - the same bells Walter rang himself before they went away to war. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPWUMsjxI3A&feature=youtu.be

The sharp-eyed amongst you will spot that Walter and William's service numbers are one digit apart. I like to think that they were friends who went off together, but never came back.

They have no known grave. As the battalion retreated, there was no time to collect the bodies of their fallen comrades, and so they were probably buried by the Germans after the battle in a mass grave. Both are commemorated on the La Ferte-sous-Jouarre Memorial and, of course, in the churchyard at St Peter's in West Lydford.

The La Ferté-sous-Jouarre Memorial commemorates 3,740 officers and men of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) who fell at the battles of Mons, Le Cateau, the Marne and the Aisne between the end of August and early October 1914 and have no known graves.


You can read more about the battle here: http://www.britishbattles.com/firstww/battle-le-cateau.htm

Satnav and vinyl

 

It’s been a week of contradictions; I have both spurned and embraced modern technology.
I spent the weekend listening to my old vinyl records after having obtained what used to be called a gramophone, but which I believe is now called a turntable. Back in about 1991, I boxed up my LPs for a house move, and these by-now classic albums have languished in various attics ever since. I couldn’t wait to literally dust-off Dark Side of the Moon, even though I regularly listen to it on CD. As I sat on the floor of the lounge surrounded by album covers, protective sleeves and soft dusters, Any Colour You Like blaring, my wife came in.

‘I didn’t know you liked harpsichord music, darling. I have some lovely choral CDs in my bureau if you want to listen to some more.’

‘It’s not a harpsichord. Actually it might be a harpsichord. But it’s certainly a classic, especially on the original vinyl,’ I added, nodding sagely.

‘It doesn’t matter how you listen to your music, it’s not going to make it sound any better. You have to accept that it’s simply too old fashioned.’

‘It’s The Pink Floyd,’ I explained, giving the band their definite article as befits a true enthusiast.

 ‘Darling, Pink Floyd’s time has come, and gone – thank goodness. And please don’t indoctrinate our daughter into early-seventies, psychedelic rock groups.’

Our daughter moved gracefully around the room, impressively finding a rhythm to dance to in The Great Gig in the Sky.

‘You let her watch Mamma Mia,’ I countered, ‘ABBA are a seventies group.’

‘ABBA is timeless in a way that neither Supertramp nor Led Zeppelin will ever be.’ She smiled as if there was nothing further to say.

Led Zeppelin.

‘Oh, no you don’t,’ she said as I reached for the Song Remains the Same.

I’d bought the turntable on a whim during a trip to Currys earlier in the week. We’d just had a voluble discussion about the route home from a clock auction near Bath. It was no good; Google maps were simply not getting us closer to our mutual destination. In the same way that the mobile phone has supplanted the two pence piece as a means of facilitating telephone calls, so SatNav has replaced my AA route master maps.

 

As we left Currys, I tore open the packaging of my TomTom, and entered our home address into the keypad. Leaving the car park, I ignored the instruction to go left at the roundabout.

‘Darling, she said to turn left.’

‘I know; but that’s not the best way. It’s better to go straight on here, and right at the next junction,’ I explained.

My wife sighed, and although I know that the female voice inside the box on my dashboard has no emotions, I felt sure that her tone changed as I continued blatantly to ignore her advice, muttering to myself as she attempted to correct my deviation from her planned route.

And just as a homecoming is made so much sweeter when you navigate yourself there, even if accompanied by shrill instructions to turn round as soon as possible, so Money sounds far superior on vinyl, clicks and all. The only downside is that you have to get up and turn the record over after The Great Gig in the Sky if you want to hear it; you don’t have that problem with MP3.

Breaking the Trasimene Line on the forgotten front

British troops in close combat, Italy 1944

The Trasimene Line was a German defensive line during the Italian Campaign of World War II. The commander of German forces in Italy, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, used the line to delay the Allied northward advance in Italy in mid June 1944 to buy time to withdraw troops to the Gothic Line and finalise the preparation of its defence.

After the Allied capture of Rome on 4 June 1944 following successful breakthrough at Cassino and Anzio during Operation Diadem in May 1944, the German Fourteenth and Tenth Armies fell back: the Fourteenth along the Tyrrhenian front and Tenth through central Italy and the Adriatic coast. There was a huge gap between the armies and with the Allies advancing some 10 km per day, the flanks of both armies were exposed and encirclement was threatened.

Two days after Rome fell, General Sir Harold Alexander, commander of Allied Armies in Italy, received orders from General Sir Henry Maitland Wilson, the supreme Allied commander Allied forces Mediterranean theatre to push the Germans 170 miles north to a line running from Pisa to Rimini (i.e. the Gothic Line) as quickly as possible to prevent the establishment of any sort of coherent enemy defence in central Italy.

Between 4 June and 16 June, whilst maintaining contact with the advancing Allies, Albert Kesselring executed a remarkable and unorthodox manoeuvre with his depleted divisions, resulting in his two armies aligning and uniting their wings on the defensive positions on the Trasimene Line.

By the last week of June the Allies were facing the Trasimene positions. The toughest defences were around the lake itself with fierce fighting on 17 June at Città della Pieve and 21 June at San Fatucchio. But by 24 June, the Allies had worked their way round to the north shore and linked and the German defenders withdrew towards Arezzo.

Gone in an instant

It’s a sickening moment when you realise that your lifetime partner, your kindred spirit, your one true love is not who you thought she was.

Of course, thinking back, I’d seen the evidence of her perversion, but chose to turn a blind eye imagining it was because the builders were in. I’d even caught faint traces of her other life on her breath as we kissed when I returned from work at the end of a long day scribbling.

But it’s one thing to suspect your wife, and it’s quite another to have your suspicions confirmed.  Yesterday, I caught her in flagrante delicto, cup to her lips, as she sat secretly in the kitchen, Western Gazette on her knee, and her paraphernalia surrounding her on the table.

‘Darling, don’t get carried away. It’s just milky coffee. I haven’t been having an affair.’

‘What are you doing?’ I asked as I stared incredulously at the tin on the table.

‘I’m having a coffee,’ she replied, making no attempt to deny it.

‘No you’re not, you’re drinking instant.’

‘What of it,’ she replied, ‘I prefer it.’

‘Prefer it? How can you prefer it to actual coffee?’

‘I don’t like that shivery feeling I get when I drink one of your espressos, darling. It makes me feel like I’ve got the flu; they’re too strong.’

‘How long has this been going on?’ I said as I sank into the Windsor chair by the Aga.

‘Darling, don’t get carried away. It’s just milky coffee. I haven’t been having an affair.’

‘How long?’ I demanded.

‘Since you got that wretched Gaggia.’

I’d had my beloved espresso maker for over six years before moving to Hornblotton when it finally gave up the ghost. All that time my wife had been sneaking into the kitchen, boiling milk in a pan, and secretly adding … granules.

‘I could have made you a cappuccino,’ I whispered pathetically.

‘Yes, but it would still have been too strong – and anyway, I don’t much like the froth; it spoils my lipstick.’

Was there no end? Did she have no shame?

‘Latte?’ I squeaked plaintively.

She shook her head, and took another gulp of her revolting beverage, turning her attention once more to the local paper. I could smell the milk from the other side of the kitchen; it turned my stomach.

Decline of the machines

Since moving to Somerset, I have had to manage without some of my favourite kitchen appliances: the dishwasher stayed in Scotland; the microwave is also absent, currently languishing in a cupboard because there are insufficient electrical sockets in our somewhat out-dated kitchen; and the Gaggia died when asked to produce coffee in an area where the water is basically made of limestone.

As my household chores revolve around making coffee and providing clean crockery to drink it from, I have had to seek manual alternatives. My morning regimen used to involve  pressing a button on the Gaggia. Once I had consumed my espresso, I simply placed my cup into the dishwasher, and went about my business, secure in the knowledge that my chores were complete until elevenses.  

‘My household chores revolve around making coffee and providing clean crockery to drink it from’

Now I must come downstairs, blurry-eyed and dry-mouthed, locate the coffee percolator and empty yesterday’s coffee grounds. Next, I need to scoop the grounds off the floor with my hand, and place them in the bin. Then I fill the percolator with hot water, add fresh coffee and place it on the Aga. Finally, I need to wipe the coffee grounds from the kettle handle, the Aga door and anything else I’ve recently touched.

 Next, the hunt for a cup commences. I usually find them in my study, lined up like a row of Babushka dolls from the ridiculously large 7am cup to the tiny it’s-my-fifth-of-the-day-and-my-hands-are-shaking cup. They all need to be washed up, so I wait while the water trickles into the bowl through the tap that is so blocked with lime-scale it is almost a stalactite; perhaps in time my sink might become a must-see extension to the Wookey Hole Experience. Then that zingy-lemon-freshness as I add bubbles. A few moments of splashing the cups around, and as I hear the percolator bubbling, we’re ready.

All this without any electricity and no harmful chemicals such as you might find in a dishwasher tab (I am not counting the tank of oil the Aga uses each month); I have unintentionally become an eco-warrior. I also start to wonder how much money I have saved since we moved South and I started doing things manually.

I don’t really miss the appliances; I used to hate unloading the dishwasher anyway, and I quite enjoy making the coffee from scratch. Recently, I have been looking at the other appliances, and considering the manual alternatives; I have bought a scythe and have invited my neighbour to let his sheep tend my lawn whilst I sell the mower, for example.

One morning last week when I was chatting to my wife about the pleasure I got from doing things by hand, I suggested she might like to consider abandoning her washing machine and her noisy vacuum cleaner. I passed her the Western Gazette, open at the free-ads, where I had already circled a washboard and a broom.

There was an awkward silence. Apparently, she is not keen to join my appliance-free revolution.

No such thing as a free lunch

It may be true that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but there is currently the offer of a free breakfast. At a local building supplies store, if you place an order before nine and it’s worth more than thirty quid, they’ll give you a free breakfast.

 ‘So, you’d drive all the way into town on an empty stomach so that you could get a ‘free’ breakfast by spending thirty pounds which you could then enjoy standing in the rain with a bunch of builders all with their bottoms showing over the tops of their trousers? Cooked, no doubt, by a fat, tattooed man who has probably not washed his hands in some time.’

I noticed the van that provided the free breakfast parked alongside the store entrance as I walked out carrying some wood for a gardening project. I could see the sizzling bacon, sausages, eggs. I love the smell of cholesterol in the morning – smells like…angina.
Sadly, I’d already breakfasted on porridge and toast; a pretty poor substitute, and no match for a plate loaded with fried goodies. I packed my car with the planks and nails, and sadly climbed in. I’d have to make sure that I returned before nine a.m. when I next needed some DIY stuff.
When I got back to Hornblotton, I told my wife that you could get this free breakfast. She looked at me in silence.
‘But you’ve already had breakfast,’ she said.
‘Yes, but next time, I would leave before breakfast – you know – to get my monies-worth,’ I explained.
‘So, you’d drive all the way into town on an empty stomach so that you could get a ‘free’ breakfast by spending thirty pounds which you could then enjoy standing in the rain with a bunch of builders all with their bottoms showing over the tops of their trousers? Cooked, no doubt, by a fat, tattooed man who has probably not washed his hands in some time.’
‘Well, now that you explain it like that it sounds daft. What I should do is get up early and have a small, early breakfast here, and then go into town to arrive at, say, eight forty-five. Then I’d have enough time to get my stuff and still have an appetite for that freebie.’
‘Whatever you think, darling,’ she smiled.
I wandered off to build the raised beds in the garden for next year’s vegetables. It was pouring with rain. When I came back indoors some hours later, covered from head to toe in thick, glutinous mud, and sopping wet, my wife was just leaving the house.
‘I’m off to the hair-dressers in Cary, darling. When you’ve hosed yourself down, remember to stick that casserole in the Aga,’ she said.
‘Why are you going now? I thought your appointment was at three?’
‘It is,’ she explained, ‘but they have a loyalty thing running at the moment. If you get your hair done three times, and buy some beauty products, they’ll give you a free manicure.’
I looked down at my blistered hands with their filthy, broken nails. I looked at my wife’s immaculate hands, with their long, perfect nails.
‘But your nails are fine, darling. Are the nail clippers broken? Couldn’t you find them?’ I asked.
‘No, they’re not broken – and they’re where you left them, on the floor behind the toilet, after you cut your toe-nails last night. Anyway, that’s not the point; this is just too good an offer to pass up.’
I nodded as she walked to the car.

'If you get your hair done three times, and buy some beauty products, they’ll give you a free manicure.’ I looked down at my blistered hands with their filthy, broken nails. I looked at my wife’s immaculate hands, with their long, perfect nails. ‘But your nails are fine, darling. Are the nail clippers broken?

‘Make sure the girl who does it washes her hands first,’ I shouted at the departing vehicle.
Standing on the patio, I could see I didn’t have enough timber to complete the raised beds project. I’d now be obliged to go back to the builders’ merchants in Yeovil. I wonder if I could persuade them to let me have a free lunch after all?

Winged harbingers of destruction

Before moving to sunny Hornblotton, we lived in Galloway, south-west Scotland.  In the years we spent up north, I optimistically tried to grow exotic vegetables (well, herbs mostly). I was never terribly successful, because as anyone knows, the only thing that grows in abundance north of the border is heather, midges, and ginger hair. With the sought-after change in our lifestyles came a change in the weather. Suddenly, the possibility of growing-our-own became a viable option.
However, since I planted-out my cabbages this year, there has been a war raging. Being new to this whole vegetable patch thing, I was a little slow on realising that the pretty, white, winged visitor to my garden was, in fact, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse – Pestilence; you might know her as the Cabbage White butterfly.

"Because as anyone knows, the only thing that grows in abundance north of the border is ... ginger hair"

She has ridden rough-shod over my raised beds, spreading destruction in her wake. The leaves of my brassicas were soon covered with her tiny eggs, and I have spent my days on my hands and knees indulging in a little inter-species ethnic cleansing.
It is rather ironic that in the week when this war reached its climax, my daughter received a couple of caterpillars through the post as part of a grow-your-own butterfly kit. As she carefully examined the underside of each leaf in search of potential caterpillar friends, I was preceding her, and scraping them off the leaves with my finger nail and smearing them onto my trousers. I don’t know whether Cabbage White’s have folklore, and sit around the fireside telling stories to their children of the fearful shapes that haunt the darkness, but if they do, I imagine I will figure large in those tales. I am not sure what will happen to the butterfly farm when the caterpillars reach maturity, but the odds are long on them surviving beyond the chrysalis stage. All this, and I don’t even like cabbage.

"I don’t know whether Cabbage White’s have folklore, and sit around the fireside telling stories to their children of the fearful shapes that haunt the darkness, but if they do, I imagine I will figure large in those tales"

Luckily, I had the foresight to plant some vegetables I actually do like. It was a last minute decision before our trip to Spain earlier this year; I stuck some old potatoes in the ground, and then ignored them. I haven’t watered them; I haven’t banked up the earth around them; I certainly haven’t crawled around them on my hands and knees minutely examining their leaves for infestations. The other day, as I turned dejectedly from my decimated cabbages, I caught sight of their verdant foliage and I wondered if there was a hidden crop, just waiting to be lifted.
Putting down my flamethrower, I took up my fork, and within moments I had a handful of perfect tubers. I felt like I used to as a small child when I opened my first present on Christmas morning; I couldn’t wait to tear the wrapping off all my other presents. I scrabbled around in the dirt searching for more of the hidden treasures.

Within a few minutes, I had a fine harvest of large, perfect potatoes. I carried them indoors, and placed them on the kitchen table for the family to admire. I stood there, basking in the reflected glory of the simple spud, secure in the knowledge that my crop was safe from airborne assault.

Graphic designer to artisan baker

It may seem like a big jump from graphic designer to artisan baker, but Phil Nicodem at Lievito Bakery always had too much energy to just sit behind a desk all day. Fair enough, but why bread? Why not gardening, or something else physical? He smiles and then lifts another twenty five kilo bag of flour from the stack by the door. ‘Bread can be physical,’ he says.
We’re talking in his purpose-built bakery, tucked in between a micro-brewery and a dairy farm opposite the river Brue in Lovington. The place is all dusty with flour and I mention the delicious, warm, yeasty smell of newly baked bread for the fourth time in as many minutes. ‘I can’t smell it,’ he says. ‘Too much exposure, I suppose. But everyone comments on it.’
So, how does a graphic designer make the change to artisan baker? ‘My interest in food began early. My parents ran a fruit and veg shop in Wells High Street. Food was in our blood. It’s vital. On the weekends and during the holidays, I’d get up early and go with dad to the market: four or five in the morning. It was great. The banter, the smell – and when no one was looking, the taste.’
‘Dad’s from Abruzzo in central Italy. Food is a big deal, there, and bread especially. He taught me about baking. He started me off with simple pizza bases. Then he shared his other secrets: ciabatta, focaccia. And although I don’t usually like making cakes,’ he adds, ‘I will make a panettone for Christmas.’
I watch him with interest, and he looks up. ‘It’s about love,’ he says, working the dough with a firm hand. We’re interrupted by another customer, and he stands behind his counter and explains what’s on offer. Money changes hands.
‘I never expected the passing trade to be so much a part of what I do,’ he says, returning to his shaping. ‘I thought it would be all wholesale, but I’ve just extended the counter – and I’ve got a proper till, too.’
I look at his counter. It’s made from old boxes and planks of wood he found in a disused dairy. It’s piled high with so many varieties of bread, it’s not feasible to list them in the space available. And while I am there, a whole cross-section of folk come to buy.
‘I don’t advertise,’ he says. ‘Word just seems to have gotten around. Saturday is really busy.’ I know that’s true. I’ve waited in line on a Saturday morning for my warm croissants, served by Genna, his wife.

I wonder what his bestselling loaf is. ‘It varies,’ he says. ‘Some days I can’t make enough milk loaf, and others the sesame and semolina loaf flies off the counter. But probably, my Somerset Sour Dough is the most popular.’
‘You don’t add yeast to a sour dough. Instead, the dough draws from the naturally occurring bacteria in the atmosphere – so it’s influenced by the local area.’ Standing outside, you can smell the beer, the cut grass and the fresh breeze off the river. Plenty of influences here, then.
I watch as he begins to slice the top of his baguettes using a homemade implement based around a razor blade. ‘It’s the French style. Each baker signs his loaves this way,’ he explains.
I confess that I bake my own bread from time to time and I ask what his top tip would be for a home baker. ‘Patience,’ he says without hesitation. ‘Bread takes time, and the more time you give it, the better it’s going to be.’ I nod and promise myself that I’ll try and slow down. ‘And keep the salt and yeast separate for as long as possible,’ he adds.
‘Do you know?’ he says. ‘I do get people coming in and asking what’s gone wrong with their sour dough. I always offer them some advice, so maybe I could run a clinic. In fact, I’d like to run courses,’ he says. ‘Perhaps a beginners’ course on making pizzas or simple loaves. And then maybe an advanced course for people that want to take it further.’
Things are going in and coming out of the ovens all the time. Did I mention the delicious, warm, yeasty smell? I am amazed at how easily he is able to remember what’s in where and how long it’s been in there. I frequently burn the single loaf I’m baking.
We talk about a typical working week. ‘Most days, I’m here by three a.m. and work until around six p.m. Saturdays, I have to be here at midnight to get it all done. Croissants are a real labour of love, and we make all our own almond paste for the almond ones which takes more time. But it’s not just me; there’s Fin, my new baker. She’s just so creative with pastries. And on Saturdays, I also have Jake. And of course, Genna helps at the weekends whenever she can, despite having a fulltime job.’
I wonder about his social life, his other commitments. ‘This is my life – and I love it. I’d rather be doing this than anything else.’
The baguettes are coming out, and I know I mentioned the delicious, warm, yeasty smell before, but it’s still working its magic. They go into a basket on the counter. He starts to work on a sweet dough onto which he spreads melted butter, local apples and sultanas. This he rolls up and then slices for baking. ‘It’s a Lovington Bun,’ he tells me, and later, unable to resist, I take one home; I can recommend it with a strong espresso. Delicious.
If you fancy one yourself, or want to try something more continental, pop in and see Phil. The Lievito bakery is located left off the B3153 about two miles east of the A37.

Taken from an article published in Somerset Life, January 2014: http://www.somerset-life.co.uk/people/graphic_designer_to_artisan_baker_1_3206251 

Tantric espresso

Some things in life are meant to be fast: burgers; putting up camp beds; taking a shower; sex. Other things are meant to be slow: a massage; a bath; espresso coffee. I've been complaining to my wife recently about how I no longer get time to enjoy my morning coffee; I’m always being interrupted to deal with school clothes, the washing up, or the dog’s bottom (long fur, short attention span; you do the maths).
‘An espresso is meant to be sipped slowly and it’s heavenly aroma and taste savoured,’ I shouted over James Naughtie as I pulled my daughter’s school jersey down over her head, and scraped breakfast cereal into the bin from her bowl, ‘and I’m gulping mine down like a camel at an oasis’.
‘It’s called espresso, darling,’ she responded as she shoved the dinner into lower oven of the Aga and began vacuuming the stairs, ‘because it means quick – express!’
I thought about this all day and I determined that the pressure of life was not going to spoil my caffeine intake any longer; from now on, I would take things more slowly – starting with my coffee. The problem is that the amount of coffee you get in an espresso is pretty small. It’s hard to see how you can make 25ml of liquid last a long time (although my daughter manages to stretch 5ml of cough mixture out for hours, so it’s clearly possible). That’s when it hit me. It’s not just about the drinking; it’s about the whole process.

"Like any good junky, you have your drug-taking paraphernalia: spoon, demitasse, sugar and coffee, and whatever it is you make it in"

Anticipate your coffee; think of the aroma; the deep, dark depths of the coffee; the contrast with the crema. Titillate yourself a little by sniffing at an open can of your favourite beans; imagine the moment when the coffee touches your lip, slips down your throat. At first you might find this is all too much; perhaps your partner can help? When she sees you with that look in your eyes that says you’re about to grab your Gaggia, she can try to divert you with unrelated conversation such as ‘Darling, I thought you were going to drop the car in Castle Cary today for its service?’ or, ‘That lawn won’t mow itself, Darling’.
Now make the coffee. Like any good junky, you have your drug-taking paraphernalia; spoon, demitasse, sugar and coffee, and whatever it is you make it in. Lay them out on the work surface before you. Warm the cup; spoon the coffee into the percolator; place the percolator on the hob. Enjoy the bubbling sound as the coffee rises into the top of the percolator; spoon in the sugar. There’s no rush; pace yourself.

"Titillate yourself a little by sniffing at an open can of your favourite beans"

Finally, drink it. I like to sit outside on the patio; kids at school; wife at work; me busily scribbling away at the computer all morning, and now ready for an indulgent break. If you have no patio, stand at the window and watch the rest of the world rush by in their pell-mell stampede to their early graves. Tip the cup slowly to your lips and sip.
While the warm after-glow of coffee is still on you, wash your cup; put away the coffee can; start anticipating your next coffee.
Tantric espresso is elusive, but worth striving for.

The last charge on a forgotten front

 

A Dorset Yeoman

I’ve been involved in a project to repair and renew the local war memorial at Lydford-on-Fosse, Somerset. As part of this, we’re putting on a display later this year to commemorate the locals that fought, and in some cases were killed, in the Great War.
One such man was 2nd Lieutenant Cecil Henry Paulet, whose name appears on the memorial at East Lydford, resting against the wall of Lydford Hall.

East Lydford memorial

When I looked into this man, I discovered a fascinating and detailed account of a forgotten front and the last full regiment cavalry charge.

Brief history of Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry

QODY camp just before the outbreak of war

Men of the QODY in the desert

During World War One, the Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry (QODY) supplied three regiments for service: the original regiment, now known as the 1/1st Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry; a second line regiment the 2/1st; and a third line regiment the 3/1st. Paulet served in the 1/1st and was involved in the last cavalry charge by a single British cavalry regiment in the Great War.

 

Diary of regiment's movements

• August 1914 : in Sherborne. Part of the 1st South Western Mounted Brigade.
• September 1914 : transferred to 2nd South Midland Mounted Brigade in 2nd Mounted Division.
• April 1915 : moved to Egypt.
• August 1915 : landed at Gallipoli. Served as dismounted troops and were involved in the Battle of Gallipoli, the Battle of Sari Bair, and the Battle of Scimitar Hill. Withdrew back to Egypt in December 1915.
• January 1916 : Brigade became independent command and retitled 6th Mounted Brigade. Participated in the Battle of Aqqaqia in February 1916. At this battle the retreating Senussi were attacked by the Dorset Yeomanry with drawn swords across open ground. Under fire, the Yeomanry lost half their horses, and about a third of their men and officers were casualties (58 of the 184 who took part).
• February 1917 : Brigade transferred to Imperial Mounted Division.
• June 1917 : Brigade transferred to Yeomanry Mounted Division.
• July 1918 : titles changed to 10th Cavalry Brigade in 4th Cavalry Division. Remained in Palestine until end of war.

Camp in the desert

The Cavalry Charge

Painting of the charge

The Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry carried out the last cavalry charge by a single regiment from Britain, in the Western Desert in 1916. A trooper wrote home to his mother shortly after the attack:

 

“Colonel Souter told the Yeomen how he wished he was back in India with some real soldiers, who were smart and efficient, not like the bunch of slack-twisted scroungers, the dregs of the Dorset farm-yards which he had the misfortune to command, and that nothing, no nothing, would restore their honour, unless they made a cavalry charge. They would make that charge and he would lead them and restore their tarnished reputation. All this was passed down to the rank and file through the NCOs, with the addition of some choice adjectives.

However, by the next day he was his genial self again, but the idea of the charge was still in his mind.

The night before the battle he called us together, and gave a talk saying that given the opportunity he would lead us in a cavalry charge and finished with the remark; "There are over 200 of us and only 1500 of them with a few machine-guns;  surely we can beat a bunch of scallywags like that".”
 

The Battle of Agagia

Map of the battle

At 0930 hours on 26 February 1916, the British infantry advanced south, supported by the Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry and armoured cars under the command of Major Hugh Richard Arthur, the Duke of Westminster. This new, mechanised, feature of warfare, consisted of eight armoured cars and an open Ford, crewed by a total of thirty men, with machine-guns.

 

While on the Western Front the density of troops, machine-guns and barbed wire meant that the war stagnated into trench warfare, in the Middle East the paucity of troops, hostile terrain and vast area meant that a more recognisably nineteenth century pattern of warfare still prevailed. Field Service Regulations required that:

 

'As the attack progresses and the enemy shows signs of retreating, the cavalry must be in a position to exploit the success to the full. The cavalry commander must keep in constant communication with the commander of the force, so that he may be in a position to anticipate orders and take advantage of fleeting opportunities of intervening in the battle.'

 

Early on 26 February, QODY's four squadrons (including a Bucks Yeomanry squadron), in another of their traditional roles, deployed patrols from their bivouacs and located the enemy positioned in mutual support and in depth, at Agagia. With the Senussi, a local Arab tribe, located and their positions accurately identified, General Lukin, the Field Force Commander, was able to make his plans for the attack.

 

A battalion of the South African Infantry Brigade, supported by a second battalion was to attack the Senussi frontally under the cover of artillery, machine-gun fire and a pair of armoured cars. Meanwhile, Colonel Souter, the CO of QODY, was ordered to deploy his three squadrons on the western flank supported by another pair of the Duke of Westminster's armoured cars. With little threat to the British flank, the QODY were to remain concentrated awaiting their moment.

 

The British infantry attack began at about 1100 hours on a frontage of somewhat over a mile, under the cover of a barrage. With the South African infantry advancing and the QODY visibly deploying to the western flank, the Senussi's Turkish advisors launched an outflanking/counter-attack on the eastern front but this was checked by an infantry company sent forward from the reserve battalion, supported by the concentrated fire of the South African Brigade's machine-guns and artillery.

 

By 1200 hours, Brigadier Lukin's advance had closed within five hundred yards of the Senussi's positions in the sand hills and, despite the enemy fire, the infantry were continuing to close with the enemy. The infantry's disciplined and, from the enemy's perspective, relentless advance continued. Despite the Turkish officers' attempts to keep the Senussi in the firing line, they started to fall back at about 1220 hours. At this stage, the Bucks Yeomanry Squadron was dispatched from its position on the eastern flank to join Colonel Souter's command, to the west, making a total of four squadron.

 

At 1300 hours, Colonel Souter received a message from General Lukin, warning him that he was required for mounted action and that he was to pursue and cut-off the enemy's retreat. This was in fact an example of a classic employment of light cavalry, in a role that would have been familiar to the Romans. The Yeomanry were specifically not to attack the sand hills, where they might find that they were in close country, with trenches and barbed wire, in which they would be at a severe disadvantage.
 

The Charge

The QODY instead, followed the Senussi's retreat about a thousand yards to the west, helping them on their way with volleys of long-range small arms fire and machine-gun fire provided by their Mounted MG Section. During this time, the armoured cars had, one-by-one, become stuck in the sand. By 1400 hours, however, the Senussi were in full flight, forming a mass of men about a mile long and 3-400 yards deep. At first, their rear guard of organised Senussi retained sufficient discipline to present a sufficiently credible threat to keep the yeomanry at bay but with fire from the sand hills now occupied by the South African infantry and the QODY's flanking fire the withdrawal was beginning to turn into a rout.

 

With their horses rested, and about seven miles from the sand hills, Colonel Souter saw his chance to seal victory through the destruction of the disordered Senussi force. Between 1440 and 1515 hours, the three squadrons of the Dorset Yeomanry, numbering 196 men, including regimental cooks brandishing their cleavers, advanced on the fleeing Senussi. The Turkish officers, however, rallied about five hundred tribesmen to form a rear guard around three maxim machine-guns.

 

The QODY deployed in two ranks on a frontage of approximately six hundred yards. They adopted an open formation, with the troopers of the front rank spaced at a distance of eight yards apart but the second rank were more concentrated at four yards.

 

Conventional wisdom would, however, suggest that mounted men versus machine-guns would result in equine and human bodies littering the battlefield but the casualty rate was just one in ten. The Senussi, already rattled by seeing their somewhat ill-disciplined fire fail to halt the QODY, lapsed into a desperate and inaccurate fire. One Yeoman thought that the ill-trained Senussi had, in the heat of the moment, failed to lower their sights as the range closed.

 

Advancing quickly over the open sandy plain, first at the trot, then at a full canter, the Yeomanry bore down on the Senussi in two waves. Their speed and lose formation served to limit casualties against less than skilled Senussi marksmen.

 

Closing to within a hundred yards, Colonel Souter ordered Trumpeter Routlage to sound the charge and at approximately fifty yards, the Yeomanry broke into a full thundering gallop. Most of the Senussi broke and ran; a few stood and fought but in the centre of his regiment, Colonel Souter's horse was shot down under him. Lieutenant Blaksey and some yeomen suffered a similar fate but undaunted, the yeomanry plunged in amongst the enemy, swords flashing.

Prisoners

Colonel Souter’s report

 “About 1 p.m. I received a message from the G.O.C. [Lukin] saying that he wished me to pursue and cut off the enemy, if possible. It was my intention to let the enemy get clear of the sand hills, where there might have been wire or trenches, and then to attack him in the open. I therefore pursued on a line parallel to, and about 1,000 yards west of, the line of retreat, attacking with dismounted fire whenever the horses wanted an easy. About 2 p.m. I saw for the first time the whole retreating force extend for about a mile, with a depth of 300 to 400 yards. In front were the camels and baggage, escorted by irregulars, with their proper fighting force (Mahafizia) and Maxims (machine-guns) forming their rear and flank guards. I decided to attack mounted. About 3 p.m. I dismounted for the last time, to give my horses a breather, and to make a careful examination of the ground over which I was about to move. By this time the Dorset Regiment was complete, and as the squadron of the Bucks had gone on ahead, and could not be found, I attacked with the Dorsets alone. The attack was made in two lines, the horses galloping steadily, and well in hand. Three Maxims were brought into action against us. But the men were splendidly led by their squadron and troop leaders [“A” Squadron - Capt. G. Dammers ; “B” Squadron - Major Reeves ; “C” Squadron - Capt. R. Gordon], and their behaviour was admirable. About fifty yards from the position I gave the order to charge, and with one yell the Dorsets hurled themselves upon the enemy, who immediately broke. In the middle of the enemy’s lines my horse was killed under me, and, by a curious chance, his dying strides brought me to the ground within a few yards of the Senussi General, Gaafar Pasha.”

Lieut. J.H. Blaksey’s report

“You must imagine a slightly undulating plain, of firm sand, with low tufts of scrub, six or eight inches high. In front of us were some low sand hills of broken country, and this was where the Senussi had made their camp. . . . By this time [3.30 p.m.] The Senussi must have been seven miles from the sand hills, where they were in the morning. . . We could hear nothing of our own guns, and three out of four of our armoured cars, which had done useful work in the morning, had by this time stuck in the sand hills.

 

During the day we had been firing at 900 or 1,000 yards : at 3.30 p.m. Our range was 1,200. The Dorsets were together except one troop. We probably numbered about 180. The Bucks Squadron was not with us. Then the led horses were whistled up ; we were ordered to ‘mount’ and ‘form line’. Then, and not till then, we knew what was coming. Imagine a perfectly flat plain of firm sand without a vestige of cover, and in front of us a slight ridge ; behind this and facing us were three machine-guns and at least 500 men with rifles. You might well think it madness to send 180 yeomen riding at this.

 

The Senussi, too, are full of pluck and handy with their machine-guns and rifles, but they are not what we should call first-class shots, otherwise I do not see how we could have done it. We were spread out in two ranks, eight yards roughly between each man of the front rank and four yards between the second. This was how we galloped for well over half-a-mile straight into their fire. The amazing thing is that when we reached them not one in ten were down. At first they fired very fast and you saw the bullets knocking up the sand in front of you, as the machine-guns popped them out, but as we kept getting closer they began to lose their nerve (I expect) and forgot to lower their sights.

 

Anyhow, the bullets began going over us, and we saw them firing wildly and begin to run ; but some of them - I expect the Turkish officers - kept the machine-guns playing on us. We were within 30 yards of the line when down came my mare. She was, I think, the nicest I have ever ridden - a well-known hunter in the Blackmore Vale - and in spite of want of food and water she was bounding along without the least sign of fear, as though she had left the stable. Down she fell, stone dead, fortunately, as I saw next morning, with a bullet straight through her heart.

 

The line swept past me and I was almost alone, but the next moment I saw a spare horse. I snatched it and galloped on after my troop, but within 100 yards down he fell like the mare. Then I had a very narrow escape. The second horse was not quite dead, and was plunging ; it took a moment to get clear of him on the ground. I had hardly done so when I saw a Senussi aiming his rifle at about 20 yards. I at once let fly with my revolver and over he rolled, but still on the ground he tried to get a shot at me, so I sent another shot after the first and that settled him.

 

There was no other horse to get and I was alone. Then a strange thing happened. Six or seven men had, I supposed, recognised me as an officer ; anyhow, they rushed up to me and, in abject terror, began begging me for their lives. I saw they were men of consequence, but that was all I knew ; the chief one was covered with blood, with a sword-thrust through his arm. I stood over them as best I could with my revolver, and signed to them that if they stopped their men from shooting at me I would not shoot them.

 

A few seconds later I remember seeing a Senussi shooting one of our wounded (they always do that). He was 50 yards off and I let fly with my revolver, but missed. Meanwhile the wounded officer had literally knelt down and tried to kiss my hand, begging for his life. Just then I saw Colonel Souter, who (like myself) had had his horse shot, and who had been momentarily stunned in the fall, and at the same time I heard cries of ‘Gafaar!’ (the Arab tribe’s leader), and saw a few Senussi running towards me. I fired off a few shots - I do not know whether I hit or not - and Colonel Souter then rushed up and put his revolver straight in Gafaar’s face - for the wounded officer was none other than he - and then began firing with me at the men who were coming on to rescue him.

 

Gafaar was so terrified that he himself waved them back, and then with some difficulty Colonel Souter was able to get hold of a horse to put him on and send him off with some other officers, who were his staff, under an escort to the rear. It would be difficult to describe what was going on in the meantime just behind us - such a scene of terror as it is quite impossible to imagine. The Senussi were running in all directions, shrieking and yelling and throwing away their arms and belongings ; the Yeomen after them, sticking them through the backs and slashing right and left with their swords.

 

The whole thing was a marvellous instance of the awful terror inspired by galloping horses and steel. Some stood their ground, and by dodging the swords, and shooting at two or three yards’ range first our horses and then our men, accounted for most of our casualties ; but it would be difficult to exaggerate their complete loss of morale as a fighting force. Had Gafaar or any one of his wretched staff - all Turkish officers, not Senussi - had an ounce of courage left they could have shot Colonel Souter and me ten times over, put their wounded general on to one of the camels, which were not fifty yards away, and taken him off. But they were half mad with fear ; the horses’ hooves had been too much for them.

 

Nuri [Pasha] was ridden down, whether killed or wounded or only knocked over we do not know ; but they got him away on a camel. This was the end of the day ; the infantry were far behind ; the guns had gone home. In the charge the Squadron I belong to, ‘B’ Squadron, was on the right, and my troop on the extreme right of the whole line ; so it happened that we came in for it more heavily than the left. Of the four officers in the Squadron two were killed and one wounded, and I was the fourth. I led seventeen men, ‘being my troop’, into the charge, of whom eleven were killed and one got back wounded ; only five were untouched. I had a bullet through my field-glasses, and another through the pocket of my tunic ; so my tunic is quite a relic, with the bullet hole on one side and old Gafaar’s blood on the other!

 

Altogether you will see I have a lot to be thankful for in getting through untouched. Colonel Souter has fought in India and during the war in France and Gallipoli, and said he had never been in such a tight corner before. It would be difficult to speak too highly of his leadership throughout the day ; he did the whole thing himself, and at one time in the charge he rode 300 yards in front of our lines to see exactly whether we were going straight.

 

The next day he saw Gafaar : instead of being broken and in fear of his life, he was then polite but rather contemptuous. Of the charge he said : ‘c’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas selon les règles’ ; then he added :'No one but British cavalry would have done it.'

 

Describing the action in a letter to General Peyton, Colonel Souter estimated that the charge had resulted in between 200 and 300 of the enemy being sabred. Gafaar himself said he thought about 300. He adds:-

 

“Gafaar was not ‘dazed’, he was in a state of pitiable howling funk, and so were his staff, who ought to have shot us. . . . After Newbold and his machine-gun men came up I ordered Gafaar to mount , but he and his staff were always looking back, obviously hoping help would come, and he said he couldn’t ride on account of his wound. Newbold and I personally mounted him and got him away. . . . Where all officers did so well, I think it fairest that my three squadron leaders, who did everything I asked of them all day, and then led their squadrons so magnificently to the charge, should get the greater praise. Major Reeves, perhaps the best of them and my right-hand man, is dead. There remains Captain Gordon and Captain Dammers, both Dorset men, who have lived in Dorset for generations. It was a Dorset Yeomanry charge.”
 

 

Summary of action

The day cost the Dorsets some gallant lives. Major V.C.M. Reeves and Lieutenant J.C. Bengough, Gloucester Yeomanry (A.D.C. to General Peyton and attached to the regiment), fell in the preliminary Gallop ; 2nd Lieutenants C.H. Paulet, E. Middleton and C.B. Hope got through the enemy column and fell behind it ; twenty seven other ranks also fell. Major J.B.H. Gooden and 2nd lieut. O.C. Bryson and 24 other ranks were wounded. Eighty five horses were killed or missing. Such was the price paid by Dorset Yeomen for a feat of arm, which rang through the Empire and the fame of which should live in Dorset hearts and in cavalry annals for all time.

 

General Peyton in a letter describes aptly the effect the charge had on further operations :-

 

“That charge, following the brilliant Infantry attack by the South African Infantry Brigade, settled the small campaign, and although we did not reap its fruits until some three weeks later, it was the battle of Agagia, in which the Dorset Yeomanry took so leading a part, which really sealed the fate of the combined Turks and Senussi who had contemplated an attack on Egypt and had for some months held a large British force in check. . . . For Dorsetshire, August 21st, 1915, and February 26th, 1916, should be anniversaries to remember in connection with their County Yeomanry. A more gallant and splendid lot of officers and men I can never hope to have under my command.”

 

In the official communiqué in Cairo on February 28th, relating to the fight at Agagia, mention was made of "the brilliant and effective charge of the Dorset Yeomanry."

 

It was a great charge, in the words of the Arab commander himself it was "Bravery unparalleled". "It was not war", he said, "but it was immense. In theory it should have failed; in practice it succeeded, and I am today a prisoner. Nobody in the world could stand against such an onslaught; against men who evinced such scant regard for death."
 

Aftermath

Mass grave of QODY

The whole Agagia operation, including the Dorset Yeomen's charge was reported to be a 'model of desert warfare', leading to the destruction of the Senussi force, the capture of its leader Gaafer Pasha and his staff, and the relief of Sidi Barrani. On 9 March 1916 General Peyton's force pursued the remnants of the enemy fifty miles west, with a force including the Dorset Yeomen and a company of the Australian Camel Corps. Three days later, the force secured the Medean Pass and approaching the Libyan boarder, the determined pursuit by the British forced the Senussi to evacuate Sollum without a fight. The Duke of Westminster led the final pursuit.

 

The Duke's armoured cars, now dug out of the soft sand, rounded up the enemy stragglers. They captured no less than forty enemy guns and machine-guns, took three Turkish officers and about forty other prisoners, while they killed a further fifty Senussi and wounded many more in an attack on the enemy camp at Bir Asiso, twenty-three miles west the British base.

 

Spearheaded by the Duke of Westminster and the Cheshire Yeomanry the British dashed west, covering some 120 miles across hostile territory without support to Bir Hakkim. In less than a month, Peyton's force, including the Dorset Yeomanry, whose charge at Agagia had made a highly significant contribution to the defeat of the Senussi, had driven the enemy back 150 miles. As a result, they all but eliminated the threat to Egypt and the Suez Canal from the Turkish supported attacks from the west.
 

Those killed in the charge

Pte J Biss, Pte E A Brister, Cpl S J Brister, Sgt H J Brown, L/Cpl Cadie, Pte T Chaffin, Pte E J Cooper, Pte C L A Cutler, Pte C Davidge, Pte W H Diment, Pte B S Down, Pte P Dunn, Pte F W Fox, Pte H C Frizzell, SS W Gould, Sgt W G Harris, Sgt G W Hellyar, 2 Lt C B A Hope, Pte W Meech, 2 Lt E Middleton, Pte W Norman, 2 Lt C H Paulet, Pte C O Randall, Maj V C M Reeves, Pte C Seaviour, Pte A J Shean, Pte W E Wakley, L/Sgt J F Waters, Pte C H Whicher, Pte W J Wiles

Alexandria (CHATBY) Military and War Memorial cemetery