Kate: A wartime romance

Apart from explaining his scars my grandfather, William John Roberts, never spoke about the war. 

He was a school teacher. He enlisted at 19 as a private in the South Wales Borders 10th Battalion. 

In 1915 the battalion landed at Havre France. In July 1916 the Division moved to the River Ancre for the Battle of the Somme. 

During five days of hard fighting in Mametz Wood, the division suffered severe casualties. My grandfather lay for ten days in a shell hole in no man’s land. Badly wounded and with gangrene spreading from his wounded arm he heard angels singing. 

While recovering in Margate, England my grandfather was out walking and saw my grandmother Kathleen. She was working for the Land Army, growing potatoes on a farm.  He asked her out for a walk, but her father disapproved and whipped her for going about with a soldier. Undeterred she falsified her age and married my grandfather before he returned to the front in 1917.

Back to the front

Now the 10th Battalion was involved in the attack at Pilckem Ridge on 31st July 1917, the first day of the Third Battle of Ypres. Their three objectives were to capture the German line east of the Ypres Canal, the German second line on the Pilckem Ridge, and a further ridge east of Pilckem known as Iron Cross Ridge.

The attack started at 3.50am with rain, mud and shelling making conditions very difficult. Although suffering 550 casualties the Battalions achieved their objectives and consolidated the ground won the following day.

After the battle of Langemarck in late August when the battalion lost another 100 men, the Welsh Division was sent to Armentieres. In this sector they distinguished themselves by their vigorous patrol work, taking prisoners and making valuable identifications.

In August / September 1918 they took part in the British offensive across the old Somme battlefield. In this advance “the gallantry and initiative of the junior leaders was conspicuous”, NCOs taking over when their officers were hit and privates leading platoons forward.

My grandfather was made a captain in the field and awarded the Military Cross for “conspicuous daring and initiative” as intelligence officer. On one occasion he met six enemy, shot four and took two prisoners.

The battalion fought throughout the remaining stages of the war and ended the war near Aulnoye, France.
~ Kate Graham

Rosemary: An artist's life cut short

Great Uncle Roland Hipkins (1894-1951), art teacher, enlisted at age 21, December 1915 at Lichfield, England.

He joined the Malta Expeditionary Force April 1916 and was employed at the Prisoners of War Camp, Malta, from November 1917 to July 1918 when he was posted to the First Garrison, Battalion of West Yorkshire Regiment. 

He was demobilized in Boulogne February 1919 and returned to England and to his artistic life.

He later immigrated to New Zealand and was an acknowledged artist and teacher here.

Maybe if he hadn’t gone to war he would have had a healthier life and lived long enough to meet me.

~ Rosemary McCarthy

Liz: My German Grandfather

My Grandfather was German. He was living and working as a lawyer in Hamburg when he was called up to join the army at the start of World War 1.  He started on the Western Front, moved with his regiment in stages as far East as Romania, and ended up in Belgium. He worked in active service as the logistics/transport officer with his regiment until the war ended in 1918.

He left behind his young wife with three young children; a four year old boy, a two year old boy (my father) and a new-born baby girl. They lived in a large inner city apartment with a housekeeper and a nanny. 

My Grandmother wrote to my grandfather almost every day, with news about the children and the wider family.   Her letters were mostly about missing her beloved husband, delighting in the developmental milestones of the new baby, and the difficulties of managing the little boys without him.  

Her perceptions of the war were written from the perspective of someone whose life was far removed from the horrors of the reality on the front line.

~ Liz Melchior

Nancy: a grandmother's strategy

My maternal grandfather served with the Canadian armed forces during the First World War as a lieutenant in the Black Watch brigade. 

He and his company spent a long time in the trenches and fought in the horrific battle at Passchendaele. 

Though he was an older man when I knew him, there was a jaunty photo of him in his kilted uniform that greeted you when you arrived at my grandparents' home, and that's how I picture him still. 

He was badly injured by shrapnel and they wanted to take his leg off. He refused, which was smart as he survived and just had a slight limp. 

My grandmother used to say that if ever there was another war she was going to line up all her grandsons and shoot them each in the foot. She nursed my grandfather through night terrors about the war the whole of his life.

~ Nancy Fulford

Janet: A medical student at sea

My grandfather, Robert Findlay Allan, medical student, was in the New Zealand Medical Corps from October 1917 to May 1919.

He embarked from Wellington on 31 January 1918 on the Marama, Hospital Ship No. 2,  on its fifth voyage from New Zealand.

The ship's destination is noted as "Sea". By this stage of the war the hospital ships were sailing to England to clear the NZ hospitals in the United Kingdom and patients were carried to various ports en route as necessary, so he would have made two trips to England and back.

~  Janet Gootjes

Michelle: This one's not dead

My Grandfather Archibald McDonald left the Deep South of New Zealand for WW1 with his trusted horse, as a member of the Otago Mounted Rifles – he was just 18 years old and knew his horse would not be returning.  They sailed by boat to Europe, from Auckland.

Grandfather fought against the Germans by day, and by night some of them from both sides would meet at a “safe house” and drink and play music together. My Grandfather played the violin and was a mean fiddler.

At some point during the battles he and his fellow soldiers were gassed, and this caused him to eventually lose half his stomach.

He also caught influenza while fighting in the trenches, which resulted in him lying on a slab in a hospital in London, given up for dead.  While the bodies were being inspected, a nurse happened to put a small mirror under my Grandfather’s nose and could see condensation. “This one’s not dead,” she was reported as saying. Thank heavens for that nurse.

~ Michelle Scullion

Judy: How WW1 affected three generations of a family

John's grandfather served for the NZ forces as a Vickers machine gunner in World War I. He was at Passchendaele where he was wounded and lost his sight and sense of smell due to the effects of mustard gas and shrapnel.

He was evacuated to an army hospital in Brockenhurst, South England, and later taken to St Dunstans, a training hospital in London, where he was retrained as a physiotherapist, a profession he was capable of while blind.

He fell in love with his nurse, 9 years his senior; they married and moved to Wellington where he set up a physiotherapy practice in Upper Willis Street and later Aro Valley. They adopted John's mother, who was the daughter of his wife's sister. 

He practised for almost 70 years and was highly regarded. He died in his late 90s only a year or two after ceasing to work. He marched each year on ANZAC day.

From his experience he became a devout Catholic. Unfortunately, having fought and been injured in a war about freedom, he wasn't free when directing his descendants in their religion! John left the Catholic Church and his grandfather never forgave him for this. 

However, John often talks with affection about his early childhood when he spent much time with his grandfather. He has many stories to tell ... including seeing crippled people walk freely after being treated by his grandfather.

~ Judy Frost-Evans

Tania: Surviving the Somme, suffering shell shock

A distant cousin Arthur Gutsell on my mother’s side was discharged on 28 March 1919 “in consequence of being no longer physically fit for war service.”

He had joined up in 1917 as a 20 year old farm labourer from  Nightcaps. One of 5 sons, his mother was already widowed when the boys were called up for service in WW1. Goodness  knows how worried she must have been when all five signed up and went to Europe.

Perhaps Arthur should never have gone. In Gore May 1917, he was seen by the doctor from the Travelling Medical Board. The military medical record describes him as 5 foot 5, dark hair and brown eyes and “in good bodily and mental health and free from any physical defect likely to interfere with the efficient performance of his duties”.  However, on the bottom of his health certificate the Dr comments: “This man has a slight flat foot and an old injury to his left eye, but is very keen.”  He had very poor eyesight in his left eye.

Following the doctor's report on 24 May 1917 Arthur was attached as a Private to the NZ Expeditionary Force 30^th Reinforcements, Otago Infantry Regiment. He was sent to the Featherston Camp for training.

He must have been a bit of a lively lad as in August 1917 as he went AWOL twice and was docked several day’s pay in punishment.

Arthur spent 1 year 92 days in overseas service. He embarked from Wellington on troop ship no 93 destined for Liverpool. Arriving in the cold of December they marched 220 miles to the NZ training depot at Sling on the bleak Salisbury Plain, then on to Codford Camp, south of Salisbury where 2,400 NZers were stationed. By Jan 1918 while at Codford he was ill with influenza. Recooperated, in March 1918 they were sent to France for the battle of the Somme.

The NZ division was stationed at Auchonvillers near the Ancre River in the Somme area. Diaries say the NZ Division fought with colossal toughness as they had attracted the full attention of the enemy.  Shelling, new Whippet tanks, machine guns, mustard gas and air attacks took their toll with huge casualties and exhaustion on both sides. These battles, that we can see in retrospect through research into soldiers' diaries, were fraught with difficulties, poor communications and organisation. Allied back up troops often arrived late and were-ill informed of what was going on, so much so, that they were fired on by planes from the same side. Soldiers were terrified by the new Whippet Tanks, which had not been explained to them: they thought they were German tanks, when they were from the same side.

Whatever went on – Arthur's battle service was short, just three months in the field. By 6 June 1918 he had been transferred back to the camp and then Military hospital in Codford. In August  he was certified unfit for military service, not only because of the pre-war partial sight in his left eye, but also for hyperthroidism or shell shock.

At that time it was believed that men with such mental /psychological afflictions were cowards. Some were shot. Their families suffered more than grief but also the stigma involved.

Luckily Arthur survived because the New Zealanders had a strong medical response. Following treatment at Codford on 3 Dec 1919 he embarked from Liverpool for NZ via Tahiti. He was given a war pension, a silver war badge and a King’s Certificate. By 1921 he was awarded a British war medal.

He married in Dec 1919 and lived in Dunedin. His occupation was a labourer. They had two girls. Arthur died in 1959 aged 62. He had never kept good health.

~Tania Kopytko