November 4th 1918

[Snapper]

If you were to buy the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s guide map book to it’s cemeteries in northern France and Belgium, on some pages you would be confronted with a haze of numbered blue dots, each one a corner of a foreign field...

 

A good example is Ors Communal Cemetery, a typical French village burial ground with the addition of a plot for British military graves from the Great War.

 

On the morning of 4th November 1918, the British 32nd Division had been tasked with making a hazardous assault across the Sambre-Oise Canal. A number of battalions carried out the attack, including one from the Royal Sussex Regt; the 16th Lanacashire Fusiliers and the 2nd Manchesters.

 

Two VCs were won that drab November day eighty-nine years ago. The first was won by 31 year old Lieutenant Colonel James Neville Marshall of the Irish Guards, who was attached as CO of the 16th Lancs. He came from Harlow in Essex and already held the MC & Bar. His citation reads: On 4 November at the Sambre-Oise Canal, near Catillon, France, when a partly constructed bridge was badly damaged before the advanced troops of his battalion could cross, Lieutenant Colonel Marshall organised repair parties. The first party were soon killed or wounded, but the colonel's personal example was such that more volunteers were instantly forthcoming. Under intense fire and with complete disregard of his own safety he stood on the bank encouraging his men and helping in the work. When the bridge was repaired he attempted to lead his men across, but was killed in the attack.

 

Elsewhere on that day twenty-one year old 2nd Lieutenant James Kirk of the 10th but attached to the 2nd Manchesters showed immense bravery as he went to his death. His citation reads: On 4 November 1918 north of Ors, France, the battalion was attempting to bridge the Sambre-Oise Canal. In order to cover this difficult operation, Second Lieutenant Kirk took a Lewis gun and under intense machine-gun fire paddled across the canal and opened fire. Further ammunition was paddled across to him and he continued to provide cover for the bridging party until he was killed. His courage and self-sacrifice enabled two platoons to cross the bridge and prevented many casualties.

 

Another officer,famous for altogether different reasons; was killed by a sniper as he led a raiding party that day. He was twenty-five year old Lieutenant Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC of the 5th Manchesters. His poetry needs no introduction.

 

Ors on a wet October day is no beauty spot. The cemetery is reached down a small road and appears on the left just before a crossroads and a level crossing. The road from Ors leads to Cambrai via Le Cateau, where the British army conducted it’s famous holding battle of 1914 as the huge German armies swamped into Belgium and France to no avail.

 

In the British war graves plot the visitor sees three rows of graves while the solitary grave of the valiant Marshall sits by a neat hedge. Owen and Kirk are at either end of row A (at the back). The row also includes Lance Sergeant Alfred Ernest Hall MM, from Godalming, of the 16th Lancs and Captain Angus McKenzie MC & Bar, aged 42 from Perth; Private TE Cliffe MM and Corporal C Syrett MM of the 2nd Manchesters. In row B you will find Captain CHJ Hulton MC of the 16th Lancs. Row C at the front holds the grave of the only man not to have been killed on Nov 4. He is Private A Buckley of the York & Lancaster Regiment who fell on Oct 25th. While the vast majority of burials are from the Lancs Fusiliers and the Manchesters, there are also graves for Private William Balmond of 1 Dorsets; Private E Webber of 32nd Bn Machine Gun Corps (Inf); Private FC Hudson of 2nd KOYLI and Private J Reed of the Highland Light Infantry all of whom died just seven days before the Armistice. There are four graves of Unknown Soldiers.

 

While the church bells were ringing out for peace on November 11th, the parents of Wilfred Owen were at home in Shrewsbury digesting the news that their son was dead. If Ors is a fine example of a corner of a foreign field immortalised by Rupert Brooke then we are as well to see the reverse side of the coin; however patriotic we may be, and question as Owen did the old adage: How sweet it is to die for your country. God bless them all. Wear Your Poppy With Pride.

 

 

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

 

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And floundering like a man in fire or lime-

Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

 

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

 

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the waggon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile incurable sores on innocent tongues-

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

 

[Joris]

Thanks for this story mate.

[Guest matt]

Mark,thanks for posting this. I have been interested in Wilfred Owen for a long time,and have been to see the memorial and house in Shrewsbury a few times.

 

Matt.

[Jack]

Thank you Mark.

[Snapper]

Ors is a place I always wanted to go. I would have liked to have gone down to the canal where the Western Front Assoc have placed a memorial tablet at the spot Owen died. The cemetery plot always looks bleak in every photo I've seen, and was not to be dissapointed on my trip. For real WW1 expertise you need to see Tom Morgan's Hellfire Corner website and the WFA's. There is also the Long Trail Home and I always like Silent Cities, but this appears to be off air - maybe they have server problems like we did. The CWGC site is a mine of information and I often amaze people with how easy it is to place someone when they say "MY grandad was killed in World War One". The site covers 1914 to about 1948 (from memory). It is a shame they have not done Korea up to the Falklands yet..or beyond. Families of military casualties are offered a war grave which the Commission then maintain, but many choose not to. Personally, I think it is superb to wander round a churchyard and see a war grave standing out. It kind of marks out the person. From my commuter train to work I noticed two headstones in a small church at Bowers Gifford in Essex - a real tiny hamlet in the middle of nowhere. I drove the Iltis down there one day and sure enough, one was a sailor killed early in WW2 and the other was of a Captain K Boss MC, an Airborne Forces artilleryman who died in June 1945. How unfair is that? In a stupid way, I wondered if he might even be the unnamed British officer murdered by a drunk in Band of Brothers. But it is stupid to speculate - but it was some poor soul.

[Enigma]

Here in Holland in my region there are several british graves in civilian cemetarys, we visit the ones in Puijflijk (a little hamlet near Nijmegen) each year where recce's lay buried.

[Joris]

I visit the cemetery in Oosterbeek a number of times per year and whenever I pass a cemetery I try to go there. Will visit Arlington when I'm in Washington this christmas.

[Enigma]

Washington?? That's not bad....

[Snapper]

You blokes are already a captive audience, it's getting the outside world to take more interest, even for just one day of the year, that matters most. Arlington would be fascinating. So many heroes. I hope you have a good safe trip.

[Joris]

I'm taking my wife and brother in-law to Arlington and my wife goes with me on my field trips to all sorts of fun places like concentration camps, cemeteries, battlefields etc.

[Snapper]

My wife won't have anything to do with MVs if she can help it. She's been to Duxford MV meet a couple of times when I was attempting to be a volunteer there - but she doesn't like the vehicles and cannot understand the people. Even me!!! (sometimes). But she comes on the battlefield trips and likes to visit cemeteries and sites of interest. She is not into museums that much. The kids go anywhere for a laugh. My son James is hooked. Good lad. I have trouble tempering the gun-nut in him. My daughter is a petrol head - but only for cars. She is 11. Give her time....

[ArtistsRifles]

My wife won't have anything to do with MVs if she can help it. She's been to Duxford MV meet a couple of times when I was attempting to be a volunteer there - but she doesn't like the vehicles and cannot understand the people. Even me!!! (sometimes). But she comes on the battlefield trips and likes to visit cemeteries and sites of interest. She is not into museums that much. The kids go anywhere for a laugh. My son James is hooked. Good lad. I have trouble tempering the gun-nut in him. My daughter is a petrol head - but only for cars. She is 11. Give her time....

 

 

Oi!!!!!!! When did you marry MY wife???????

[Snapper]

You're starting to worry me, Neil. I live in Westcliff, not that far from you and my Mrs spends a lot of time out doing her good works. Is she round your house cooking your tea?

[ArtistsRifles]

No - your safe - we're all laid up with the dreaded snuffly cold... :-)

[Snapper]

Last night she told me she would be more interested in experiencing the MV scene if we hadn't had the kids. People can be funny. My Mrs prefers "nice" cars.