City to Shire Chapter 18 ~ A Century of Remembrance I (Revised Edition)

Windsor Street Days ~ First Edition

Chapter 18

of the Family Story is dedicated to Carol’s youngest Grandson

FINN

Carol, our elder sister, is the Head of the Family.

Finn, this is the standard .303 Rifle that you’ll recognize from the film ‘1917’. It’s the standard rifle that John and I trained on too. I had 25 held in stores armaments on squadron … and when you see John next, ask him about stripping one down. If I say that, even now, he’s mega quick at stripping the rifle and reassembling it, then you get another little piece of info on yet another flight lieutenant! We’re all over the place in the family!!! haha, Uncle Ken. Also, more importantly, Grumpy will be able to tell you all sorts about the .303 - its strengths and weaknesses because Grumpy is an expert in firearms even though he does not say so. He’ll be delighted to enlighten you, as indeed he has me. :) Grunk

Introduction

Much of what follows is heavy at the moment Finn but by the time you’re Jack’s age you’ll fully grasp it, and by Sam’s age, you’ll fully understand it. You already, in fact, have a good view. But the most important thing is to remember that I was very, very proud of you when you held your ground and explained why 1917 is indeed a film to be seen. Everything written here predates the film, much of it a quarter of a century ago, and therefore makes the film even more important, not least from the way the director and producers film all the scenes, “in real-time and at close body height.”

Chapter 19 and Chapter 20 are the two parts that bring us face-to-face with our ancestors, Finn. Your Great Grandmother (4-times-removed) Agnes Marshall, her three sons Frederick, Harry, and Granny’s Dad your Great Grandfather (3-times-removed) Frank, your Great-Great Uncle Harry (WWII KIA over Germany 1945) and Great-Great Uncle Ken (WWII KIA over Germany 1943), and Great Great Uncle Frank (whom Jack had met when I introduced him to his Great Great Uncle Frank at Granny’s funeral in 2016). The last three were all Royal Air Force. So this means that with Grumpy (your Dad’s father-in-law) and me, our family has had five people serving in the Royal Air Force and that’s impressive! We are, let us say, a Royal Air Force Family.

Chapter 20 also has a 9-minute Pathe Newsreel from November 11, 1920. It‘s a must-see because you have seen Nineteen Seventeen, and I have the maps showing the redoubts that my Grandad was defending when all hell broke loose, and the enemy caught them in a pincer movement.

Go well, Uncle Ken x

IT IS WRITTEN in Scripture that things are sometimes uttered out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. That is an ancient rendition. Today, we are more likely to see it written along the lines that sometimes great wisdom is spoken to adults by children.

One such occasion was a few weeks ago when visiting my nephew and his family in Gloucestershire. His youngest son Finn, and I were chatting and he asked me whether I had seen the film Nineteen Seventeen. No, I hadn’t yet. A brief exchange followed, a description of the film was given and what one should expect, and how (these are my words) one would be enlightened.

I tend to steer clear of many documentary-drama productions on either of the world wars as, too often, the anomalies or mistakes, clash with the facts.

But Finn had said things that had me thinking: I need to watch this. It clearly inspired him, and he was obtaining a handle on history that too often evades children. And driving back that evening, I remember being quietly very proud of Finn, but also aware that my reputation might well be on the line if I didn’t do that which I had promised, namely, to watch 1917.

In 2018 I had done extensive family research, as my mum’s father had served in the First World War along with his eldest brother Frederick and elder brother Harry, my Grandfather being the only one to return.

The account that follows was written several years ago, culminating in the paper for the University of Gloucestershire in 2018. I say this because the descriptive accounts predate the film by many years, and I would not want readers to think they had been suggested by the film. Rather, Finn’s film 1917 is entirely independent ant yet perfectly dovetailing with all of that research, including the formal research conducted for me when I commissioned research, and the verbal conversations I had with my grandfather in the 1970s when, one afternoon calling in to see my Grandparents for a cuppa, without warning Grandad ‘opened up’, something he very rarely did.

The author of the commissioned research and I had both served together as flight lieutenants in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, each commanding squadrons, and so doing quite a lot of joint military exercises; and the author of the research is now a well-known public speaker on the Great War and other wars, and qualified to act as a battlefield tour guide on what became known as the Western Front in the Great War. These will resume once the world obtains a firm grip on the current covid pandemic. He has also written the definitive history of the King’s School Gloucester appertaining to the world wars.

This is very much a family story, hence the importance of this dedication.

I always love to encourage young people, and I think that at this point it is an idea that Finn sees a photograph of his Dad with his Great Great Grandfather Frank Ewart Marshall (1899-1977) and his Great Great Grandmother Martha Isabella, Granny’s Mum and Dad.

And thank you Finn for so succinctly touching the rudder a few weeks ago and getting your very military uncle back on course! Or as my RAF uncles Ken, Harry, and Frank would say “flying straight and level again!”

This is my Dad and my great-great-grandfather Frank and great-great-grandmother Martha (Marshall - Jack’s middle name) at Gran and Grandad M’s at Siddington near Cirencester when Dad was very, very, very, very, VERY young … Finn (12 - almost!!)

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EPISODE I

Part I

AND ON THE ELEVENTH HOUR of the eleventh day in the eleventh month, the guns fell silent. Thus commenced the Armistice, a term that even today, pulls the informed to order.

All of us, in our family histories, know that when men, yes, and most certainly women, returned from the front, an unwritten order of the day would stand: say nothing, speak not of war, be silent until your days draw to a close, whether it be this week, next year or many decades from now. For this was the war to end all wars. That is an end to the matter.

And, by and large, that was maintained.

When war loomed again two decades later, already by 1935[1] those who had fought realized, with a growing sense of dread, that their own sons would soon be lost to an even greater war now menacing every horizon the world over.

Most of us know of grandparents receiving the ‘dreaded priority telegram’[2] in that next war.

And, permit me, friends, but I am quite tired these days, so please indulge my lack of commitment by placing here part of a family archival note.

Anyone doing research into the Great War and individual families must keep in mind ten factors:

      I.         That what, today, we called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), was unknown. Its symptoms, in the minds of the military generally, military doctors, and the general public meant, simply, ‘malingerer!’ Mental health problems emanating from military service too often resulted in court-martial. Upon demobilization, the horror of war was not talked about. In WWII this blunt approach to mental incapacity resulting from war injury continued and was dealt with all too often, by one’s file being marked LMF – lacking moral fibre. This was notoriously so in the RAF

     II.         That apart from the Zeppelin raids on North-East coastal towns and upon London, and the sustained ‘First London Blitz’ in 1916-1918 by the German Gotha bombers (hence King George V changing the family name from Saxe-Coburg Gotha to Windsor), the general public were not in the frontline; the tragedy of what was happening in France and Belgium and in every other wider-world theatre of war, only became apparent as villages, hamlets, towns, and cities watched with shock, then creeping horror, the step-by-step removal of an entire generation of men – the flower of youth[3] – over four years

   III.         Resulting from this, people just wanted to forget “the war to end all wars”, and given that the Great War was global, people simply could not imagine a repeat. They could not comprehend that any future war could possibly exceed that which they had just suffered. The Treaty of Versailles 1919 – akin to sewing highly productive seeds of discontent, and then liberally watering them with the most exacting war reparations, upon Germany – seemed, to the victorious powers, fully justified. If only they had realized what they were doing!

   IV.         That veterans remained silent; families gradually settled into a new kind of existence, but – as with my own family – what we now realize was PTSD, was, at times seen in my grandfather merely because he was strict, prone to sudden outbursts, and yet a loving, doting family man too. This dichotomy confused me throughout my life, and it is only now, as I put the pieces of the jigsaw together, that I begin to understand; and also because of my many conversations with his youngest son Frank between May 2016 - March 2018. Countless families can report today, in their own histories, very similar occurrences

    V.         That the total number of military and civilian casualties in the Great War (later to be classified as World War I) was 41 million globally, and Wikipedia reports that there were 18 million deaths and 23 million wounded, “ranking it among the deadliest human conflicts in human history” [4]

   VI.         That the total number of military and civilian deaths in World War II has, for many years, been set at 55 million

 VII.         Wikipedia reports a higher figure of 80 million if one takes into account war-related disease and famine. But another source recently suggested that the figure of 55 million is perhaps conservative and that globally, eminent historians now set the figure at around 100 million, although it is still subject to debate, and frankly, the true total will never likely be known

VIII.         Factor VII is therefore important when obtaining a correct perspective of Factor V, which suggests that Factor V was more than doubled between 1933-1945

   IX.         Factor V is vitally important in order to understand the “thinking of ordinary men and women who had lived through the First World War”, who had lost whole families, and just as they were picking up the pieces and rebuilding their families, they saw the inevitability of an even greater war looming

     X.         Why is Factor V so important? Simply this. The men who fought in the Great War, who had been prisoners of war, who had been gassed, and so forth, – and here I’m referring to all sides of the conflict – now saw the inevitability of the loss of their own sons. Many in Germany realized this but could not say so because of the regime within which they now lived.

 Part II

In 2018 I was approached by the University of Gloucestershire. In their research, students discovered an entry in the Gloucestershire Chronicle & Graphic edition dated December 14, 1918, about two brothers. Was I related by any chance? Yes, one is a great-uncle and the other is my maternal grandfather. There is a third brother too, but no records now exist of him. Well, we would like to do a video with you. (That is now lodged with the University Archive).

But in speaking with the students, it became very clear that they could not grasp the interrelation between the two world wars, hence these ten factors as guideposts for future sustained study.

Part III

In my conversations with our grandparents over 25 years - Isabel, Horace, Frank, and Martha - this interrelation was constant anxiety. On Dad’s side (Grampy, Finn), my grandparents were writing to my uncle (Ken) at the time of the Munich Crisis in September 1938 not to join the RAF, sending him newspaper articles in support of their concerns, but briskly rejected in his own typed letters back. These are within the family archive. This was the same situation with Granny’s parents (Marshall) and her brother, Harry, who also joined the RAF via the Air Training Corps[5].

That both my grandfathers served in the trenches in the Great War, I am only too aware that they knew they would lose their sons, and of course, both did. It was a foregone conclusion for countless families on all sides of the war. When we approach war, whilst the combatants might take the view that it won’t happen to me, their families see the situation in the cold light of day; at most, they can hope that faith and prayers might mean something.

Anyone researching the importance of the Armistice must anchor this point firmly in their thinking, in their analysis, and in deliberation, even though it might actually remain silent on the pages of their essay, dissertation or thesis, or Masters. This is imperative.

It is essential that the Armistice of 1918 is not seen only as this singular event, although my conclusion at the end of this chapter does explain this more fully. People, of course, hoped that it would be a singular event.

Having said that, it is crucial that in writing of the 1918 Armistice, it is also seen through the eyes of those living in 1918 and without awareness of what was to unfold in the next five, ten, fifteen, and twenty years. History must at times deliberately stand still, thus enabling the reader to then step back in time and seize that moment of history.

In 1918-1919 it was perfectly reasonable for people of all countries to rely upon the future being underpinned by the eloquent phrase that has now slipped into the annals of history and also of sad irony – the War to end all Wars.

No such eloquence occupied the minds of people in 1945. A sober reality and cynicism set in and which, to an extent, remains.

But those two world wars have delivered Europe, roughly, seventy-five years of peace (setting aside the Cold War and the Balkan Wars following the dismemberment of Yugoslavia on the death of Marshal Tito); so it is understandable when people born in this century cannot easily connect to, say, 20th-century history.

Surely, peace is a given! People wouldn’t behave like that again. Would they?!

Sadly, human nature argues otherwise. To this century’s generation, it is all around them. The Faceless People – old-age pensioners that tend to “get in our way in town”, some who smell, a lot who don’t have a life, many who are a nuisance, and so forth. But these very people getting in their way still connect present with past, although obviously this living connection is fast narrowing and will be gone within a few years.

This is where the importance of history comes into play, and young people now have a vital role in bringing to the public conscience the lessons from the past; lessons that have established our security today and that will hopefully act as a means of securing our safety in the future, based loosely on the premise – we must never let that happen again.

 Part IV

I was once asked how I could be so certain about the awfulness of WWII. We are rightly shocked at the deaths in one day on the WW1 battlefields. I explained that the answer, for me, lies in statistics. If we take but one element of WWII, the strategic bombing offensive against Germany, RAF Bomber Command comprised a total of 125,000 aircrew volunteers of which, by 1945, 55,573 failed to return.

At the height of the war, in Spring 1943, my father’s brother, Ken Webb Senior, commented, on a 24-hour leave pass home, ‘that the average life expectancy of bomber crews is four operations. He was killed on his fourth operation. Thousands were killed on the first operation or in the very demanding and dangerous OCUs and HCUs[6] while undergoing training missions, or which were suddenly thrown in, to make up a maximum effort. That only deals with the Royal Air Force. It does not touch upon the losses suffered by the U.S. Army Air Corps, nor the armies and navies and merchant navies and convoys[7] of the Allies.

Nor does it report the millions of civilians killed in those operations. The losses on all sides are incomprehensible unless we apply the litmus paper test of the war being waged in Syria (now approaching its ninth year).

Part V 

Like all of us, I remember growing up in the long shadow of the Second World War. Some of you, around the world, reading this served in the War, and to you, I extend to you my heartfelt thanks.

I played on bomb sites. I knew all the places in Cheltenham, Gloucester, and Coventry (these all being family homes) that had been bombed, including my mother’s factory near the LMS railway station and which is now the Lansdown industrial estate. In the war, Martins’ Factory was building glider wings, and German intelligence knew this and so bombed it. That is not a criticism of Germany. That is the reality of total war. We were doing exactly the same to Germany. It does though vividly bring to mind that wartime poster of Hitler and Goering sitting on a bus behind two classic brit-gossips!

I know the exact point in Gas Lane where mum (Granny) and her friend squeezed into the recess of the brick wall very early one morning walking to work, to escape the blast. Of course, I did not learn of that particular incident, or of her being thrown beneath the bed by Grandad as they watched the street and gardens go up – “the gardens all seeming to stay the same even in the air for just a millisecond” – until, in my thirties, expressing my own anger at the IRA bombings and rebuking mum who was ironing at the time in the kitchen, ‘oh mum you don’t understand!’ ‘No dear.’

Another quarter-century was to pass before mum told me in depth about these incidents. I then remembered my own arrogance. Mentioning it, mum laughed, “Oh yes, I remember that well Ken. But you were young and you had your own thinking. Nothing I was going to say would alter your thinking. Each generation has to go through this.” 

Part VI

Returning to my grandfather and his brothers (1914–1918):

PTE. Harry A Marshall 25th Gloucestershire Regiment and his brother Pte Frank E Marshall 2nd Devonshire Regiment

Finn’s great-great-great Uncle Harry and his great-great-great-grandad Frank (Marshall Branch)

Cheltenham & Gloucestershire Gazette dated December 14, 1918

I learned about life in the prisoner of war camp, and not as neat and tidy as is often portrayed in Hollywood films, with peace, good order, and discipline. Despite the Geneva Convention the prisoners of war (POWs) were put to forced labour and this cost the life of one, and the third one – the eldest - simply ‘disappeared’. Again, I draw the distinction with what we knew went on with our Armed Forces who were captured by the Japanese. There, the circumstances were even worse and, for most of us, beyond imagination.

In the paper I had written for the University of Gloucestershire in 2018 I recorded a conversation with my grandfather.

He described the hand-to-hand fighting - 'them or us', 'him or me', and Grandad also indicated the full length of the .303 rifle when the bayonet was fixed, pointing that it came up to my shoulder, adding, and you're a tall chap Ken; think what that was like with me! Grandad was shorter. Then that famous little almost mono-syllabic giggle...Aye … …Aye, terrible times Ken, terrible. He would then choose silence and would look, as it were, through and beyond the fireplace.

His description is seared into my memory – a description, whispered almost, in the front room at Elmfield ... the shouting, screaming, swearing; friends holding the tunics of the soldiers they were fighting; of wrestling in mud and water, fighting free, grabbing your rifle, not daring to look back, and then into the next screaming rout. Both sides experienced the same horror. Kill or be killed.

I remember, at the time, my toes curling up inside my boots, for the one thing I always feared was hand-to-hand fighting – like it was medieval and literally every man for himself! It was kill or be killed.

It was a very sober walk back to the police station that day!!!

I didn’t mention much of which I now write; in a way, I too was traumatized, and it would have gotten Grandad into trouble with my mum and dad. I was in uniform when Grandad opened up - it was one day when I called in from my police station in Waterloo Street just at the end of Elmfield Road, for a cup of tea (I was the Area Constable). As mum said a very long time later, ‘Dad told you things Ken he didn’t normally mention. I think it’s because you’re in uniform and the VR; he realized that you’d understand.’



The Great War - The Western Front

I set these factors out quite simply because my discussions with my grandfather up to his death in 1977, resumed afresh and with greater poignancy with his youngest son, Frank, between 2016-2018 when, I was able to check all of these facts with him. Frank had a razor-sharp mind and had also personally witnessed, in his RAF service as part of Operation Grapple, the two British hydrogen bomb tests in 1957-58 on Christmas Island in the Pacific (at that time a British possession) and thus giving this country its nuclear deterrent. I learned a lot more too. Never, ever underestimate PTSD.

Part VII

Finn’s great-great-great-Grandma Agnes Marshall circa 1895

Returning therefore to the combined service of these brothers, a friend[8] with whom I served in the RAF VR - in a research study I commissioned - has drawn attention to the myth about my great grandmother (Agnes Marshall of Vine Cottage) apparently being charged for the inscription on the headstone Asleep in Jesus.

He writes:

By the way – the assertion in the newspaper article that the family were charged for the wording on the headstone is a myth. When the plan to allow a personal inscription on headstones was first put forward, civil servants formulated a scale of charges based on an amount per word/letter. Once it got to final approval stage that idea was dropped. Unfortunately, the forms had already been printed, so reference to the charge remained on them. A covering letter (or slip of paper included in the envelope) explained the situation, but that is usually lost by relatives. Hence the myth of charging for the wording.

I quite understand how this can happen, as even our own family archive throws up anomalies. That is par for the course. I have custody, on the family’s behalf, of the brass tobacco tin issued to all soldiers in 1914–1918, designed to keep things dry underground in the trenches, the large round Penny with Harry Marshall inscribed which my grandparents kept on the hearth. Over a century of cleaning, the name is beginning to disappear, so all items - spanning 130 years - are now safely behind glass, not least because I now count that Penny as two ‘Harry Marshalls’ from the two World Wars – Uncle and Nephew.

Part VIII

The Scotch-Corner Incident[9]

I now come to a separate recollection of my grandfather. I recall this conversation as if it were yesterday.

One might wonder how one can recall conversations in such detail half a century on; put quite simply, 30 years in the legal profession underpinned by 11 years police service, taught me the discipline of making accurate contemporaneous notes and statements of evidence, in which we were taught to recall detail and to leave nothing unreported. This was a necessary practice in military command too. So all four professions honed this evidential memory recall.

Scotch Corner came up in one of our conversations – I was going up to Newcastle and mentioned I was having to via Scotch Corner.

Oh?

Yep. Scotch Corner. Do you know it then Grandad? (rather naive of me given that my mum’s family all hail from South Shields – but hey ho – youth, again!!)

Oh aye. I know it all right. But not that one Ken. I know that too. But I’m talking about the one in France.

Oh right. How do you mean Grandad?

It was a crossroads of trenches – those damned trenches – just nothing but mud, muck, bullets, filth, bodies, stench, whizbangs overhead, and water. Always water. Loads of brown muddy, filthy water. Ankle-deep Ken. Can’t stand the stuff!

We used to go up to the front each day and we’d passed Scotch Corner. A young Scots lad had bought it and he was lying there in his kilt and sporran. And each day we’d all sing out, Hey Jock, Morning Jock, and each evening we’d say it again, Hey Jock, Evening Jock. Been bad today but we’re still ‘ere.

Was sad really. As each day passed we could see young Jock just getting deader and deader, if you know what I mean Ken. Your mum says you’ve seen a post-mortem?

Yes, Grandad. God, I didn’t like that. One of us passed out, not me though!

I’m not surprised. But you get the idea.

Well, we had a ‘push’ on. We had to take the line. We knew where they were. We could ‘ear ‘em talking. No Man’s Land wasn’t as wide as you think Ken.

The officers were getting us all ready; we fixed bayonets and, God, the worst part was the waiting. A huge artillery barrage over our heads to soften ‘em up. But what we dreaded was the whistles. Then it was up and over and every man for himself. Not good Ken. Not good, aye.

Grandad would then stare again into another world and I’d sit patiently.

I remember Grandma coming in with a pot of tea. Grandad loved his tea and he loved having everything neat and tidy and exactly in its right place. Everything had to be pristine. Grandma stayed with us and resumed her knitting. Grandad was sitting forwards on the settee, his preferred place and I was sitting on a stool by the fireplace, my helmet down by my side. Grandad always sat forward with his arms on his knees as if warming his hands – I’ve seen many photographs of this posture in trench warfare. But I noticed that my uncle did the same warming his hands on the coal fire. I’m glad I saw that. It connected all the dots.

We had to fix bayonets, Ken. Those were damned long things. I hated them. We knew that taking the trench meant hand-to-hand fighting. (I’ve already mentioned this).[10]

Well, we got caught out. They got round the back of us somehow. We got cut off and we were captured. We were being marched back along our trenches that were now in German hands, and this guard, he was a decent chap actually, saw young Scottie. 

He halted us and went up and liked the look of the sporran. A war trophy. Ermmm. Some war trophy that turned out for him! Aye!! I remember his big kettle helmet – nothing like ours.

He bent down and took hold of it, and of course, Scottie was all now empty, like air; and he just caved in and a whole blast of dust came up at that guard. He staggered back, and it plain shocked him; so much so, that when we saw ’im the next morning, his hair had turned white overnight. So that’s Scotch Corner Ken.

Part IX

In the Prisoner of War Camp 

Flt Lt Brunsdon has very kindly offered to look into the official war diary of the Gloucestershire Regiment in which my eldest great uncle served, and also possibly into the Devonshire Regiment so that I can report accurately on the battle in which Grandad was fighting when he was captured. I will keep the family advised.[11]

I always remember Grandad saying that it was two years since he had seen his brother and that he had presumed that Harry was dead. But I do not know whether, as I originally presumed, that Grandad had been a prisoner of war for two years.

The Archive reveals that Great Uncle Harry died in October 1918. Grandad was demobilized from the Regiment and Army in 1919.

I recall Grandad’s interpretation of events as this:

Someone came to him excitedly to say that ‘we think your brother’s here. Harry Marshall. He’s in the hospital.’

Grandad was always very quiet when he spoke about this; this was the age of dismantling empire, of stoicism and, in British society, it was an absolutely unwritten code of conduct that emotions were suppressed, and this remained so even into the mid-1980s when the fabric of what is termed ‘respectable society and common decency’ started to give way to a completely new and alien way of life to at least three generations who were all in their 50s – 90s.

So Grandad merely looked down at the carpet, then looked up at the window, “Aye. Harry died in my arms, and that’s that.”

I remember Grandma putting her knitting down and she was upset. Not outwardly. But she was also, I’m sure, recalling the loss of their eldest child Harry, their younger son Tom and their two daughters. And Grandma took the teapot into the kitchen.

As I say, I think perhaps Grandad wasn’t with Harry. But Grandma and Grandad shouldered on, as did my father’s parents.

I’ll end with a quote by my grandfather’s eldest son Harry in a letter to him and Grandma, undated in 1944, in which he expressed relief that the snow has gone from his RAF Station[12] at last, and which sums up Grandad’s total disdain for mud of any description:

“... you had better get some practice in Dad. Well all our snow has gone. I am glad too. It’s so messy with it all about. Nothing like a dry road aye Dad.”

— FS Harry Alfred Marshall Flight Engineer RAF VR (KIA January 16-17, 1945)

Final Part X

Addendum

Since writing the above, we now know the crash sites of both Avro Lancaster PB 402 LQ-M and Handley Page Halifax DK 165 MP-E in Germany.

War is full of ironies. Harry’s Avro Lancaster PB402 LQ-M crashed on the evening of Tuesday, January 16, 1945, in Pfaffenhausen, Germany. The aircraft came down in thick snow, and the RCAF [13] Records report that German troops attending the crash found the crew, one having been injured and attempting unsuccessfully to get clear of the aircraft. They followed the steps and blood in the snow and eventually found the body, but the report does not tell us who that person was.

Conclusion

... nothing like a dry road. Well that says it all. It also bridges the great chasm between the Armistice 1918 and which has become the Act of Remembrance.

To this day though, we, in the armed forces, or who have served in the armed forces, refer to the act of remembrance quite simply as “The Armistice”, not even Armistice Day. It is the Armistice.

To do otherwise seems incorrect and disrespectful to the signing of the Armistice at the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day, in the eleventh month of the year of Our Lord Nineteen Eighteen.

KTW

This is a Heavily Abridged Version of the Archival Paper written for the University of Gloucestershire dated June 14, 2018

Footnotes

[1] South Riding by Winifred Holtby (1898-1935) in 1935 a fellow student at Oxford with - and lifelong friend of - Vera Brittain.

[2] Windsor Street Days – Chapter Six : The dreaded Priority Telegram

[3] And of course, Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain.

[4] Wikipedia is an informal source of reference only, and its reports and conclusions always need to be independently verified.

[5] 125 (Cheltenham) Squadron, Air Training Corps (formerly the Air Defence Cadet Corps).

[6] Operation Conversion Units and Heavy Conversion Units

[7] Das Boot by Lothar-Günther Buchheim (1973)

[8] Captain Robert Brunsdon Rtd. Bob has prepared an archive despatch in excess of 100 pages, including maps of the trenches and redoubts being defended at the time of capture. Bob is also a regular speaker at the Western Front Association and prior to Covid took parties on battlefield tours of the Western Front (WWI)

[9] From the Family Archive: A Paper: Three Brothers 1914-1918 written in June 2018 to assist students from the University of Gloucestershire who had requested assistance in the material they had found about the Marshall family in their research

[10] In fact, the research now shows that the Devonshires had a series of temporary redoubts behind the trenches. As they back, apparently to lure the Germans, the redoubts would hold their positions for around fifteen minutes and then fall back to their main lines. But in the confusion of battle, the redoubts didn’t receive the signal or message to retreat in time. However, the Germans quickly worked round the back of the redoubts (hillocks) and cut the defenders off. And this is another reason why I’m very grateful to my young nephew reminding me to watch the film 1917 directed and produced by Sam Mendes, and written by Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns

[11] This has now been completed and comprises two volumes of very comprehensive archival records, including battle maps, military reports and individual records relating to Grandad and Great Uncle Harry. Their value is well over £100 so these are retained in my safe and are not to be released without my express (written) permission. KTW

[12] RAF Gransden Lodge, Cambridgeshire ~ 405 (City of Vancouver) Squadron, Pathfinder Force, RCAF.

[13] Royal Canadian Air Force

I’ll continue this part of the Family Story in the next instalment - Chapter 19 which will publish on Wednesday, November 11, 2020.

Grandad at Nursery Cottage, Siddington, circa 1975-1976. Grandad worked hard, damned hard throughout his whole life. It was not an easy life for him or for Grandma, but their generation did not quit; and I was very aware, as a teenager, that my four grandparents and parents and aunts and uncles had, between them all, fought two world wars and come out the other side and given my sisters and me a very firm foundation, a loving family, and a sense of public and national service and duty To all six, I am indebted. And this has been carried on by my elder sister and younger sister; each has a thriving family, and my elder sister stepped in where angels fear to tread, and thus secured my own singular foundation. I love this photograph, taken either by my sister or brother-in-law at their cottage in a quiet village outside Cirencester - their first home of our own; for it epitomizes Grandad’s whole approach to life. Frank was, by now, retired, and one of the things he loved was gardening. He also had a rather robust approach to home decorating! It became a family smile.

Mum would say, “I left the house in the morning and when I got back from work in the evening the whole house had been decorated and wall-papered afresh!” What I can now safely say is that this was my Mum’s approach too. “If I wait for your father Ken, we’ll be here ‘til Domesday. And you’re like your Dad too!”

The ladies in our family are NOT afraid of hard work!! Finn and Jack and Sam will vouchsafe their Mum on this too.

Pte. Harry (Henry) Alfred Marshall 240925 Gloucestershire Regiment 24th October 1918

The only reference to all three brothers in service.

Grandad remained silent about Frederick. All we knew was that he had died at the war’s end. At the turn of the century, my father commissioned an archivist to research the family generally, including Frederick. When he returned, he took my father aside … “Des, it’s best that we let that be. It might upset Nancy” (my mother). I have however commissioned my friend to continue his research. Although his name does not appear on the Cheltenham Cenotaph, my grandfather, nevertheless gave his eldest brother’s name to his youngest son Frank in 1938.

We do something else, too. Our fingers always run twice across the name of Harry Marshall Senior, and, for good measure, twice across the name of his nephew Harry Marshall Junior.

The Labour Corps

Sometimes, people presume that a Labour Battalion suggests previous disciplinary action. As language evolves, meanings of words sometimes lose their importance.

The Labour Corps that was created in 1917 was crucial to the British Army carrying out its military operations. Today we know this role as the highly esteemed Royal Logistics Corps, formed in 1993 and whose Colonel-in-Chief is Her Royal Highness, the Princess Royal.

Uncle Frederick’s Signature 1906 in his Bible now in the family archive

The only record that Frederick existed within the family archive, apart from the National Census, is Frederick’s Signature in 1906 in his Bible (aged 14). It reminds me of his youngest brother’s handwriting. Grandad’s handwriting was also meticulous and deliberate.

Just for you Finn

3 April 2024
All Rights Reserved


LIVERPOOL

© 2024 Kenneth Thomas Webb

First written 14 November 2020
but elements relating to World War I were written in 2018
prior to the Lachen-Speyerdorf Memorial Ceremony on 4 August 2018 in Germany

Reproofed 9 October 2022
Re-edited 3 April 2024