After the Great War Album - a family perspective

 

Family Memories ............. Uncle Abel, far left in this picture with two colleagues, survived the war.

 

Below is the framed memorial to Uncle Alf with his medals, including DCM, dog-tag, capbadge, and 'penny'. He was killed 31/7/1917.

 

 

 

 

 

Uncle Abel Newman was a pre-war territorial with the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars and was called up immediately war was declared. As Private 1829 his Medal Index Card records his arrival in France on Sept 20th 1914 as a boy of 19; my Gran remembered that he worked as a cowman for Mr Lennox at Enstone and rode off on his employer's horse. He had joined the QOOH in April 1913; for unknown reason records show that he left his Squadron in February 1917 and he ended his war service as a Pioneer with 315 Road Construction Company. He was demobilized on March 2nd 1919 at Villers Carbonnel, just south of Peronne, a place remembered on Grandad's matchbox cover(below). This photo is of Abel and colleagues just before their departure to France; Abel is seated on the left of the front row......

A Soldier's Prayer Book, that came back from the Great War after the owner's death.

Uncle Alf ..... his medals are still in the display case 92 years after his death. The DCM was awarded for '..conspicous gallantry and devotion to duty...example of courage and initiative'. London Gazette 18 June 1917. He was killed six weeks later 31/7/1917 at Ypres, while serving with the 2nd Bn, Rifle Brigade.

From the War Diary of the 2nd Battalion Rifle Brigade. Date - 5th April 1917/Location - Fins-Gouzeaucourt/Entry signed by 2nd LT Keppel (son of Son of The Earl of Albemarle and of Gertrude, Countess of Albemarle, of Quidenham, Norfolk also killed at Ypres 31/7/1917.)

"A Stokes Mortar was brought up to fire on the MILL at 10am and after about 30 rounds had been fired Sgt Cross in charge of the 2 patrols Battle Patrol Platoon worked their way forward and drove the Germans out of their strong post and pushed on down the slope and caused the enemy many casualties in the low ground. The enemy retaliated by bringing heavy shell fire on these troops in an exposed condition and after dark Sgt Cross after suffering 5 or 6 casualties brought his detachment back to the enemy trench on the crest by the MILL buildings."

The letters that arrived following his death............

Despite '... crosses being made' his body was not recovered and he is remembered on the Menin Gate in Ypres with a great number of his colleagues who also perished on the opening morning of what has become known as the Battle of Passchendaele. His name is also recorded on the War Memorial in his home village of Spelsbury, Oxfordshire. However, there is an 'Unknown' Rifle Brigade Serjeant duried close to 2nd Lt Keppel in Aeroplane Cemetery...maybe, just maybe.....

I know something of where Grandad - originally in the Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry - served from the Brass Matchbox cover he brought home. Peronne is well known as large town at the southern end of the British held part of the Western Front. Ytres is a village 6km to the north of Peronne, while Jolimetz is some way north-east, on the edge of the Forest of Mormal, near Le Quesnoy. The matchbox cover always brings a wry smile to my face, having spent many years believing that Ytres was a mis-spelling of Ypres - the truth was exposed by a friend from Belgium when I was visiting Ypres, and confirmed some years later when I found Granddad's service record. I made the drive from Ypres to Ytres in record time that year, and had a superb time showing the box off to the locals in the only bar I could find there, before being invited to the home of a local military enthusiast and being granted a viewing of a private museum - priceless!

Private William Alfred Cross. Grandad joined the Oxford & Bucks Light Infantry on 12th June 1915, but his later service record contains reference to periods in the Devon Regiment, Royal Berks Regiment, and the Somerset Light Infantry, before his discharge at Ytres, France, in February 1919. He had hardly arrived in France in December 1915 when he was returned to the UK and hospitalised at Netley. He spent the last 18 months or so of the Great War in 166 Company of the Labour Corps and it was this service that took him to Jolimetz and he was there at the time of the Armistice. In October 1918 he had been at Gouzeaucourt, where his brother had earned his DCM the previous year.

The War Memorial within the Parish Church at Spelsbury, Oxfordshire. Private Cooper was a cousin of Alfred and William Cross; several other cousins from this small village also served. Lt Col Dillon is buried in the churchyard. His memoires are frequently quoted in Great War literature.

These are a few links to some sites that interest me and which may be of interest to you:-

Soldiers of Oxfordshire - a new and developing resource.
Oxford Yeomanry; a lot of research is taking place regarding the Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars.
More Yeomanry information.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission
In Flanders Field - THE Museum at Ypres
Ypres - all about the city, by the city

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Click here to see the 'Martin Certificate'. Nothing at all to do with WW1.