Boy Soldiers of the Great War (7 page)

The vast majority of European inhabitants in Australia were of British descent, while in Canada a great wave of emigration over the previous century ensured that large numbers of immigrants had ties to Britain, including many Scots families made landless during the Clearances – though, surprisingly, still willing to help a nation that had treated them so badly. More recently, thousands of young men, both singly and with families, had left for Canada to seek work and a better living, while simultaneously there had been a regular flow of children sent from British orphanages to begin new lives across the water. Alfred Anderson’s two elder brothers, Dave and Jack, had both emigrated to Canada before the war. Dave, the eldest son, enlisted in the Canadian Infantry and Jack in the Canadian Royal Engineers. At one point all three brothers were serving in France at the same time; all survived.

It was often the toss of a coin, literally in some cases, that determined whether men set sail for Australia, Canada or perhaps New Zealand. They might have been seeking a new challenge but the emotional link with the past remained.

One of those prepared to help Britain in her hour of need was Wesley Wade from Sydney, New South Wales, a lad with family ties to Britain. He eventually found his way to France, serving with the 17th Battalion AIF, and saw action during the Somme. In August 1916 he was killed. His grave carries an interesting inscription chosen by his English mother, Agnes. It reads: ‘A Young Life gone to rest fighting for his King and Country’. It is an inscription that is by no means unique. Roderick Budsworth, a native of West Tamworth, New South Wales, was killed in fighting in November 1916. The inscription on his grave reads: ‘He died for King and the Empire’. Similarly, the grave of Sergeant Henry Flynn of the 38th Battalion of the Canadian Infantry carries the inscription: ‘Died for King and Country’. These give an indication of the ethos of the time, and, just as in Britain, it encouraged thousands of men and boys to enlist.

Those who were actually born in Britain had by far the greatest affinity with the mother country. While 6.5 per cent of Canadian boys of British parentage enlisted in the forces, a staggering 37.5 per cent of eligible British-born Canadian men joined up by the end of October 1916. Typical of the lads who enlisted were Thomas Tombs and Percy Layzell. Thomas was born in Worcester in 1900. He had emigrated with his parents to Vancouver, enlisting in the Alberta Regiment. Percy was a few months younger than Thomas. A lad from Brighton, he had emigrated with his parents, Charles and Bessie Layzell, to Kingston, Ontario, before he enlisted into the Canadian Field Artillery. Both Percy and Thomas later served on the Somme, where they were killed within a week of each other in November 1916. Both boys were then aged just sixteen.

Although most chose to enlist in Canada, a few boys preferred to return to Britain. James Hodding was born in Portsmouth in 1899, the son of Major James Hodding, a former Royal Fusilier and an ex-Indian Army officer. Soon after war broke out, fifteen-year-old James travelled from Vancouver back to Britain where, at sixteen, he was commissioned into the 10th Royal Fusiliers. He was killed the following year. His forty-nine-year-old father also reported for duty, and served with the 2nd Royal Fusiliers; he survived the war.

Bill Taylor was one of the British orphans sent to Canada – he had left London in 1908. He was never sure where he had been born and did not know precisely how old he was, although he was aware he was under age when he enlisted. In November 1914, Bill had been working as a farm labourer and, during some time off, had been watching the 20th Battalion training in Toronto. Mistaken for a new recruit, he was directed to take a medical and, before he knew what he was doing, was a member of the battalion. By September 1915 he was out in France where he continued to serve until he was seriously wounded in 1917.

Back in the mother country, just short of 300,000 men had volunteered for enlistment in August 1914, and the queues were thinning when press reports of the military crisis, the retreat from Mons, caused a second surge in recruitment. In September the enlistment figures rose dramatically to 460,000, most in the first two weeks of the month. It was a never-to-be repeated rush to the colours.

In spite of his initial excitement, Vic Cole had been one of those who opted to wait. He was studying wireless telegraphy at a school in Clapham and returned to work the following week, but his mind was elsewhere.

My work suffered greatly during the next few weeks. I wanted to be in the army with a gun in my hand, like the boys I had so often read about in books and magazines.

Vic was keen to go but he was unsure whether to take the irreversible step of enlisting. He attended a recruitment rally in early September 1914, listened to the rabble-rousing speeches, and then with his sixteen-year-old friend George Pulley decided to make the leap of faith. ‘George and I considered the matter, made our decision and approached the Sergeant who already had his eagle eye upon us.’

Once both boys had made their intentions clear, they were whisked away to sign up at once. As volunteers, they were offered the chance to pick their regiment, the last act of free will, as Vic saw it, for four years.

Lolling back on the nice cushioned seats of a fast car, we were rushed to a nearby hostel called The Crooked Billet. This was the Recruiting Office. In an upstairs room we stood before the Recruiting Officer who demanded particulars. Age? Nineteen years nine months! Occupation? Student. What regiment do you wish to join? Pulley behind me whispered, ‘West Kents’ so I said, ‘Make it West Kents.’

The R.O. with a smile (looking back on it, I feel inclined to say with a sinister smile) said ‘Sign this form.’ I did so. He handed me a railway warrant and a slip directing me to report at Bromley Drill Hall at 9 a.m. on the 7th inst.

Early on Monday morning, then, George and I, pockets stuffed with sandwiches, went forth to war. Arriving at the Hall without incident, we found some fifty other fellows wandering about in various stages of undress, undergoing medical inspection. Our turn came. We dutifully walked on our toes, exhaled and coughed when ordered, read jumbled letters on a card and passed as fit.

Vic and George were part of the surge of recruitment that followed the epic retreat from
Mons.
This had finally come to a juddering halt on 6 September, with exhausted British troops now southeast of Paris. Around this time the first lurid stories of atrocities
perpetrated by German soldiers began to filter home, the details of which were not forgotten at recruitment rallies. The civilian population of Belgium and northern France was being raped, robbed and randomly shot and it was up to Britain to save them.

Don Price was sixteen.

We heard about the Germans and the stories of their cruelty and the Uhlans we used to think were terrible people. Stories like that built up in my mind until I decided I wanted to do something for my country.

In Manchester we had the
Daily Dispatch
and what they said about the Germans, as far as I was concerned, was gospel. We believed it instinctively, no question.

Jimmy Rushworth was an apprentice with me, a tall lad, and he influenced me. We were talking one day in the warehouse and he said ‘I’m going down to enlist’ and I said ‘Right, Jimmy, I’ll come down with you.’ We went down to a hotel in Piccadilly, Manchester, to join, without any second thought about the consequences. We just believed we’d have a damn good time for about six months. Work was so tedious and people wanted a bit of fun and this was a way to get it. This would be a holiday.

I had no idea when I went to work that morning that I was going to enlist that lunchtime. I came home that night and said, ‘Mother, I’m in the army,’ just like that. When I told her, there was weeping and wailing. She wasn’t happy at all, but when I explained it would only be for about six months, she calmed down somewhat.

The Germans needed to be stopped and taught a lesson, Don believed. His was an abstract anger, the sense of a moral affront to decency. There was no personal hatred about it.

In the case of Frank Lindley, there most certainly was. As the war expanded, more and more boys would find themselves in his position, wanting to avenge the loss of a father or a brother. Frank
had left school in March 1914, on the day of his fourteenth birthday, to become a dental technician, a ‘posh job’, in his words. It was not what he wanted to do. He wanted to go to sea like his brother Harry, but his father had put his foot down and ended that idea, at least for the time being. Frank was immensely close to his brother, who was almost ten years his senior. Harry was an able seaman in the Royal Navy and had travelled widely, bringing his younger brother presents from around the globe.

I had itchy feet, fired by Harry’s travels. While he was on leave we used to talk, ’cos we used to sleep in the same bed. He said, ‘Now, Frank, I’ve got it all planned. We’re refitting for the Far East and when I get to Australia I shall jump ship and go and take a tract of land. Then I’ll send for thee.’ That was the very last thing he said to me.

And then war broke out and Harry was sent to join an old cruiser, HMS
Hawke
. In a devastating attack in October 1914, not only the
Hawke
but also two other ships were torpedoed and sunk in the North Sea, causing huge loss of life. Harry was drowned.

Me and my dad were getting ready to go to work and a knock came at the door and there was a telegram sudden just like, about 9 a.m., and it said sorry to tell you that your Harry’s down at bottom. We read the bugger and we both collapsed. That finished my dad. He died in 1918, of course his grinding job didn’t help. But it nearly killed him that morning. It upset the family a great deal. It made me think a bit. Everybody was wanting us, Kitchener was pointing, so I joined up. I wanted to avenge Harry’s death. That was the main issue.

I joined up under age. There was a small bunch of us went, but a lot of them were fetched home by their parents. We all gave our ages as a lot older. I gave my age as twenty. I didn’t give my parents a thought in this respect, there was me going off and them
living in suspense, having already lost one son. I’ve thought about that since.

There is no argument that many who enlisted looked the right age. Boys who might have worked for three years since leaving school were often strong and broad-shouldered, like young miner Dick Trafford, and even if the recruiting sergeant had an inkling that the lad was under age, he saw little reason to reject someone physically up to the task and, more importantly, keen to go. Dick’s ‘grilling’ was typical of the type of interview most might expect to receive:

‘What do you want, sonny?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I’m with these fellows and I want to join up.’

‘You’re too young.’

‘No, I’m not, I’m eighteen.’

He said, ‘I don’t believe it.’

So I said, ‘If you don’t believe me I’ll go home and get my birth certificate.’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘It’s all right, I’ll take your word for it.’

Asking for a birth certificate was well within the rights of a suspicious recruitment sergeant and could be used as a crude method of sifting out young boys without bothering to question a recruit further. Even then, what did its production actually show, other than that the boy could come up with a birth certificate? Whether it was his own or not was impossible to prove. Fifteen-year-old Louis Hardy had been given the same name as his deceased elder brother. When he enlisted he took along his brother’s birth certificate as proof of age, and was duly accepted into the army. An unusual example, perhaps, but indicative of the fact that simply showing a birth certificate did not prove a lad’s eligibility to serve.

The emphasis in sorting out who should or should not enlist
was on physical condition rather than age. Assessments were based on whether a recruit suffered from rotten teeth, poor sight, heart murmurs or rheumatism.

The minimum height requirement in August 1914 was 5 foot 3 inches, and the minimum chest measurement 34 inches, and there were tests too of the senses. Even so, medical examinations might be detailed at one office, almost laughable at the next. Herbert Gutteridge was sixteen when he enlisted with his brother, aged fourteen. Their army ages were put down as twenty and nineteen.

Our medical examination was a farce: just a few questions asked, with no physical examination. We were then sworn in and declared to be fully fledged soldiers.

Memorizing the letters to pass the eyesight test was a ruse favoured by the short-sighted, such as Don Price.

When I went in I was wearing glasses and I thought I wasn’t going to be accepted if he started testing my right eye. Fortunately the doctor went out of the room and I saw this chart on the wall and learnt the bottom lines. He seemed to know because he said, ‘I don’t believe you can read that,’ but I read them again from memory and he let me through with a smile.

Standing on his toes might explain the discrepancies on James Lock’s enlistment papers. James, a labourer from Mile End in London, was reliably measured as being 5 foot 4 inches on his attestation papers, and 5 foot 1 inch by a doctor on his medical form. Either way, the sixteen-year-old did not last long in the army. He enlisted on 18 August 1914 and was discharged a month later when his real age was discovered.

As harassed doctors hurried to push recruits through, a few boys in the general nervousness failed to react in the right way.
George Pollard was sixteen years old when he attempted to join the 11th East Lancashire Regiment, more famously remembered as the Accrington Pals.

On Tuesday morning, 15th September, I went with my friend Ernie Place for our medical at Willow Street School. The doctor asked me to expand my chest. I didn’t quite understand what he meant, so I just stood there. He measured me, then told me I’d failed. Ernie, nineteen on 4th September, passed his medical.