fourteeneighteen

19 year old Charles Symes completed enlistment into the regular army at Hounslow on 6 January 1906. After a period at home with 21st Lancers he was medically examined for service in South Africa on 25 November 1906 and appears to have left England on 7 January 1907. Renumbered to L/39 he was transferred to the 9th Lancers and spent most of the rest of his career with them. In June 1913 he went onto reserve and became the manager of a boot shop; he was recalled on 5 August 1914 and went to France with his regiment. Charles took part in the famous charge at Audregnies on 24 August 1914, when he was hit by a shell explosion that killed his horse and stunned him. He spent some months at the base and returned to England on on 17 March 1916, serving thereafter with 20th Reserve Cavalry Regiment.

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John Doig, born in Alyth near Perth, enlisted into the army in Dundee on 7 August 1915. He was 25 years of age. John served as Driver 97128 of the Royal Field Artillery for the rest of the war. After training at Glasgow and Woolwich, he landed in France on 21 November 1915 and was posted to join the 3rd (Lahore) Divisional Ammunition Column. His unit, having left its original divisioin when it left rance for service in Mesopotamia, was under command of the 4th and then 3rd Canadian Divisions. When 18th Brigade RFA was split from the latter to become an Army Brigade in early 1917, John went with it. He saw service at Ypres, on the Somme, at Vimy Ridge and in much fighting in 1918.

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Stanley Westwater, originally from Bideford in Devon but who had lived in south east London for some years, died of wounds on 2 January 1918 while serving with the Hood Battalion of the Royal Naval Division. He had been hit somewhere in the Ostrich Trench/Nelson Support area north of La Vacquerie, in a German counter attack known as the Action of Welch Ridge. Stanley transferred to the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve after training with the 2/1st West Kent Yeomanry, which he joined in February 1916 as a Derby Scheme recruit.

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Frank Shaw, from Huddersfield and just 16 years of age, enlisted in November 1915. Saying that he was over 18, he was accepted into the King’s Own Yorkshire Light Infantry and trained with the 13th and 3rd (Reserve) Battalions. His father eventually intervened, providing proof of Frank’s age. The army transferred Frank to Class W Reserve and a civilian job, yet so keen was he to serve that he wrote to remind the army to call him up! He was remobilised in March 1917 and eventually landed in France in late March 1918, transferring as he did so to the Royal Scots Fusiliers. He was killed in action after just a week’s service with the 1st Battalion; he has no known grave, being lost near Locon during the Battle of the Lys on 12 April 1918. Young Frank is now listed on the Ploegsteert Memorial.

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Grady Touchstone served with the United States Air Service but was attached to the Royal Air Force. Serving with 1 Squadron, his SE5A aircraft was shot down on a mission to bomb the Somme bridge at Peronne on 8 August 1918. His jaw broken, he was taken as a prisoner of war and spent the rest of the war in captivity.

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John Stafford, who lived on a farm near Mountsorrel, was conscripted into the Leicestershire Regiment on 21 May 1918. After training with 3rd (Reserve) Battalion near Hull he landed in France on 4 October 1918 and was among a draft of 120 men who joined 1/5th Battalion on 12 October. He was wounded in the shoulder just six days later, taking part in the battalion’s attack at Andigny-les-Fermes. Thankfully his wound was not serious and after a period in hospital at Le Treport rejoined the battalion on 16 November. John was moved in late March 1919, along with a number of his comrades, to the 11th (Service) Battalion which was now at Brühl, a few miles south of Cologne. A short final transfer to the 46th Divisional Train of the Royal Army Service Corps took place before he was demobilised on 19 September 1919.

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James Ward Livingstone Kemp, the son of a shipowner from Cultra near Holywood in Count Down and a former member of the Officer Training Corps contingent at Oundle School, first tried to obtain a commission as an officer in September 1914. He was finally accepted in November and made a Second Lieutenant of the 16th (Service) Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles, the Pioneer Battalion to 36th (Ulster) Division. James crossed to France with his battalion in October 1915 and served throughout the early months in Artois and on the Somme; he was also present during the attack on Thiepval on 1 July 1916 and subsequent days. Taken seriously ill in August 1916 he remained in hospital in France until December, when he was returned to England. After recovery he was downgraded for light duty and home service only, and was appointed to a job with the Ministry of Shipping in which he sepnt the rest of the war.

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John Joseph Harris, who had lived on Lorton Street in the Shankill area of Belfast, enlisted into the regular army in Glasgow in December 1908. After service at home with 2nd Battalion, he went to India in 1911 and served with the 1st Battalion. John was with the battalion when it was recalled home in 1914 and went with it to Rugby, where it came under orders of 29th Division. While there he was transferred to the 29th Divisional Cyclist Company; he landed at Gallipoli with this unit and served through that campaign, the subsequent months in Egypt and the move to the Somme. In May 1916 the company left the division and formed VIII Corps Cyclist Battalion. John continued to serve with it for the rest of the war, seeing action on the Somme, at Ypres, in the Champagne and Artois. In February 1919 he was transferred to reserve and ended his original 12 year term of engagement in December 1920.

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William, a 29 year old teacher and graduate of Sheffield Univeristy, enlisted into the Royal Field Artillery on 2 September 1914. Sent to the RFA depot at Athlone, he was posted to B (Howitzer) Battery of 77 Brigade RFA. This unit was under command of 16th (Irish) Division but it lagged behind when the Division went to France in December 1915. It finally rejoined it in the Loos area in February 1916 and was soon involved in the German gas attack at Hulluch in April. William also saw service on the Somme and became the Battery Quartermaster Sergeant before being commissioned into the Royal Garrison Artillery on 20 February 1917. He had a short period of service with 123 Siege Battery RGA at Dainville before he sustained severe wounds during the Battle of Arras. Nonetheless William returned after treatment to join 1/1st West Riding Heavy Battery RGA at Bellewaarde in November 1917. He was taken seriously ill in June 1918 and did not return to France.

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Charles Kirkcaldy Wells, a 24 year old teacher, enlisted as a volunteer in Glasgow on 14 September 1914, joining the 1/5th Battalion of the Highland Light Infantry. He sailed with the battalion and served throughout the Gallipoli campaign and up to February 1917 in Egypt and Palestine, reaching the rank of Sergeant. He was commissioned into the Rifle Brigade on 26 September 1917 and arrived in France to join 7th (Service) Battalion on 9 December. Charles was awarded the Military Cross for his work in leading a company during the German 1918 spring offensive on the Somme, when in action at Flavy-le-Martel and Vaire Wood. When the battalion was disbanded he was transferred to the Machine Gun Corps and ended the war serving with 74th Battalion MGC.

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