Tag Archives: World War I

Scottish, WW1

L/Cpl William Kemp – Killed in Action

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Cutting Wm Kemp KIALance Corporal William Kemp of the 2nd Scottish Rifles was killed in action one hundred years ago.

I grew up seeing his name on the local war memorial, as did my father who was also named William Kemp. My dad was keen on family history, he could tell me all the living relatives and knew their exact relationship to us. He believed that all the Kemps in the Old Kilpatrick are were interrelated. So I’ve always seen L/Cpl William Kemp as part of my family, even though I cannot directly connect him from further research.

William was almost certainly a regular soldier before WW1, either that or a recalled reservist. The Scottish Rifles were a regular battalion and started the war in Malta. However they were recalled and sent to France arriving in November 1914. William’s Medal Index Card shows that he arrived in France on 5th November 1914. It also records that he was killed in action.

I’ve tried to find the war diary for 2SR but it isn’t available online and I’ve not been able to go to either the PRO in Kew or the Regimental Museum in Lanarkshire. So I don’t know what was going on in early January 1915. Mostly likely it was routine in defence.

The newspaper clipping comes from the Lennox Herald which my mother found in the archives in Dumbarton Library.

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Remembrance Challenge

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We took our cubs to the local war memorial in the Church just down the road from the Scout Hall. Before we went we”d got the cubs to make a wreath of poppies and to write a message on it. Each boy did his own personal wreath. We then went on a walk down the road and went into the Church where we spoke to them about why we remember and also how things were different back in 1914. South Merstham wasn”t as big then as it is now, for a start the new houses were mostly built in the 1950s. In the 1911 census there were somewhere in the region of 600 men in the locality, about 150 of whom signed up in August 1914 (I”m guessing some would be unfit, others in jobs that couldn”t just go off to war and some others not that keen).

Clark Pack #Merstham #cubs pay tribute to the fallen of South Merstham

Remembrance Challenge

At the end of the session we gave each of the cubs a slip of paper with one of the names from the WW1 memorial in the church and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. They were asked to come up with what they could about the name they were given. I took a name too, and being more grown up and a bit of an analyst I went a bit further than just the CWGC website. I didn”t pay for any information though, I only used free open sources.Why don”t you go down to your war memorial and do something similar. Post your findings on your favourite social media and challenge your friends.

Who was William English?

William English was born in Bletchingley in the Autumn of 1874, his father was Gordon English (who lived in South Merstham by 1918). In the summer of 1905 he married Catherine Colgate Dagnall in Reigate. Catherine was born in Reigate in the Summer of 1879 and her family is reasonably well documented on http://loiselden.com/tag/dagnall/.The search entry for the 1911 census (which I couldn”t see the whole record of without paying) showed that William was a caretaker in 1911. He seems to be in Reigate, although I couldn”t quite see the address details. His wife is listed as living at 14 Croydon Road in Reigate by CWGC, he may well have been living there at the time, or she could have moved after his enlistment.

War Service

William”s service number is G/450 and he is listed as an Acting Company Sergeant Major with the 7th (Service) Battalion of the Queen”s (Royal West Surrey) Regiment at the time of his death in May 1918.His regimental service number is very low, the series was used for the wartime volunteers and started in August 1914. This suggests that he was in the first batch of volunteers, although the battalion he served with is part of K2, or the second hundred thousand volunteers. Either way it is likely he was with the 7th (Service) Battalion (NB there was another 7th Bn of the Queen”s Regiment).

7th (Service) Battalion, Queen’s Regiment

Sept 1914 Formed at Guildford as part of the Second New Army (K2) and then moved to Purfleet to join the 55th Brigade of the 18th Division then moved to Colchester.

May 1915 Moved to Salisbury Plain.

27.07.1915 Mobilised for war and landed at Boulogne. This is the start of the Battalion war diary which has been digitised and you can read it online. The first entry lists all the officers and warrant officers with the battalion as well as the overall strength. William English was not a CSM at this stage.

The Battalion spent most of 1916 in the line or resting between spells at the front. It was one of the assault battalions on 1st July and while it took casualties these weren’t enough to stop it actively participating in The Battle of Albert, The Battle of Bazentin Ridge, The Battle of Delville Wood, The Battle of Thiepval Ridge, The Battle of the Ancre Heights, The Battle of the Ancre.

1917 was a similar pattern of operations with periods of rest, consolidation & training between spells in the front line trenches. Operations on the Ancre, The German retreat to the Hindenburg Line, The Third Battle of the Scarpe, The Battle of Pilkem Ridge, The Battle of Langemarck, First Battle of Passchendaele, The Second Battle of Passchendaele. Notably it took a pasting at Passchendaele and lost a lot of men.

In 1918 the battalion was in the line when the Michael offensive happened, and two companies were completely lost, in addition to casualties taken in the other companies that managed to retire. I’d surmise that this is when William English, as an Acting CSM, was captured by the Germans. I’d also guess that he was wounded when he was captured and this is what lead to his death in Germany on 9th May 1918.

It is possible that he was captured earlier and that there was some other cause of death, without seeing a death certificate or a service record (I looked and could not find his service record at all) it is difficult to be sure. I read the entire battalion war diary from when it starts in 1915 up to May 1918 and he isn’t mentioned once. The CSMs occasionally get a mention, usually when they are either replacing the RSM, leaving to be commissioned or running some instruction for junior officers.

Knowing that the role usually keeps them moving between the rear and the front when in action, and ensuring discipline and training in camp it is unlikely that a CSM would be taken prisoner except when the lines are fluid, which is during a large battle. CSMs don’t usually go out and patrol, they’re more likely to be checking sentries or that the rations and ammo have come up if they are in the trenches. In battle they may well be moving forwards to find where people are, which would make them more prone to capture. In a retirement they may not have been with the company when orders were given to retire and could easily turn up where the enemy now are.

CSM William English is listed as a Prisoner of War in the Queen’s Regiment archives, and he is buried in the Niederzwehren cemetery, Kasseler Stadtkreis, Hessen, Germany. This is a concentration cemetery bringing in graves from POWs from southern Germany.

That’s what I know. If you know more please drop me a comment.

Thanks.

Some Sources

Commonwealth War Graves Commission http://www.cwgc.org/

basic info about casualties, as a minimum name, rank, regiment & date of death

UK, Soldiers Died in the Great War, 1914-1919

normally paid but usually free around 11 November each year, has slightly more information that CWGC tends to have

Records of the Queen’s Regiment are online, some with Surrey County Council

http://www.surreycc.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/825571/Queens-Royal-West-Surrey-Regiment-Prisoners-of-War-1918.pdf

http://www.queensroyalsurreys.org.uk/war_diaries/local/7Bn_Queens/7Bn_Queens_1915/7Bn_Queens_1915_07.shtml

FreeBMD (& FreeCEN)http://www.freebmd.org/

Has copies of the transcribed indexes of Births, Marriages & Deaths in England and Wales from the General Register Office. These aren’t very detailed, they’re just intended to point you at the correct page in the register. If you have time you can go into a register office and see the register for free, although they will encourage you to order a certificate instead.

Birth Index Oct-Dec 1874

Surname Given Name District Volume Page

ENGLISH William Godstone 2a 172

Jul-Sep 1879

Dagnall Catherine Colgate Reigate 2a 168

Marriage Jul-Sep 1905

Surname Given Name District Volume Page

ENGLISH William Reigate 2a 439

DAGNALL Catherine Colgate Reigate 2a 439

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Megagame: Iron Dice

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“If the iron dice must roll,
may God help us”

– Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, German Chancellor, 1st August 1914.

Later today I will be the British Team Control for the Megagame Makers Iron Dice game of the opening moves of WW1. Here’s the blurb from the Megagame Maker‘s website.

Megagame Makers are marking the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War with IRON DICE, a high-level operational megagame by Jon Casey (designer of Home Before the Leaves Fall).

IRON DICE covers operations in France and Belgium between August and early November 1914. Historically, this was the period from the German invasion of Belgium to the end of the “Race to the Sea” and the First Battle of Ypres.

Players will be a member of a national High Command, an Army Commander or staff officer.

Megagames are an immersive experience, and there are no breaks in them when they start, but if I can I intend to try and record the reports that the British team send to the War Office at the end of each turn. Possibly these will be uploaded during the day, but that depends on wifi/data signal and time. If not then you’ll see them over the next few days as I find time to retroactively update them.

Here is the first of the turn by turn reports for Iron Dice.

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Books, History, WW1

Company Training by Gen. Haking

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When in Southport last week I found an antiquarian bookshop in a very small gap between two other shops. It was very much like the fabled ‘magic’ shops that when you go back to it isn’t there. (Although I hope it is if I get a chance to go back, it had a fantastic collection of books, archaeological artefacts and sea shells!)

General Sir Richard Cyril Byrne Haking, comman...
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I bought three books from there, but the one that intrigued me most was ‘Company Training’ by Brig-Gen R. C. B. Haking, C.B., p.s.c which looked like it had spent some considerable time in the pocket of someone engaged in using it (complete with underlined passages in pencil in places). I’m a sucker for infantry training manuals and this one was pretty cheap because of the battered nature of the cover (although internally it was fine, personally I view the pencil as adding to usefulness rather than damage).

Turns out, on a little googling, that General Richard Haking was also the Divisional commander for the first battle of Fromelles and then the Corps Commander for the second battle of Fromelles in 1916. I’ve been following the Commonwealth War Graves Commission‘s recovery of the bodies from that battle and the re-interring them in the new cemetery at Fromelles. I also recently bought a copy of Paul Cobb’s ‘Fromelles 1916‘ which covers both the battle and the recovery of the bodies and building of the new cemetery.

So I’ve got a couple of linked books, although a quick read through the contents and the preface etc, makes the Haking book clearly the work of someone who has seriously thought about soldiering and what it means. Looking at his service record, even by 1913 he was a combat veteran, including some very modern counterinsurgency in the Boer wars. I doubt he’d be very much out of place in today’s British Army and I’d think that his book would be worth reading by junior officers and NCOs (and even private soldiers who aspire to be career soldiers). I’ll write a proper review when I’ve read it all.

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CLWG, design, games, WW1

Hot Blood & Cold Steel – onside Report

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This was a design session on how to do a WW1 skirmish game, focusing mainly delivering a participation game for Jerry Elsmore’s 50th Birthday con. I’d already done a first darft of the rules but wanted to talk through some of the principles about what I wanted to achieve.

I found the discussion particularly useful in clarifying my methods for running a participation game at a show. Gone is the idea of having all the action in a static circle of squares that represented all that could be seen (I may do this at CLWG sometime as I still like the idea, although it would be too time-consuming for being run at a show). I did get some ideas for making changes to the terrain though so that it would only become clear when figures entered the square in question.

Also useful was the discussion on how to simulate disorientation and when that might be appropriate. This means that I have some ideas for retaining the confusion that can happen when patrolling at night, especially when shooting starts.

The next version of the game in a complete and playable form will be around at the January meeting and again in February so that it will have had a couple of outings by the time Jerry’s birthday convention comes round. Any volunteers to help run the game on the day will be more than welcome.

In the meantime the draft rules (which are an evolution of Jim’s Starship Solder rules converted to work with 2d6 and have a WW1 flavour) are on the web. http://www.cold-steel.org and there is a fledgling mailing list (using my usual server) at list@cold-steel.org (send a blank e-mail with ‘subscribe’ (no quotes) in the subject line).

Also if anyone has photos (preferably aerial ones) of trenches or shell craters (regardless of period) then I wouldn’t mind if you could send me some scans. I need to make up a stack of terrain cards for the game and one of the things that impressed me at the conference was Jim’s use of laminated card pictures for counters. I reckon that terrain cards made up the same way would look pretty good.

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What you missed at the January meeting of CLWG

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The Chestnut Lodge Wargames Group (CLWG) January meeting (Sunday 9th January) was in Jim’s office near Holborn. This one had 14 members in attendance.

When I turned up there was a promotion board going on for one of the characters in our long-running Starship Marine campaign (details of the campaign and a history of the 130th Regiment). To make this more interesting for the players who were on the board (i.e. the interviewers) there were a couple of candidates for promotion, including one marine Captain who brought a bomb in with him to prove how easy they were to defuse. A nice piece of live role-play from Jerry (who improvised the bombs immediately beforehand.)

I was called upon to defuse the device which consisted of an ice-cream box with an anti-tilt device on it and a fuse inside which had to be unscrewed without disturbing the rest of the device. The fuse was a marker pen and the anti-tilt device was a post-it holding it onto the side of the box, if the box had been tilted or nudged then the pen would have fallen off the side of the box and set the device off. Similarly if I had pulled the pen off the back of the box it would also have set the device off.

We also had a tryout of a convoy destruction game intended for wargames shows which Michael Dollin and I are working on. This involves players attacking a convoy in successive waves of torpedo bombers, dive-bombers and perhaps also PT boats and high/medium-level bombers. We mainly tried out the torpedo and dive-bomber mechanisms. These appeared to work very well and played in around twice real time, so a full torpedo run took us around 5 minutes to do. We managed to do dive bomber attacks much faster, around one every minute or so.

The torpedo attacks were done in a conventional figure game way. You fly up with your torpedo bomber, getting shot at as you come in, and launch your torpedo on a likely track when you feel that you are close enough for it to count.

The dive-bombing was a bit different. We had two possible methods for this, but the one we tried most was a co-ordinate system (ripped off from Graham Hockley). As you start your descent you are shown a grid with a slowly moving ship on it (which was magnetic). You can also see your altimeter (a modified clock). When you have got as low as you want you say “Bombs gone” and the grid is turned round so that you can no longer see it. The ship keeps moving the same way it had before and when the altimeter gets to 0 (i.e. then the bombs hit) the umpire stops moving the ship. The player tells the umpire what co-ordinates he wanted the bomb to hit. The grid is then revealed (and with it the position of the ship) and the position of the bomb compared to the ship.

Hits to aircraft were delivered using playing cards. We would print the actual outcome onto cards to speed things up if we did it for a wargame show. The players don’t get told what the effect of a hit is unless it is obvious (or becomes so). This represents the fact that pilots often don’t know how badly damaged their aircraft is except where it affects the handling of the aircraft.

We also developed a bombsight to simulate level bombing. This used a small periscope attached to a wooden arm and a level to release the ‘bombs’ (pieces of chalk). The test target was a block of wood painted matt black so that the chalk marks would be obvious. We did find that the bombing was a too accurate, especially given that level bombing was notoriously inaccurate and the bombs being over-scale didn’t help much. It had a good feel though.

The other game that was run at the same time was called ‘Directory Enquiries‘ by John Rutherford and was a political role-playing game about the French foreign policy immediately after the revolution in 1789. I didn’t take part for the obvious reason that I was running the convoy tryout so can’t really comment on how well it went.

After that another tryout was run, this time as a feasibility for a megagame on WWI. It was “A Great War” from Brian Cameron (an associate member of the Warlords). It ran fairly well as a game but had some pauses in it, which gave Brian doubts about how well it might run as a megagame without more work on the design of the game. I wasn’t involved in this tryout because I was too busy playing a network game of Warcraft with Jim, excellent fun if you can get your hands on it. That was pretty much all of it, we finished up around six and headed for home.

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