Great Uncle Killed on the Somme - Lancashire Fusilers (3rd Salford Pals)

[ColinRF]

The following link is to a 15 post "mini-blog" I did to summarise my research findings on my great uncle, Pvt George L Ingham, who died of wounds received at Ovillers-la-Boisselle on July 15, 1916.

The story started when I accidentally stumbled on a July 8 1916 letter on the net that was written by George to his work mate Alf Plater. Alf's great neice had posted the letter on line and after some correspondance she sent it to me as a gift, noting that her great uncle would have wanted it to pass through my family. The letter describes George's experience in the attack on the Leipzig Redoubt south of Thiepval on July 1. George was in 3 Platoon, A Coy, 19th Service Bn Lancashire Fusilers (3rd Salford Pals). The 3rd Salfords took +80% casualties in the 2 and a half companies engaged (50% for the total battalion) that day.

If you have an interest, the blog is here: http://3rdsalfords.b...01_archive.html

Interestingly, John Garth, auhtor of "Tolkien and the Great War," (a superb study of Tolkien and his close friends on the Somme) has been in touch to compliment my efforts. I was thrilled by that one!

Colin

Edited November 18, 2012 by ColinRF

[Laurence Strong]

Very nice write up.

Tried using the CWGC to find my cousin (3 times removed) who died at Beaumont Hamel but no luck....

Larry

[Chris Boonzaier]

Very nice indeed!

I was working on a write up for a German Gare Füsilier who fought there... there were some great passages from Tolkien... have not gotten around to finishing it but these were my notes.....

The fighting scenes in Tolkiens Lord of the Ring Trilogy are largely based on Tolkiens experiences during the Somme offensive in 1916. Tolkien served as an Officer in the 11^th Lancashire Fusiliers and took part in the fighting to gain the Village of Ovillers- la – Boisselle.

Ovillers was Tolkiens first Battle and his experiences in the mud on the Somme were to be reflected in those of Frodo and Sam, the desolation on the Somme battlefield transplanted into an imaginary world for millions of readers.

“They lie in all the pools, pale faces, deep deep under the dark water. I saw them: grim faces and evil, nobel faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair, with weeds in their silver hair. But all foul, all rotting, all dead”

Frodo “Passage of the marshes” The two towers.

What Tolkien presents to us as fantasy, a British officer described in everyday language…

“Beyond La Boisselle, on the left of the Albert-Bapaume road, there had been a village called Ovillers. It was not longer there. Our guns had removed every trace of it, except as it lay in heaps of pounded brick. The Germans had a network of trenches about it, and in their ditches and their dugouts they fought like wolves. Our 12th Division was ordered to drive them out -- a division of English county troops, including the Sussex, Essex, Bedfords, and Middlesex -- all those country boys of ours fought their way among communication trenches, burrowed into tunnels, crouched below hummocks of earth and brick, and with bombs and bayonets and broken rifles, and boulders of stone, and German stick-bombs, and any weapon that would kill, gained yard by yard over the dead bodies of the enemy, or by the capture of small batches of cornered men, until after seventeen days of this one hundred and forty men of the Prussian Guard, the last of their garrison, without food or water, raised a signal of surrender, and came out with their hands up. Ovillers was a shambles, in a fight of primitive earth-men like human beasts. Yet our men were not beast-like. They came out from those places -- if they had the luck to come out -- apparently unchanged, without any mark of the beast on them, and when they cleansed themselves of mud and filth, boiled the lice out of their shirts, and assembled in a village street behind the lines, they whistled, laughed, gossiped, as though nothing had happened to their souls -- though something had really happened, as now we know.”

Defending the town of Ovillers were approximately 6 Companies or German Infantry, 3 of which were Prussian Garde-Füsiliers. Garde-Füsilier Behrend seems to have avoided capture unless his award document was signed after the war.

As a young soldier Behrend may have shared the thoughts of Sam Gamgee, who Tolkien said personified the British soldier of WW1

"It was Sam's first view of a battle of Men against Men, and he did not like it much. He was glad that he could not see the dead face. He wondered what the man's name was and where he came from; and if he was really evil at heart, or what lies or threats had led him on the long march from his home; and if he would not really rather have stayed there in peace."

Tolkien later wrote, "My 'Sam Gamgee' is indeed a reflection of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognized as so far superior to myself."

[ColinRF]

Lawrence - do you have any info on your cousin (name, unit etc?). If so, try Great War Forum - those guys rock in terms of knowedge and desire to help.

Chris - Ovillers was a hell hole for both sides and all of the british descriptions I have seen are full of admiration for the Garde Fusiliers who defended that heap of rubble. My friend's father was in that unit as an officer cadet, although I think he transferred out before Ovillers. Interestingly he became heavily involved in the various plots to kill Hitler (incuding July 20) and was one of its few survivors, going on to found the first independent West German security service post war - the "Friedrich Wilhelm Heinz Dienst." A full life one could say.

Cheers

Colin

Edited November 18, 2012 by ColinRF

[ColinRF]

A bit of a thrill for me. CWGC selected George's letter to be read by Lancashire actress Maxine Peake in their Somme 100 commemoration. I spotted this on Facebook but its also on youtube.

 

 

Colin

[ostprussenmann_new]

Wow great stories.  Thank you everyone for posting this.