Bringing Uncle Albert Home E-Book

David P Whithorn

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Private Albert Turley, was just an ordinary British soldier of the First World War. He died on the Somme for King and Country. He didn't win any medals for gallantry and has no known grave. Like thousands more soldiers, he left neither letters nor diaries from which to reconstruct his story. This is the story of one man's search for his distant relative, describing Private Turley's active service with the 3rd Battalion the Worcestershire Regiment that led to his death in one of the most infamous battles of the twentieth century. David Whithorn's painstaking reconstruction of Albert's story from surviving records and histories led to a pilgrimage following his footsteps to the Somme hillside where he fell in August 1916. What sets this book apart from the many others written about the soldiers and campaigns of the First World War is its dual function as both a tightly focused history of the 3rd Worcestershires and a detective story that eventually reveals what happened to Private Albert Turley.

Leseprobe

BRINGING

UNCLE ALBERT HOME

BRINGING

UNCLE ALBERT HOME

A Soldier’s Tale

DAVID P. WHITHORN

First published in 2003 by Sutton Publishing

This revised paperback edition first published in 2006

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2011

All rights reserved

© David P. Whithorn, 2003, 2006, 2011

The right of David P. Whithorn, to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyrights, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7524 7998 9

MOBI ISBN 978 0 7524 7997 2

Original typesetting by The History Press

Contents

Preface

Introduction to the New Edition

Acknowledgements

1. Fragments from France

2. The Birthday Surprise

3. Reconstructing the Past

4. Soldiers’ Tales

5. ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death . . .’

6. A Needle in the Haystack

7. A Pilgrimage to the Somme

Epilogue

Appendix: Roll of Honour

Bibliography and Further Reading

Preface

At the beginning of this twenty-first century the terrible wars of the twentieth seem remote, belonging to a bygone era – somewhere, sometime before the swinging sixties. There are few, if any, veterans of the First World War left; the soldiers from the second are rapidly fading away. We watch the participants of the former living in a silent, sepia-and-white world, knowing they believed the politicians’ lies and were slaughtered by the thousand on the fields of France by incompetent generals – and for nothing. Many people buy a poppy during November and observe two minutes silence for the fallen, although most knew neither the soldiers nor their times. Why? We might look at the long list of faceless names on local war memorials as we hurry by, but they are just names to us now, and old-fashioned ones at that. I wonder how long our respect for them will continue? What will happen when there are no veterans left to march past the cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday?

A quarter of a century ago I too could be counted among the ‘knows-nothing and the cares-less’ regarding the world wars. This was to change one rainy night when, for once, I didn’t go for a ‘night out’. Instead, I watched a television documentary entitled The Battle of the Somme. This one programme was to change my whole outlook on life, for ever. The hows and whys of this are not the subject of this book; let it be sufficient to say I have a passionate interest in the First World War, and the men who took part in it. I have read many books, talked with veterans and visited the battlefields many times. To the layman, I am an ‘expert’; for myself, I realise only how little I really do know about this event in history. Yet, by studying it, I have found a purpose for my own life – to ensure that the First World War, the men who took part in it and what they achieved, are never forgotten.

This book is about the search for another man’s life story, a man who fought and died in the Battle of the Somme – one faceless name on a church war memorial. This man was not a hero: he didn’t win any medals for gallantry. He didn’t leave a diary, poems, letters or anything by which he was remembered – not even a photograph. He does not even have a grave on which to lay flowers or to stand by and weep. Yet this man is very, very precious; and but for the chance of birth it could have been me or you who fell on that hillside, one sunny afternoon in August 1916.

It is not my intention to write a scholarly account of the history of events of over eighty years ago just to prove that I am an expert in military history: I am not interested in such intellectual competitions. Rather, I have sought to present my search for the past and from it to build a picture of the life and death of that one soldier killed on the Somme in 1916. The sources I have used are varied, and although I have some experience in accessing and using these, gained from twenty-five years of study, they are readily available for everyone to use. Following such guidelines as are provided in this book, I believe similar (and better) research can be performed by other people qualified with only the capacity and determination to succeed. In this way, the story of the men of 1914–18 will continue long after the last veteran has marched past the cenotaph.

To those who use this book for their own endeavours in this field, may you too, ‘bring Uncle Albert home’.

Introduction to the New Edition

As I submitted the manuscript for Bringing Uncle Albert Home in the hope it might be published, I could not have believed the warm reception it would come to receive from both reviewers and a caring public. Nor could I imagine being asked to add updates for a paperback edition to be released in time for the commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the Battle of the Somme! An honour indeed.

Publication triggered more family memories, Albert’s youngest sister, Elizabeth, was just 6 years old when he was killed. In the final years of her life (in the 1970’s), she undertook a trip to the Somme battlefields to look for her brother’s grave. Sadly, beyond this little is known neither about what information she had to work with nor what she found.

I have been able to include much new information. One reader recognised his own great-uncle listed in the Appendix and was able to supply me with letters from a soldier in the front line serving with Albert. Continuing to read soldier’s accounts has provided other eye-witnesses to events and places in Albert’s life. Searching through information, available at the National Archive in Kew, brought both highs and lows. Albert’s service records, sadly, have not survived (along with 60% of such records destroyed by enemy action in the 1939–45 war). His ‘medal index card’ has survived indicating he served only with the Worcestershire Regiment, a point of importance in Albert’s story. Reading original war diaries compiled by Territorial Force and New Army battalions only highlighted just how little detail is sometimes found in similar diaries kept by Regular battalions of the same regiment, such as the 3rd Worcestershire and 1st Wiltshire – my main sources of information.

To paraphase, ‘to understand a man, first walk a mile in his shoes’. I have not served in the armed forces. At times, I was acutely aware of this defficiency in trying to rebuild Albert’s life, having to rely on only what I had learned from other soldier’s accounts. With publication, I set out to make up for this. I joined the ‘Great War Society’. Each member puts together the complete uniform and equipment of a Great War Soldier. Wearing this, he voluntarily undergoes military training according to contemporary manuals and ‘lives’ the life of a soldier of the 1914–18 period, all, except the fighting and the fear.

I now know what it is like to wear the thick serge uniforms equiped with 1908 pattern webbing and kit (weighing the regulation 66lb or so!), not forgetting rifle and ‘tin hat’, to march miles in all weathers, even on the Western Front itself. I have fired the .303 Short Magazine Lee Enfield rifle on a range. I have lived in a trench, eaten bully beef and biscuit out of a mess tin with an oversize spoon taken from convenient storage in my right puttee. I now know basic drill and can ‘form fours’ and ‘present arms’ with the best. It would be true to say that I have learned as much (and more) about some aspects of the life of a Great War ‘Tommy’ as by over twenty years reading about it. I now have a greater understanding about many episodes described in the original accounts and have been able to bring some of these ‘living-history’ experiences into this edition.

Finally, I have been contacted by many people having read Albert’s story, now themselves inspired to trace their own relatives who fought in the Great War. Some of these, I have been able to help personally, and I have now lost count of the number of Great War soldier’s stories I have helped to put together. Others too, have visited the Somme just to see Albert’s name on the Thiepval memorial – one man asked for a set of detailed maps, he wished to lead a cycling party around the Somme following Albert’s footsteps! It has been a truly humbling experience reading people’s kind letters of appreciation. A member of Sutton Publishing’s staff summarised peoples’ reactions, ‘We haven’t had anything like this before, your book has simply touched everyone who has read it’.

Albert and his companions have passed away, 90 years is longer than an average lifetime and the Battle of the Somme is almost beyond living memory. For the soldiers who took part, the carved words on the South African memorial at Delville Wood, Somme, provide a testament for all generations to witness:

‘Their ideal is our legacy, their sacrifice our inspiration’

Acknowledgements

This book could not have been written without the help of many people and institutions over a number of years. In particular, the author would like to thank:

The staff of the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment Museum, in particular: Maj D.W. Reeve MBE (Retd) Curator; Lt Col C.P. Love (Retd) Hon. Archivist; R. Prophet and J. Lowles, researchers, for supplying copies of records regarding the 3rd Worcestershire, details of which may be found in the Bibliography; and Lt Col A.L.O. Jerram MBE for reading the draft manuscript and offering useful advice.

The staff of the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment Museum, in particular: David Chilton, Curator, and Maj P.J. Ball (Retd) for supplying copies of records, etc., regarding the 1st Wiltshire, details of which may be found in the Bibliography.

The staff of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission both for their assistance in tracing records and for continuing to maintain the cemeteries and memorials of the fallen of the world wars, which are an everlasting inspiration for all those who visit them.

The staff of the Photographic and Printed Book Archives of the Imperial War Museum for their assistance in identifying key photographs for this work and allowing me permission to reproduce them in this book.

The staff of the Naval and Military Press for permission to reproduce the trench maps from their publication The Imperial War Museum Trench Map Archive on CD-ROM. In addition, their other publication Soldiers Died in the Great War (also on CD-ROM) proved invaluable.

The staff of the History Centre in Worcester and the Public Library in Cinderford for their assistance in tracing relevant newspaper articles.

The staff of the Thiepval Visitors Centre who continue to preserve the memory of the soldiers commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial on a day by day basis.

The editor and staff of The Forester, successor to the Dean Forest Mercury, for permission to reproduce the photograph of Albert Turley.

Victor and Diane Piuk of Hardecourt-aux-Bois, Somme, for their hospitality, encouragement in this work, proof reading of the first draft of this book and so much more besides – including visiting a remote cemetery in the depths of winter to supply me with a vital photograph.

The nephews and nieces of Pte A.E. Turley for their memories and other members of my family who shared in many of the exciting discoveries. My wife Sarah, who managed to keep smiling no matter how many times we got lost driving and walking along the roads and farm tracks of the Somme.

Mr David Wicks for kindly supplying letters from his Great-uncle Pte. W. Pratt, 3rd Worcestershire.

The members of the Great War Society, for training and a unique comradeship which have both transcended the generations.

I would like to add due acknowledgement to the staff of Sutton Publishing for editing, production of maps and all their help in the publication of this work.

Finally, the greatest debt is owed to the soldiers themselves who found themselves caught up in the maelstrom of the Battle of the Somme during the summer of 1916. This book is humbly dedicated to their memory.

David Whithorn

Basingstoke, 2005

Author’s Note

Capt H.M. Fitz Stacke, the author of The Worcestershire Regiment in the Great War, took particular pains in his Introduction to state that the title of a battalion of the Regiment was ‘the nth Worcestershire’ not ‘nth Worcesters’ nor ‘nth Worcs.’, the title taking an ‘s’ in neither the plural nor the possessive. This tradition has been upheld throughout this work, apart from direct quotations from other authors.

ONE

Fragments from France

EARLY DAYS IN THE FOREST OF DEAN

This story starts in the late autumn of 1994. A career change meant that I found myself living with my aunt and uncle in Lydney, on the edge of the Forest of Dean. My wife commuted each weekend along the M4 to spend time with us, and, we hoped, to plan our new lives together. However, the new job was not going well. My new ‘section’ comprised in total: a desk with chair, a company telephone with directory, a 17-inch colour monitor without computer, an absent manager and me. Company politics had generated a post that wasn’t needed after all: there was simply no work to do. I spent hour after hour, day after day, staring into space, wondering how I ever got myself into this mess. Relief finally came after an apologetic telephone call to my old company. They would take me back, ‘but it might take a month or so to sort out’.

Although I had known my aunt and uncle since I was a boy, visits to Lydney had been both short and infrequent. During my stay, our conversation was relaxed; they did their best to help me through these difficult times. They knew I had an interest in history and the First World War in particular. One day, quite unexpectedly, my aunt quietly said, in her Forest accent, ‘I had an uncle killed on the Somme’.

I had spent some years both researching the First World War and trying to put together the family tree. I was ‘disappointed’ to find that although many relatives had served in this war, all had survived, only to pass away before I was born or knew enough to speak to them about their experiences. Frequent springtime visits to the Ypres and Somme battlefields had allowed me to see the remains of those titanic battles, and to walk beside the gravestones of the thousands who fell. Yet as I walked there, I always wished there were one unique grave I could visit – of someone close, whose story I could tell to others.

My aunt, becoming as excited as I was, did her best to answer my ensuing barrage of questions. However, like the majority of people today, she only had memories of what she had been told: there was no one now alive who remembered her uncle as a living person. She remembered his name, Albert Edward, and he shared her maiden name of Turley. Albert’s father, Moses, had built his own house, Old Furnace, and brought up his family in nearby Blakeney. However, she knew neither which regiment he served in nor when he was killed. She believed his name was on the war memorial plaque of All Saints’ Church, Viney Hill, Blakeney.

Further conversations with my aunt and her elder brother, who had also spent his life in Blakeney, enabled me to piece together an all-too-common tragic story whose consequences had spanned much of the twentieth century.

Albert Turley was never talked about openly within the family as my aunt grew up – she had never even seen a photograph of him. They were simply told that ‘he was under age and had run away to enlist with some friends, had got himself killed on the Somme, and broken his mother’s heart’. Consequently, family members had been brought up with a deep distrust of the Armed Services.

However, there was much truth in this story. In November 1918, just after the Armistice had been signed, Albert’s mother Mary had died. It was said she never recovered from the news of the death of her eldest son Albert. Knowing he would never come home, she had simply faded away, possibly succumbing to the Spanish flu epidemic prevalent at that time. Moses, now alone, had to bring up his children himself. In the 1920s, there was little work in the Forest for a mason, and certainly no money for luxuries. My aunt’s father, Walter, had to give up a promising career as an artist to go down the local coalmine and bring another wage into the house. In 1939, Walter, having a reserved occupation, was exempted from military service in the Second World War. Similarly, Walter’s own son followed his father into the mine, thus avoiding National Service. When my aunt married in the 1960s, there was concern in her family about my uncle, an RAF serviceman, then serving with the RAF in the Far East. The shadow of Albert’s death on the Somme had been long indeed.

Returning to my empty office at the start of another week, I had the beginnings of an idea. I did not have much information – I had neither a regiment nor a regimental number – but it was possibly enough to find out where Albert Turley might be buried on the Somme. I knew the Commonwealth War Graves Commission handled both written and telephone enquiries from people who wished to discover details about relatives killed in either of the two world wars. The surname was uncommon, though not in the Forest of Dean, and I did have his full forenames. I knew that the Battle of the Somme was fought in 1916, between July and November. I hoped this would be enough.

I explained my situation to the Commission and was transferred to a kind lady who took down all the details I had on Albert. Minutes later she informed me that she had found him. The result was a surprise: ‘Pte Albert E. Turley, 31327, killed in action 24/8/16, 3rd Worcestershire Regiment.’ Blakeney was in Gloucestershire: how had he ended up in the Worcestershire Regiment? The next information was not what I had been hoping to hear: ‘Place of Commemoration, Thiepval Memorial, Somme.’ I thanked her, and put down the telephone.

Although I had read many histories about the Battle of the Somme, most had concentrated on the opening day of the offensive, 1 July 1916, when 60,000 British soldiers had fallen, for little gain. I had visited all the places concerned with this day, and knew the stories well. I also knew many significant dates associated with the capture of villages and woods as the battle progressed through the summer and into autumn. The date of 24 August did not tie in with any of these.

Having visited the Somme, I was also familiar with the Thiepval Memorial, a huge, multi-arched structure erected on top of the Thiepval Ridge. On it were inscribed the names of the 73,000 ‘missing’ soldiers of the Somme. Being commemorated on this meant that Albert did not have a known grave. The Memorial covered the whole period and extent of the Battle of the Somme. As such, there would be no indication of the location or the circumstances of his death as can usually be inferred by the history of a particular cemetery.

Having found so much in such a short space of time, I was not ready to give up. My original notion to find the whereabouts of Albert’s grave was now compromised. However, it would still be possible to take my aunt and uncle to see where he had served and was commemorated. I could also describe to them what had happened in that place. It would be the first time a member of Albert’s family had made such a trip, or at least so we had thought at the time.

From the Commission, I now had Albert’s regiment and regimental number. The next line of enquiry was to contact the Worcestershire Regiment Museum. I was put through to the archivist at the Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regimental Headquarters, and asked whether it was possible to find out anything about Albert Turley, or where the 3rd Worcestershire were on 24 August 1916 and what they might have been doing on that day. He advised me to write in, as finding such details might take some time.

That evening, I explained to my aunt and uncle what I had found out about Albert. They were saddened to discover he had no known grave, but curious to know why Albert had served with the Worcestershire Regiment: did this confirm the family story that he had run away to join up? Between us, we composed the letter giving all the details we had. The letter was posted; all we could do now was to wait for a response.

It was only a matter of days before the reply came. The enclosures included photocopies of pages from The History of the Worcestershire Regiment in the Great War and a letter, in which we were informed that it was not possible to give a precise enlistment date. However, the number 31327 would have been issued in late 1915 or early 1916. This was a surprise: the family story telling of Albert running away to enlist with friends would have been more credible had the date of enlistment been August 1914. At the start of the war, following the prevailing patriotic spirit, many young men ran away to enlist, having lied about their age. Late 1915 saw the effective introduction of conscription under the Derby scheme, as the supply of volunteers had slowed to well below that required to maintain (and increase) numbers of troops at the front.

The regimental history gave accounts for all the Worcestershire battalions. Highlighted were entries for the 3rd battalion for 24 August 1916. On this day, in conjunction with the 1st Wiltshire, the 3rd Worcestershire had been involved in an attack on Lemberg Trench (this was later found to be an error, and should have read Hindenburg Trench). This position was situated on the Thiepval Ridge in the infamous Leipzig Salient, immediately to the south of the village of Thiepval.

The account revealed that the attack by the 3rd Worcestershire was successful, and the position was taken and held. Importantly, casualties had been few. However, one of these few had been Albert Turley. Apart from the names of officers and men who had particularly distinguished themselves, no other soldiers’ names were mentioned. The names of the casualties were not given.

Also enclosed was a copy of one of the printed maps and photographs from the book. Originally the map had been hand-drawn and details of the positions of the trenches and the dates when the 3rd Worcestershire held them had been added. Unfortunately, there were few topographical features noted on the map, apart from the location of the villages of Thiepval and Authuille. The photographs depicted scenes in the trenches in and around the Leipzig Salient. In these trenches were soldiers of the 3rd Worcestershire making the best of things. One particularly poignant photograph showed a group of survivors from the attack on 24 August.

My time in Lydney was nearing an end; I had the confirmation of the start date for returning to my old job. It was with great pleasure that I packed my few belongings and wished the few friends I had made in my new job goodbye. It was sad to leave my uncle and aunt, as by now they had become to me much more than relatives, but we had agreed to have a short holiday together. At Easter 1995, just after the opening of the Channel Tunnel, the four of us set out for France. Our destination was a small hotel in the town of Albert, the gateway to the Somme battlefields. We had just one full day to visit the area, and we were fortunate to have the best of the early spring weather.

It was the first time my wife and I had taken people to visit this area. As good tourist guides, our first visit was naturally to the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing. We arrived there at about 9 a.m.; there were no other visitors. The place was peaceful, with only the sound of birds and a gentle breeze in the new leaves of the trees in the Memorial grounds. The surroundings could not have been more perfect. We left the car and walked up the dew-soaked lawn towards the towering Memorial. We climbed the stairs to the stone of sacrifice and looked out westwards over the cemetery with its 600 white stones – 300 crosses for French soldiers and the same number of gravestones for British soldiers – almost all ‘inconnu’ or ‘unknown’. Further westwards, the morning sun shone on the opposite side of the Ancre Valley. In this patchwork quilt of fields, woods and small villages, here and there a wisp of smoke from a chimney indicated the start of another day for the living inhabitants of the Somme battlefield.

The Thiepval Memorial was so vast that the register of 73,000 names inscribed on it ran to many volumes. After sorting through them to find the ‘Ts’, we found Albert’s name and the appropriate panel reference. The Memorial has the potential for sixty-four such panels, based on sixteen square pillars. Even knowing the panel number, finding the correct one still took a few minutes. Over 20 feet up, at the head of the panel, stood the title ‘Worcestershire Regiment’. It did not take very long to find ‘TURLEY A.E.’ among the many, many columns of names. We left my uncle and aunt there for as long as they wished – this was their private time, when there was no need for a tourist guide.

From here, I had planned to take them to the site of the Leipzig Salient to show them where Albert had fallen. Using only the copy of the hand-drawn map, I attempted to line this up with the parts of the villages of Thiepval and Authuille that I could see, and to find the site of Lemberg Trench. Only now, with the benefit of hindsight, do I realise I was in error by nearly a mile. Still, the sight of open fields, with little or no cover, sloping up to the Thiepval Memorial, gave an appropriate perspective for that attack long ago.

The rest of the day was spent looking around the other major sites of the Somme battlefield. Returning to the hotel, we were very tired. My uncle and aunt had been deeply moved by the sights they had seen and the stories I had told them. They would not forget their visit to the Somme, remembering one family member and the thousands of others who had fallen there.

A PHOTOGRAPH

This could have been the end of the story. In reality, it proved only to be the beginning. Years were now to pass; the millennium came and went. Technology too was moving on. The advent and growth of the Internet appeared to coincide with a surprising resurgence of interest in the First World War, partly due to the fact that its last veterans were passing on. The war had also entered the National Curriculum and many new books on the subject were being published. The quiet country roads in northern France again saw British tour parties in cars and coaches looking for lost relatives and visiting the former sites of bitter carnage.

At home, I surfed the Internet and the ever-growing number of sites relating to the First World War. One day I found a Book of Remembrance. Among the entries was one from a Canadian, who, in addition to leaving the name of a relative believed killed on the Somme, asked if anyone could help him in his researches. Thus was to begin a long series of electronic correspondences, starting from an old photograph and a name (ultimately, this led to a corner of a field on the Somme and another name on the Thiepval Memorial). Importantly, I became much more experienced in sourcing and using historical information.

One quiet day, I cast my mind back to the trip we had taken to the Somme with my uncle and aunt to see Albert Turley’s name on the Thiepval Memorial. There had been for us no photograph of the soldier we had been looking for, but I suddenly remembered from my recent studies that most contemporary local newspapers ran obituaries for fallen soldiers – and many even printed a photograph, usually of the soldier in uniform. I cursed myself for not having thought of this sooner.

I had no knowledge of newspapers, past or present, from the Forest of Dean. I contacted my aunt, who remembered there used to be three such newspapers, which had been amalgamated some years before. I asked her to contact the present newspaper to discover whether a newspaper archive relating to the Blakeney area for the period of the First World War still existed.

The reply from the Forester was better than I could have hoped for: not only did such an archive exist, but also a microfilm had been taken of it and was freely available for viewing at the Cinderford Public Library. With no more than a hope that Albert’s parents had submitted an obituary for him, we hurriedly planned our next visit to the Forest of Dean.

I will be forever grateful to the unknown lady who gave up twenty minutes of her allotted time on the microfilm reader that Friday morning in Cinderford Public Library. We had arrived there on a cold morning, without a booking. It seemed our trip would be wasted, but the librarian explained our situation to the lady, who kindly gave way. The librarian loaded the spools for the Dean Forest Mercury for August/September 1916, and we were away.

This local newspaper carried the major points of the war news but really concentrated on local stories. The quaint adverts for all sorts of remedies and patent medicines were mixed with others relating to auctions of farming implements. Life in the Forest of Dean didn’t seem to have been changed much by the titanic struggle taking place in the fields of France, in the high summer of 1916. However, included in the first week’s edition of the births, marriages and deaths were indeed obituaries of local soldiers killed in the war. As well as a long write-up, each carried a photograph of the fallen soldier. Our excitement grew in anticipation, as week passed by week with the turning of the microfilm reader-handle.

As we reached the end of August and into September our spirits fell, as there was no sign of an obituary for Albert Turley. By now, our twenty minutes were nearly up. We knew we would have to stop soon. The last edition we looked at was that of Friday 15 September; and the final turn of the handle revealed a face I would have recognised even without the ‘Pte A.E. Turley’ written underneath. Although the library had not been totally silent, as it should have been up to this point – there was no possibility that it could have been afterwards.

The people of the Forest of Dean have always been a close-knit community. By now, everyone in the room knew what we had been hoping to find, and everyone, including the librarians, came to share in the discovery. There were several handkerchiefs in evidence. The poor lady who gave up some of her time on the machine looked bemused – no doubt she wondered if she would ever get back to her studies. Thankfully, we printed off a copy of the obituary and the photograph, and handed the reader back to her.

The obituary read as follows:

Dean Forest Mercury – Friday 15 September 1916 Pte A.E. TURLEY

It is with feelings of the deepest regret that we record the death of Pte A.E. Turley, eldest son of Mr and Mrs Moses Richard Turley, of the Old Furnace, Blakeney. The deceased soldier was called up in his group last January, and was with the Worcesters for about six months, after which he went to the front. He had been in the war zone exactly a month when his death occurred by a shell bursting in the trench. The gallant young soldier was only 20 years of age, and before enlistment followed the occupation of a mason, being for some time engaged in building the new School of Forestry, which has been erected near the Speech House. The sad news, conveyed to Mrs Turley by a letter from the chaplain, is as follows:-

Sept. 1, 1916. Dear Madam – As a chaplain attached to the Worcester Regiment, it is with the deepest regret that I have to give you the sad news of the death in action of your son, Private A.E. Turley, Worcesters. Your son was in the trenches when he was killed, by shell, I hear. His death was instantaneous, and he can have suffered no pain. I am very sorry to say that conditions there made it necessary to bury him where he fell, but you can be sure that if it becomes possible later to mark his grave this will be done. The commanding officer, his company officers, and comrades all send you their deepest sympathy. I know well what a blow this must be to you, but I pray that God may give you the strength to bear it, and that you may be comforted by the thought that your son died nobly for King and Country, – With deepest sympathy, I remain, yours sincerely, (Revd) G.N. Evans.

As we read the letter from the chaplain, feeling some of the original pain his mother must have felt on first opening it, even my aunt was clearly relieved that he had been killed instantly, suffering no pain. To this, I could say little. In all the many obituaries we had read, the letters told the same story, that the soldier was killed instantly either by a sniper’s bullet to the head or heart, or by a direct hit from a shell. To those who had died of wounds, the end had been swift, while receiving the best of care and without pain. In fact, being killed on the Somme seemed to be remarkably pain-free.

Above all, however, we had Albert’s photograph – the first my aunt had ever seen of him. The resemblance between him and my aunt’s father Walter, in a photograph when he was a similar age, was remarkable: they could have been twins. Yet there was something in the picture that just wasn’t quite right. But our elation continued for the rest of the day as we discussed other points that had been raised in the obituary.

In the evening, I finally spotted the problem with Albert’s picture. There was no question that the photograph was of Albert – the family likeness was beyond doubt. It was his cap badge that was wrong. Having no books with me, I could not remember what the Worcestershire Regiment cap badge looked like, but I did know that this could not be it. Although small and blurred, the lower part of the badge depicted a hunting horn, the emblem of a ‘Light Infantry’ battalion, and the Worcestershire was not a ‘Light Infantry’ regiment. The outline of the rest of the badge was unclear, but would be sufficient to make an identification when I got home.

According to the obituary, Albert had enlisted with the Worcestershire in January 1916, which tied in well with the information we had previously received from the Worcestershire Regiment archivist. He had enlisted by being ‘called up in his group’. This clearly meant that he had joined the Army after being conscripted by the Derby scheme. This did not seem to fit with the family story of him ‘running away to join up’ – in truth, he would have had little choice. This also partly answered the question of why he served in the Worcestershire rather than the local Gloucestershire Regiment since he would have been placed where there was greatest need. Serving six months with the Worcestershire would have taken Albert through to mid-July 1916. He had served ‘exactly one month in the war zone’ before being killed, and, given the date of his death, this meant he had arrived on the Somme on 24 July 1916. All the pieces seemed to be fitting together.