As I talked about Naylor MM in my last blog entry, it seems the right time to say something about George Miller Chamberlain DCM.

George was born in Ruddington, Notts around 1890, and his father, Thomas, was likely to have been amongst the last of the framework knitters working in Ruddington ( see: http://www.rfkm.org/aboutus.html ). By the turn of the century the family had moved to Ibstock, seeking new employment. George's father was now working in the Colliery and his older brother James, aged 13, was already employed as a brick carrier. With little other prospects, George followed the well trodden paths to the pits.

I suppose some of the miners from Ibstock who enlisted might have thought that at least it was a chance to escape the grind of their daily lives, but George chose to swap coal mining to become one of the “moles” tunnelling under the Western Front. Perhaps the six shillings a day was incentive enough but it was work that proved to be as dangerous and exhausting as any he had done in civilian life.

The tunnellers, miners and “clay-kickers”, who spent their time digging under no man's land are not at the forefront of Great War literature. There is an excellent synopsis of this aspect of the war at http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/great-war-on-land/general-interest/888-clay-kickers.html and I'm sure there are many other first hand accounts out there. But if there's one reason to read Sebastian Faulks' fictional work Birdsong, it's for his efforts to place their story at the centre of the narrative. It's not a book I wanted to read from cover to cover, but in chapter six, France 1918, his vivid writing will take you underground to just the situation that George Chamberlain must have faced over and again.

Some of George Chamberlain's service papers have survived, but coming from the so-called “burnt collection” (WO363) they are in poor condition. Even allowing for this, in stark contrast to Naylor's records, the hand writing is often very unclear. It's not atypical of British Army records and, to me, it speaks of a certain carelessness in the attitude of the Army to their record keeping. An attitude that may even have extended to the men in their charge.

So we find that George Chamberlain, the miner from Ibstock, a married man with children, enlists for the duration of the war on 11th June 1915 joining the corps of RE. Sent to France on 17.1.16, he is posted to the 176th Tunnelling Company on 21.7.15. Within the month, George is awarded the DCM. Gazetted on 6th Sept. 1915, his citation reads:

Was this the instinctive actions of a man who had spent his working life in the pits? We can only speculate how often George had come to the aid of a fellow miner in the Colliery back home. Something that may have earnt him little more than unspoken gratitude. Nonetheless, he had put his own life on the line to help another, and the Army had duly recognised it.

How ironic that fate should finally turn the tables on George on 8.1.1917. He was to be killed in circumstances that appear to mirror that day back in 1915. On the 3rd February 1917 a court of inquiry was held into the circumstances of the death of 102633 L/Cpl George Chamberlain and 86504 Sapper James Ferguson. Those with a better understanding of these things could say if this was common practice or not. Apart from the front page of Army Form A.2, the hand written proceedings are recorded on plain paper. What survives appears to focus on determining if the deaths occurred because of a confusion over orders, when another section was about to “blow a camouflet.” or by an enemy weapon. The only conclusion appears to be that the men were suffocated by poisonous “mine gas” underground.

In May 1917 George's widow, Phyllis, declines the offer of a public presentation of his DSM, and the medal is sent to her privately. With three dependent children to care for, Phyllis remarries in the spring of 1919.

102636 Sapper Martin McMann DCM, a miner from Thornley Durham who was sent to France at the same time as George, survived the war being discharged with a SWB. He returned from France on 16.2.18 and was placed on Class “P” reserve on 5.10.18 for employment at Thornley Colliery. Records show he was presented with his DCM by Lt/Col. C. Russell Brown DSO RE on 2nd July 1918 at the RE depot, Thetford. There is no indication as to the nature of his disability.