Bridgnorth memorial

[Annette Burgoyne]

When I last visited the memorial, he was throwing a grenade I am sure I have seen footage of French soldiers throwing grenades with their rifles slang of their back in the same way.

Annette

[Kevin Lynott]

Annette, they are the only two pictures I took of the B'north memorial.

Kevin

[Doug Lewis]

Article in tonights local paper (Express&Star)

The £1,200 rifle bayonet snapped of Bridgnorth's memorial has been found dumped in a hanging basket. A resident in West Castle Street found the bayonet on Saturday morning.

The bayonet is being examined by Jackfield Conservation to find out whether it can be repaired.

It is the third time in as many years that the bayonet has been targeted.

The bayonet was replaced with a cheaper fiberglass alternative in December with a £1,2000 grant from English Heritage.

Regards Doug

[Clive Maier]

We had some debate on this thread as to whether the figure could really be throwing a grenade with a slung rifle. This account, taken from Richard Holmes’ Tommy, is illuminating. Holmes based his work on an attack described in A Brigadier in France by Hanway Robert Cumming (Jonathan Cape, London, 1922).

Four of Atkin’s men are bombers, whose rifles will be slung from their left shoulders during the battle, and who will throw hand grenades, the popular and (generally) reliable Mills bomb, carried in the pouches of a webbing waistcoat. Four are bayonet men, who will work in concert with the bombers, dashing around the Grecian key traverses of German trenches as soon as the grenades explode, and then holding their ground while the bombers come up to repeat the process.

So the bombers rely on the bayonet men for their immediate defence, but have their rifles slung from one shoulder whence they can be brought to bear relatively quickly. The Bridgnorth statute has the rifle slung across the back where it would be much more difficult to retrieve and would involve lifting the sling over a helmeted head. Ignorant though I am of military practices, I just can’t imagine fighting at close quarters like this.

Perhaps it is a mistake by the sculptor (Captain Jones was a veterinary surgeon), or maybe he thought the composition looked better this way. Or perhaps the figure is not a bomber after all.