Irchonwelz Communal Cemetery, Belgium

[LeplaeN]

On 14/11/2023 at 10:25, Mark Hone said:

Yes, I brought parties from Bury Grammar School to the chapel and the cemetery in Irchonwelz in October 2018 and October 2022. The warm welcome extended to us by the people of Irchonwlez and Ath will always be remembered. In 2022, our visit was on the last day of my 29th, and final, school Battlefields Tour before retirement. In addition to me, two students were present on both visits. As mentioned elsewhere on this thread, the connection is that a former pupil of Bury Grammar School, 2nd Lt. Thomas Hope Floyd, of 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers, wrote a first hand account of his part in the final advance. He also kept a diary of what happened after the end of hostilities.  Here is what was happening in Ath, 105 years ago:

 

Ok ! It was great to see that you came over ! I was a bit disappointed when Christian told me, two weeks ago, that it was the last year that you came over to Irchonwelz. As @Morance said, you are always welcome here and I got the keys too. 

Thanks a lot for sharing the diary with us ! I listen to the Higland Fling a very nice song. 

[Mark Hone]

2nd Lt. T.H. Floyd's diary, continued:

November 17^th Sunday

In the morning, Colonel Brighten, with Sir Hugh Jeudwine* and General Stockwell, was at a public thanksgiving service at the big Church in Ath; and Walsh, being a Roman Catholic, was there too. There was a billet inspection. Major Bodington** inspected. An amusing incident occurred. While he was walking upstairs to inspect a billet, someone inside the billet swept some rubbish out right onto his head. It was a perfect scream. “ You should warn people about that kind of thing!” he exclaimed; but he took it in good part.

We had an Anglican church parade after the billet inspection, a special form of thanksgiving published by the Fifth Army. It was freezing hard, and we were very cold. It was far too cold to be in the open air: I have never known such a Church parade before. We envied the Romanists in a nice warm church! (2/5^th LF War Diary adds: Usual church parades. A TE DEUM was sung in the ATH CATHEDRAL. The Battalion furnished a GUARD of HONOUR to line the aisle. The ceremony was attended by the DIVISIONAL COMMANDER and OFFICERS representative of the DIVISION.)

Walsh, Wightman and I had a walk round Ath in the afternoon. In the evening, the Roman Catholic Padre dined with us again. After dinner the others played cards while I was reading JOAN AND PETER by H.G. Wells.

(2/5^th LF War Diary adds: In the evening a concert was given to the BATTALION by a troop of the 5^th South Lancashire Regiment.)

*Sir Hugh Sandham Jeudwine KCB KBE (1862-1942), Commander of 55^th (West Lancashire) Division 1916-1919. (Photograph below) 

** Major (Later Lieutenant Colonel) John Redner Bodington DSO MC (1896-1975). Son of an international lawyer, born in Paris. He served with distinction in both World Wars. His younger brother Nicolas was a leading figure in the Special Operations Executive (SOE) during the Second World War.

Edited 17 November , 2023 by Mark Hone

[Mark Hone]

A further extract from T.H. Floyd's diary. I'm sure that the anecdote he relates was hilarious if you were there!

November 17^th Sunday (Continued)

After I had retired to bed my room was invaded by a crowd of roisterers-Broadbent, Noble, Withall and Fergusson. They sat on my bed and made a great row. Ultimately, Broadbent explained that it was Waterhouse’s * birthday and they had been celebrating it. They had been visiting all the Company messes singing what he described as carols. They had left Mosley in the gutter, quite incapable of mounting the stairs. Captain Waterhouse did not really know exactly how old he was: "I am not less that twenty-six and I am not more than twenty-eight” he told Colonel Brighten  “ I wrote home to find out and they wrote and told me, but I’ve lost the letter and cannot remember”.

* Captain Hugh Waterhouse MC. Long-serving officer of 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers, arriving on the Western Front with the battalion as a Subaltern in May 1915. Nicknamed 'Long 'Un' on account of his height, and fond of fishing. Mentioned in Norman Hall's memoir 'A Lancashire Fusilier's First World War' edited by @A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy. As described earlier in this thread, he won the MC for his actions at Ath on 10th and 11th November, which enabled 2/5th LF to close up to the canal bank and eventually enter the town. This was credited by T.H. Floyd as removing the need for a full-scale Divisional attack on Ath which had been planned for 11th November, and thus 'poor old Judy's (General Jeudwine's) bloody battle did not come off!'

Edited 17 November , 2023 by Mark Hone

[Morance]

39 minutes ago, Mark Hone said:

A further extract from T.H. Floyd's diary. I'm sure that the anecdote he relates was hilarious if you were there!

November 17^th Sunday (Continued)

After I had retired to bed my room was invaded by a crowd of roisterers-Broadbent, Noble, Withall and Fergusson. They sat on my bed and made a great row. Ultimately, Broadbent explained that it was Waterhouse’s * birthday and they had been celebrating it. They had been visiting all the Company messes singing what he described as carols. They had left Mosley in the gutter, quite incapable of mounting the stairs. Captain Waterhouse did not really know exactly how old he was: I am not less that twenty-six and I am not more than twenty-eight” he told Colonel Brighten  “ I wrote home to find out and they wrote and told me, but I’ve lost the letter and cannot remember”.

* Captain Hugh Waterhouse MC. Long-serving officer of 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers, arriving on the Western Front with the battalion as a Subaltern in May 1915. Nicknamed 'Long 'Un' on account of his height, and fond of fishing. Mentioned in Norman Hall's memoir 'A Lancashire Fusilier's First World War' edited by @A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy. As described earlier in this thread, he won the MC for his actions at Ath on 10th and 11th November, which enabled 2/5th LF to close up to the canal bank and eventually enter the town. This was credited by T.H. Floyd as removing the need for a full-scale Divisional attack on Ath which had been planned for 11th November, and thus 'poor old Judy's (General Jeudwine's) bloody battle did not come off!'

Nice one, Mr Hone

Do you get a photo of Captain Hugh Waterhouse ?

 

Sébastien

[Mark Hone]

No, I've never seen one. I don't know his dates, either, as he doesn't appear to have yet been recorded on anyone's family tree on the 'Ancestry' website. 

Edited 17 November , 2023 by Mark Hone

[Morance]

20 minutes ago, Mark Hone said:

No, I've never seen one. I don't know his dates, either, as he doesn't appear to have yet been recorded on anyone's family tree on 'the Ancestry' website. 

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

I have been enjoying Mark Hone's transcripts from Floyd's account of what the 2/5th were doing in November 1918.

My GF mentions meeting Lieutenant Colonel Brighten just the once, at Goldfish Chateau on 15 September 1918, when he himself was in the 1/5th LF. He tells us that Lieutenant Colonel Brighten was formerly of the 1/8th Liverpool Irish (who were in the same brigade as the 2/5th LF).

On 17/11/2023 at 13:17, Morance said:

Do you get a photo of Captain Hugh Waterhouse ?

My GF has quite a lot to say about Hugh Waterhouse, as Mark has flagged, and I am fairly certain that I do have a photograph of him, as I have a group photograph of 30 of the 31 officers who proceeded to France with the 1/5th LF on 3 May 1915. Two of the officers have been photoshopped into the photograph, so it seems that some lengths were gone to to make it as complete as possible. Maybe the missing officer would be the MO, as he strictly would have been RAMC rather than LF. The padre would then be included in the muster of 30, however, and I am not sure that he would have been LF, rather than attached to the LF. Anyway, on the question of whether Hugh Waterhouse was included, it is clearly likely that he would have been.

I have not yet undertaken the exercise of trying to identify all of the 30 men, but I intend to do so at some stage, using some other photographs where my GF's has named the individual subjects for comparison purposes. Also @brianmorris547 has been able to find a newspaper article with a photograph of the officers of the 5th Reserve LF in Southport in December 1914 which includes many of those who went to France with the 2/5th LF in May 1915, along with a few men who stayed behind on Home Service. It does not include Long Waterhouse, but should help with eliminating men shown in the 2/5th LF group photograph. I can also see the pips on the cuffs of some of the men in the 2/5th LF group photograph, which will also help; Long Waterhouse was a 2nd Lieutenant in May 1915, so should just have one pip. The fact that we know that he was tall may also help. If I am able to identify Long Waterhouse with certainty in the group photo I will post an enlarged detail here.

It may also be that there would have been a photograph of Hugh Waterhouse in the press on the occasion of his being awarded the MC, but I am afraid that I do not have access to any newspaper archive.

On 15/11/2023 at 09:13, Mark Hone said:

In his classic memoir 'Old Soldiers Never Die', Richards portrays him as the fearsome, pistol-toting martinet 'Buffalo Bill'. On the other hand, Stockwell played a major role in organising the famous Christmas Truce of 1914 on his part of the Front Line.

The different lights shone on the character of Stockwell by Richards, a private, and Floyd, a subaltern, are interesting. Richards' final assessment of Stockwell when he moved on to command the 1st Battalion was that he was "a great soldier and a great bully", while one of his comrades, who apparently believed in reincarnation, suggested that he had been a great general in one previous existence and a great slave driver in another, and was now a combination of the two. it is also interesting that in Richards' account of the Christmas Truce he says that Stockwell initially tried to prevent it, but in the end had to go along with it as the men on both sides had already climbed out of their trenches.

 

 

Edited 20 November , 2023 by A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy

[Mark Hone]

A further extract from T.H. Floyd's diary. The Battalion moved to Ligne to help in reconstruction of the railway network, 'smashed up', in Floyd's words,  by the Germans during their retreat: 

November 18^th Monday

In the morning we got sudden orders to move to Ligne. We marched off from Irchonwelz and Villers St Amand at 11 am and got to Ligne at 12-30. Hemingway had been sent on before to fix up billets for A Company. Major Bodington was O.C. Billeting Party for the Battalion; so, of course there was trouble. There always is trouble when those two come into contact in any way.* The seeds of undying hatred between them seem to have been sown in the trenches in front of Givenchy last September. Hemingway had , of course, fixed up nothing. But we did get billets eventually and are quite comfortable now. Our Company mess is in a farm, and our troops are billeted in a School next door. I have got a billet to myself opposite the mess and Norman Turner** is in my billet. After lunch, I had a stroll in the village. Met Colonel Brighten. He asked me to pilot him round A Company’s billets. I did so. Then I tried, without success, to find some shops.  Had a chat with the officers of D Company in Mosley’s billet.

* I have not come across any other reference to this feud by Floyd so far. Floyd himself was recuperating in the UK from wounds suffered on the first day of 3rd Ypres when he believes the trouble began in September 1917.

** Private Norman Turner DCM : Floyd's highly-regarded soldier-servant.

 

 

Edited 18 November , 2023 by Mark Hone

[Morance]

On 03/11/2023 at 14:56, Morance said:

Thx Charlie ; I don't know what it is "bataillon-kapelle"...

 

7 minutes ago, Mark Hone said:

A further extract from T.H. Floyd's diary. The Battalion moved to Ligne to help in reconstruction of the railway network, damaged by the Germans during their retreat: 

November 18^th Monday

In the morning we got sudden orders to move to Ligne. We marched off from Irchonwelz and Villers St Amand at 11 am and got to Ligne at 12-30. Hemingway had been sent on before to fix up billets for A Company. Major Bodington was O.C. Billeting Party for the Battalion; so, of course there was trouble. There always is trouble when those two come into contact in any way.* The seeds of undying hatred between them seem to have been sown in the trenches in front of Givenchy last September. Hemingway had , of course, fixed up nothing. But we did get billets eventually and are quite comfortable now. Our Company mess is in a farm, and our troops are billeted in a School next door. I have got a billet to myself opposite the mess and Norman Turner** is in my billet. After lunch, I had a stroll in the village. Met Colonel Brighten. He asked me to pilot him round A Company’s billets I did so. Then I tried, without success, to find some shops.  Had a chat with the officers of D Company in Mosley’s billet.

* I have not come across any other reference to this feud by Floyd so far. Floyd himself was recuperating in the UK from wounds suffered on the first day of 3rd Ypres when he believes the trouble began in September 1917.

** Private Norman Turner DCM : Floyd's highly-regarded soldier-servant.

 

 

Thx Mr Hone ! The railway network was completly destroyed by Germans in last days, the most on the line between Tournai and Ath ; several pictures can be viewed on the website of IWM.

[Mark Hone]

I'll put one last diary entry on tomorrow which describes the Battalion working on repairing the railway and involves General Stockwell. Are there any shops in Ligne nowadays? 

[brianmorris547]

Mark, Tricia

I tried to find a photograph of Hugh Waterhouse but, at first glance, was not successful. I will have a more detailed look later.

The Heywood Advertiser 16/01/1920 reported the presentation of his MC and that he was originally from Heywood. (Attached courtesy BNL via FMP). There are various mentions in other Lancashire papers to a Hugh Waterhouse who was a Teacher at King Edward School, Lytham in the 1920s.

There is a letter in the Heywood Advertiser 18/08/1916 from Capt Kenneth Waterhouse 2/5 LFs re the death of Pte Thomas Richardson, pictured, k in a 05/08/1916 and the same page has a picture of Sgt Ernest Vaughan who d of w on 07/08/1916.

The Heywood Advertiser 10/08/1917 reported that Lt Floyd was wounded (Attached courtesy BNL via FMP).

The Heywood Advertiser 04/07/1919 has a report by Capt H Waterhouse MC which gave the history of the Bn. It recorded all the Honours awarded to Officers and men with the dates and places of the Actions.

Brian

[Morance]

Wouah ! very nice, brianmorris !

is it possible to obtain copy of "The Heywood Advertiser 04/07/1919 has a report by Capt H Waterhouse MC which gave the history of the Bn" : it would be interesting for me.

Sincerely yours

Sébastien (from Belgium)

[Mark Hone]

I meant to ask when I got a bit confused between the two Captain Waterhouses, Kenneth and Hugh, on another thread, whether they were in fact related. 

I would also be interested in seeing that article by Captain Hugh Waterhouse from 'The Heywood Advertiser'. Thank you, Brian, for your diligent research. 

Edited 18 November , 2023 by Mark Hone

[brianmorris547]

Mark

I will try and download the page and pm it to you. The list of Honours shows that Hugh Waterhouse was awarded the MC for action at Ath on 08/11/1918. I browsed the Heywood Advertiser from November 1918 to January 1919 but there were no reports.

Brian

EDIT Sent the page by pm. it worked so I will also send it to Sebastien, Tricia will probably want a copy as well.

Brian

Edited 18 November , 2023 by brianmorris547
additional info

[Mark Hone]

Thanks very much.

[Mark Hone]

A further extract from 2nd Lt. T.H. Floyd's diary. 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers have now moved to the village of Ligne, just over 3 miles from Irchonwelz and Ath:

November 19^th Tuesday

The purpose for which we have been brought back to Ligne is to restore the railways which have been smashed up by the Boch in his retreat. We work on the railway from 9-30 to 3.0. “ Railways are everything in war” said Colonel Brighten when I met him on the line. As far as destruction is concerned the enemy made a good job of it. All the bridges are blown, and the rails are scattered to the winds. The whole 55^th Division is on the job of clearing up the mess. I was in command of a party of twenty, clearing away earth at a demolished bridge with the object of securing a solid foundation for a new one.

While we were on the job Walsh came and told me to work in reliefs. I acted accordingly. Then General Stockwell rode up. He called for Walsh. “ What are all those men doing standing smoking?” he asked. Walsh explained. Then the General called for me. He asked me what I was going to do next when I had finished this job. I replied that I would report to the R.E. (Royal Engineer) Major and ask for further instructions. “Why not find out now? Hasn’t the R.E. Major yet told you what your next job is? Go to the R.E. Major and say to him ‘My General says you’re a damned____! I want to know what I’ve got to do next’”. Stockwell added that I must also tell Major Russell that he wished to see him at Brigade Headquarters at 5.0 pm this afternoon. So I went off to find Major Russell. He was a mile off. On the way I came across Colonel Brighten. He asked me my errand and, when I told him, said that it was absurd. “The silly ass!” was his description of Stockwell. “He must have had a bad breakfast. He expects impossibilities from the R.E.s. They only heard about the job last night. I don’t see how the General can expect them to have all the jobs mapped out in advance. Don’t take any notice. But you’d better come along and deliver the message.” So we walked along together until we found the R.E. Major. Colonel Brighten explained the situation and told me to give him the General’s message. All were amused. It soon travelled all over the Battalion, furnishing considerable divertion to many.

Interesting to see General Stockwell behaving in a 'Buffalo Bill'-like manner! @christiandup posted photographs of the damaged railway on the very first page of this thread, back in 2017. 

Edited 19 November , 2023 by Mark Hone

[brianmorris547]

Mark, Sebastien

The page from the Heywood Advertiser that I sent is obscured right at the point where it mentions the Action at Ath on 08/11/1918. Sebastien is having trouble reading it. It reads:

....Stockwell's Flying Column " The cavalry was held up in front of Ath and the Bury Battalion had to attack and advance the bridgeheads. During the night November 10th they fought the enemy in Ath and secured the bridgeheads. The last shots they fired at two o clock on the 11th November when they attacked Ath and captured it. Later in the morning they were stopped at 11 o clock by the Armistice on the road to Brussels. The street by which they entered Ath was named the Rue des Anglais" and the Battalion....

I can not make out all of the names who were decorated for the Action at Ath but I can read some. They should all be in the same Gazette so I should be able to identify them.

I will also have a further browse of the Heywood Advertiser.

Brian

[Morance]

Thanks a lot, Brian ; very interesting, with the hour of the last shots

thx again, very appreciated

 

Sébastien

[brianmorris547]

This is the obscured bit of the page, which covers the attack on Ath and the Honours. Attached is the December 1918 WD of 2/5 Lancashire Fusiliers which names those who were awarded the MC and MM. 

The citations of the three Officers, Captains Hugh Waterhouse, Kenneth Earle Wheeler and Leslie Alderson Wilson are in the LG 31680 09/12/1919.

Seven of the nine MMs are named in the LG 31469 22/07/1919 under Lancashire Fusiliers 5 Bn and the other two 240675 J W Smith and 11422 (correct number 41422) A Fairclough are named in the LG 20/10/1919, although their MM Cards were originally the same as the others.

The Schedule numbers of the nine are 252211 W C Gower, 252212 J D Chambers, 252213 T Greenwood, 252214 E Butterworth, 252215 T Clough, 252216 J W Smith, 252217 F Taylor, 252218 H Green and 252219 A Fairclough.

TNA/Ancestry WO 95/2923.

[Mark Hone]

Thanks again, Brian. 2nd  Lt Eric Righton MC was wounded in two places  by the shell which killed or fatally wounded the 8 Fusiliers buried at Irchonwelz Cemetery, the original subject of this thread, the final members of the Regiment to die in action before the Armistice. 

Interesting that 2nd Lt Broadbent was not recognised for the action, as Floyd specifically mentions him , alongside Hugh Waterhouse  as a key actor in the Coup de Main which secured the approaches to Ath. 

Edited 20 November , 2023 by Mark Hone

[brianmorris547]

Mark

Lts Ferguson, Wake and Righton are mentioned in the Honours in the paper for the Action before Ath. Captains Waterhouse and Wheeler are each shown to have saved a wounded Officer in their Citations. 

Brian

[A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy]

I have been finding the additional information contributed to this thread by Brian and Mark very interesting.

Just to confirm one small point, Captain Kenneth Waterhouse of the 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers had been KIA on the Somme on 9 August 1916. Kenneth and Hugh Waterhouse were fellow officers in the 2/5th LF when they first crossed to France in May 1915, but my grandfather, who has written about both men from then until August/September 1916, never mentions any relationship between them, and I have been unable to find any mention of a Hugh Waterhouse in any of the information I can find about Kenneth Waterhouse's family online, so I think it unlikely that they were related, and Kenneth is therefore probably irrelevant for the purposes of this thread.

In the meantime, I have been studying my group photograph of the 2/5th LF taken on 1 May 1915 in Bedford (which I feel fairly sure contains an image of Hugh Waterhouse) and comparing it with other photographs that I have in which men who were with the 2/5th LF in May 1915 have been named, so as to try to establish which is Long Waterhouse by a process of elimination. I believe that I have probably narrowed it down to two and have my own theory as to which is the more likely, but do not yet feel confident enough to put any information on here.

Finally, I have reminded myself that in his book At Ypres with Best-Dunkley, Thomas Hope Floyd is by no means always complimentary about Brigadier General Stockwell even in his published work. In particular, in Chapter V, when describing a shambolic march on a blazing hot day in June 1917 (16 miles carrying full kit), in which at least one NCO (CSM Nathaniel Howarth DCM) died of exhaustion, he quoted an account from one of his (Hope's) contemporaneous letters detailing an encounter between Brigadier General Stockwell and Lieutenant Colonel Best-Dunkerley, the CO of Hope's Battalion, in which the choleric Stockwell tore into Best-Dunkley for allowing his battalion to become so strung out. Hope and the other observers were both shocked and amused to see the vigour with which Stockwell roundly berated Best-Dunkley in front of the men. Best-Dunkley was no shrinking violet and was himself given to outbursts of temper, but Hope's sympathies lay with the more junior officer on this occasion, not least because - says Hope - if the debacle was anyone's fault it was Stockwell's for "ordering the march by day instead of by night and for not halting the Brigade for a long enough period earlier in the course of the march". However, coming back to the subject of this thread, Hope's tone regarding Stockwell changes radically once he has finished quoting from the contemporaneous letter and is writing retrospectively from the standpoint of publication in 1919 to one of admiration, even obeisance, in the light of Stockwell's many achievements as a military commander, culminating in being "chosen to command the flying column known by his name which captured Ath on Armistice Day and fired the last shots of the Great War".

 

[Mark Hone]

Yes  I recall that passage from 'At Ypres...' and it is an example, like the Ath railway incident, of Stockwell lambasting another officer publicly and unfairly, in Floyd's view. Perhaps some indication of Floyd's slightly ambivalent attitude to General Stockwell is given in his account of a training exercise on 7th November 1918, as 'Stockwell's Force' was preparing for its advance:

'We had a big scheme this morning under General Stockwell. He was, as usual, storming all round and putting people out of action.'

Floyd and his platoon were 'put out of action', i.e. made casualties, quite early in the exercise and were just left hanging around:

'Stockwell then came on the scene and Chute (the Brigade Major) told him what we were. “People are wandering aimlessly up and down."  exclaimed the General with a shrug of despair. Then he got off his horse and had a friendly chat with me. He told me to fall the ‘casualties’ out in a field by the roadside and let them sit down and smoke. He is very decent with me; and there is something magnetic about his personality. In short he is a great man. A few minutes later he called for a conference of all the officers in the force. Then he addressed us and criticized the carrying out of the scheme. He ticked off Major Boddington pretty roundly and on one occasion addressed him as ‘My Dear Boy!’ He also had an argument with Colonel Brighten about Lewis Guns and closed it by exclaiming that ‘At any rate, I won’t allow it; so there’s an end of it.” Stockwell never allows anyone to forget that he is-General Stockwell.'

' 

Edited 20 November , 2023 by Mark Hone

[brianmorris547]

Mark

I am going through the Heywood Advertiser from August 1914 at leisure so if there is anything in particular you would wish me to look out for, please let me know. I am doing December 1914 this morning and the first months have been about 5 Bn LFs going to Egypt under Lt Col Isherwood, names from St Luke's Parish of LFs in Egypt or Southport and the formation and move to Southport of 5 Reserve Bn under Lt Col Hall. I have let Tricia @A Lancashire Fusilier by Proxy know.

Brian

[Mark Hone]

A final extract from 2nd Lt. T.H. Floyd's diary, as 2/5th Lancashire Fusiliers moves to the town of Leuze, seven miles from Ath, to continue work on the damaged railway line:

November 21^st Thursday

Moved to Leuze. Marched there from Ligne in the morning. Have got a decent billet: A Company, Mess is opposite. Captain Hutchinson*, who won his Military Cross in the famous Blairville Raid in 1916, has rejoined the Battalion from Scarborough today. Funny idea, sending people out now!

* Captain Geoffrey Clegg Hutchinson MC (1893-1974). Born in Prestwich, the son of a Cotton Manufacturer. Went out to the Western Front with 2/5th LF in May 1915. Seriously wounded in the raid in which he won his MC. After the war practised as a Barrister (later KC). Continued to serve as a Territorial Army Officer between the wars. Helped considerably with the early stages of the Regimental History 'The Lancashire Fusiliers 1914-1918'. Conservative MP for Ilford in Essex. Knighted 1952 and made a Life Peer in 1964 as Baron Ilford of Bury. 

Edited 21 November , 2023 by Mark Hone