Labour Corps Activities in the Immediate Post War Period

[Fattyowls]

I'm helping with a memorial booklet which features a short biography of a man called Richard C Wynn. He died on 9th August 1919 from being hit on the head by a cricket ball just before he was due to be de-mobbed. He suffered a brain hemorrhage and is buried at Etaples; he was serving with the Labour Corps at the time having been in the Teeside Pioneer battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment during hostilities.

 

The biography currently says he was engaged in 'reconstruction' but I'm wondering if salvage of the huge amount of war material might be more likely. Can anyone summarise the activities of the Labour Corps troops who were left in France and Belgium after the Armistice?

 

Much appreciated

 

Pete.

[Gardenerbill]

Hi Pete,

'No Labour, No Battle - Military Labour During the First World War' John Starling and Ivor Lee has a chapter entitled '1919 SALVAGE, CEMETERIES AND GERMANY' p154 with the following sub headings:

 

Demobilisation

Repairing the Infrastructure

PoWs

Foreign Labour

Salvage Work

Exhumation and Reburial

60 Company

Rhine Army

 

Your local library may have a copy.

 

 

[Fattyowls]

That's perfect Mark, the book is on my list to read anyway (it's currently 2,945th or 2,946th) so this may be the opportunity to move it up. The implication for me of the word 'reconstruction' is that the Labour Corps was engaged in rebuilding and repairing the battle damaged areas for the benefit of the returning inhabitants. While I'm sure some benefit might have accrued I wondered if that was a prime objective.

 

Pete.

[Marilyne]

Pete, 

 

I'd say cleaning up battlefields of unexploded shells, grenades and others would also be a part of that job... especially if the aim is to make it liveabel again for the local population returning. 

Or was that dangerous jobs reserved to the foreign laborers?? Might be something to look into. 

 

Imagine... surviving the whole war and then die through a cricket ball???? the irony!!! 

 

M.

[Fattyowls]

55 minutes ago, Marilyne said:

Pete, 

 

I'd say cleaning up battlefields of unexploded shells, grenades and others would also be a part of that job... especially if the aim is to make it liveabel again for the local population returning. 

Or was that dangerous jobs reserved to the foreign laborers?? Might be something to look into. 

 

Imagine... surviving the whole war and then die through a cricket ball???? the irony!!! 

 

M.

 

I think that is the heart of the what I'm interested in; to what extent was this work to help the local population, and if the word reconstruction is correct. From Mark's posting of the sections in the book my feeling is that it wasn't the objective. Having not read the chapter I'm guessing but I think salvage of the massive amount of war material left in France and Belgium, linking up the supply lines to the front across the battle zones so that the occupation force in the Rhineland could be supplied and identification of the bodies would be key, once all the POW's had been returned of course. I need to read the book, which I will be doing in preparation to writing Richard Wynn's story next year. I know a little about the Teeside Pioneers battalion and I know they went through some very hard fighting, particularly at Bourlon Wood and in the Lys valley during Operation Georgette, so as you say the tragedy seems so much worse.

 

Pete.