User:IanFoley1942/sandbox

John Ewart Heath His memory of WW1

Enlisted (not conscripted) unbeknown to my family and friends, at the age of 17 ½ years, on faked birth certificate, at Manchester Town hall into the Royal Welsh Fusiliers. Trained in various camps in Wales, Rhyll, Keminel Park (not considered fit for German prisoner of war) and at Oswestry. Drafted overseas from Southampton to Cherbourg – awful crossing – on Isle of Wight packet steamer, in November 1916. I did not return home until December 1919 and then by hospital ship. Passed through France and the length of Italy to Taranto, Brindisi, on cattle trucks. Escorted from Taranto to Albania by Japanese destroyers. Marched and rode in trucks through the mountains of Albania to Salonica, Greece where I joined the King’s (Liverpool) Regiment of the 228th Brigade made up of:

The Kings The Durham Light Infantry The Royal Irish Fusiliers The Seaforth Highlanders

All moved up to Macedonia on the valley of the Strumar River being the border with Bulgaria who had joined the Germans. I moved up and down that front in various actions. Very unhealthy because of malarial mosquitoes in summer and severe winters. I moved up and down this ‘front’ continuously until Bulgaria requested an armistice somewhere about 22nd Sept 1918. I remember the actual day, or rather night, particularly well as we were ‘stood to’ in trenches awaiting the order to go over the top in a final assault. It was particularly dark and really pouring with rain. When our Company Commander came along the trench ordering us to ‘stand down’ because of the Bulgarian request for an armistice he was disgusted that we could not raise a cheer and called us a miserable lot of ‘so and so’s’. As for myself all I wanted was for it to stop raining. I think I hated rain more than anything else on active service. Of course at home in training it was most welcome because it meant ‘No parade today’ being played on the bugles. During my time on active service I had been ‘loaned’ to other regiments for ‘other duties’. I am not quite clear now what these may have been except that during training at Rhyll in North Wales when ‘firing my course’ I secured 9 bulls out of ten rounds of rapid fire with a short Lee-Enfield (a lovely rifle) and received the only prize I ever had in the army. As the armistice led to peace terms and all hostilities ceased in the Middle East, it was arranged for our brigade to join the forces in France and we were paraded to proceed but the move was cancelled suddenly when we were all paraded and ready to move off in the dark about 5.30am.

My most interesting and enjoyable time during attachment on special duties to other forces was when I joined a Scottish Mountain Battery (long before the armistice) of four men, three mules and a collapsible field piece and ammunition for same.

We scouted about the Macedonian hills looking for spots where we could overlook the enemy positions, blaze away a few rounds and then pack up on the mules and off. I think my function must have been to make the enemy keep their heads down while the rest did the dismantling of the gun and loading up of the mules. We were in charge of an old (to me, that is) dour Scottish sergeant who seemed without a spark of humour. Yet at times he made dry remarks which I found very funny. He always addressed me as ‘Young Jock’. I was, incidentally, the youngest man in the whole battalion of ‘The Kings’. Another of my attachments whilst in this part of the line, i.e. the Struma Valley, did not work out so well or rather I was less happy in it. I was attached to some Scottish regiment for some duty I cannot recollect but I do know I had some words with their CO I think I complained of being used as an Orderly Corporal when I had been sent for special duties and requesting to be returned to my own battalion. The CO said some hot things one of which was had I had been one of his men he’d have had me shot. As I wasn’t one of his men I went back to my battalion and was had up before my CO who heard all I had to say but made no comment whatever. Neither did I hear anything more of the matter except my own Company Officers told me the Jock CO was not particularly liked even by his own men. It was about this time that because our force had become so depleted due to sickness and casualties it was decided to create two full strength battalions by joining Kings to Seaforths and Royal Irish to DLI. We did not have time to draw our kilts (the most ridiculous garment for any kind of warfare). Then it was discovered the Kings was a much older regiment than Seaforths so they had to come to us. At this period I went down with a bad case of malaria (my first of many) and was put into a field hospital No.143 near the town of Nish on the borders of Macedonia and Serbia. A canvas hospital in winter. The nurses were really wonderful. When after some 6 weeks in hospital and a month in a convalescence camp the battalion had moved to Dedeagah in Greece to settle some trouble there and lost a good many men with Spanish flu which was sweeping the Balkans. While waiting for the battalion to return I was doing some duty with the Army Service Corp in Salonika. I disliked this most of all my time in the army. After a few weeks I came down again with a sudden attack of malaria. Fell unconscious on an early morning parade and knew very little of what went on for some days until I came to in another tent hospital. By the time I got out of that and convalescence the battalion was back again and I rejoined my old company. The battalion was ordered to Turkey and we took ship from Salonika to Istanbul. We arrived at Istanbul during the night. When I came up on deck at day break the sun was just rising over the Golden Horn and the mosques and minarets of Constantinople. What a sight that was.

Turkey Anatolia (Turkey is Asia)

We disembarked and were accommodated in an empty Turkish army barracks just outside the city. We were told to sleep on the tiled floors! I and some others being on the usual army ‘scrounge’ found some metal beds, in sections, in the basement. Better to sleep on a wire mattress than on a cold tiled floor. So we set up some beds but oh! when darkness fell and the usual Turkish bugs poured out of the joints in the beds we soon slung them out and were far happier to sleep on the tiled floors. Early next day we were taken across the Golden Horn and entrained at Haida Pasha Railway Station en route to Anatolia and the small town of Afyon Karera Hissar (meaning opium on a Black Rock). The village was surrounded by fields of white poppies from which opium is extracted and there was a very high black rock used as some sort of fortress in the past. There were deep excavations on the very top to take water and supplies to withstand a siege. We took over a school almost newly built (at least the doors and windows still needed paint). It was said to have been built with the labours of British prisoners captured during our reversals in Mesopotamia of which there had been many held in the village where they had been very cruelly treated and Turks know very well how to be cruel. It was whilst here that I was put ‘on a charge’ (and lost my stripes which mattered little as I was unpaid). I do not know what my crime was but as there was no guardroom as such I was put into a tent in the grounds on my own and as punishment I had to dig a trench in the sand about a yard wide and a yard deep and four yards long and fill it up with small boulders from a river bed nearby. I made a lovely job of it and used to say to those many who commiserated with me that I was leaving more of a mark on Turkey than any other Englishman. Who knew that in years still to come someone digging in that compound would come across my trench full of boulders and presume he had struck some old and ancient foundation of Roman occupation of the area. I am still expecting to hear of the ‘discovery’. I think I was held for 10 or 14 days in all, after which, as I knew absolutely nothing about horses I was detailed to be assistant to the veterinary sergeant in charge of all the horses (officers for the use of) and some pack animals. I enjoyed myself there immensely and learned to ride and had my own horse and really got around the country on it. Had some kindly officer decided I had been wrongfully accused of whatever the crime was and decided (still the youngest in the battalion) that I needed a break? Our horse lines were the grounds and the local jail. In Turkey then anyone in jail depended for food on whatever relatives cared to bring along. Some of my army bread and jam eased the painful lot of some old criminal. The jail itself was an awful stink hole – no sanitation at all. Prisoners were never taken out of the one big cell for any reason whatever. In fact I was responsible for a big change in these conditions. For want of a better place I had hung the CO’s saddle in a cellar at the jail thinking it would at least keep dry. Next morning I found it all wet from urine seeping through the floor above. I told the CO who demanded seeing where this came from. On the main cell being opened up for him he and I were quite overcome by the stench the inmates must have lived amongst for weeks. The CO told the head man of the village to find an alternative suitable place at once and have his prisoners allowed out for nature calls. I am not certain how long we stayed. These villages were part Armenian (Christians) much persecuted by the Turks and Anatolian Turks. We had some trouble with the wild religious fanatics called Dervishes. I often wonder what the village is like now. I once attended the Armenian Church in the village. As I and my pals entered the band they had struck up some tune which we eventually decided was ‘God save the King’ and accordingly stood to attention. As our chaps kept dropping in in twos and threes and the band struck up the National Anthem every time it became a bit wearing. However we stuck it to the end of the service when we were all invited into some kind of vestry littered with huge cushions and beautiful carpets, but no chairs and supplied with sherbet (a fizzy milky drink) and sweet cakes and some speeches of welcome in not too bad English. Of course the Armenians were delighted to have us in the village. They had all had a bad time from the Turks. Children would stop us in the street and cross their fingers indicating that they were Christians. We had one man murdered in the village. We had all been warned not to use their wine shops or cafés. I used to store all our bales of horse fodder in a large tent I had erected in the horse lines. One day, climbing to the top of the stack to make sure all was keeping dry I came across a dead man. A man had been reported missing two days ago, a search had been made of all the likely places in the village but he could not be found. The doctor found he had been poisoned, whether he had climbed up into the hay with the hope of recovering or whether his murderers (he had lost all his belongings) had secreted him there we never really knew. I am not sure how long we remained in Afyon. It was a lovely spot and not many of us there and when retreat was played at sundown and the Union Jack run down outside HQ I used to feel very homesick and far from home. Later we entrained to go to Ismir (on the Sea of Marmara between the Black Sea and the Bosphorus. Quite a small busy seaside town and a distinct change from Afyon. Before we left Afyon the head man of the village begged our CO to stay on as we had been replaced by Italians (those doubtful allies) who were already illtreating the villagers and demanding brothels.

Ismidt Sea of Marmara

A small port but deep anchorage, some of our largest battleships could lie off. The town itself was rather poor and ill kept. Our HQ was set up in the palace of the local military commander who had been deposed. The horse lines were some considerable distance outside the town and we were living in what I think was at one time an orphanage, whether Turkish or Armenian I do not know. The Turks had treated the Armenians in a shocking manner most cruel. We were told of Armenian children being killed and thrown down wells.

          The horse lines being so distant from HQ I had to ride in each day for orders.  Here again I was seconded to the V.E.T. Corp Sergeant, a middle-aged man with no army training worth speaking of.  He used to leave all contact with the officers and discipline of the grooms to me.  In exchange I had some degree of knowledge in VET practice and as much riding as I cared to do.

I had my own horse and was responsible for some six horses and thirty mules, their feeding, cleaning and lines, also harness and equipment, far more responsibility than I should have had at that early age. This was about the time when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk , the military Dictator of the new Turkey decided to make war on the Greeks and almost started the war all over again. We had some Indian troops at Ismidt and as they showed strong signs of being on the side of their co-religionists – the Turks, they had to be moved out and the battleship ‘Iron Duke’ anchored offshore. Their Bluejackets used to parade the town with us, they with drawn cutlasses, ‘showing the flag’. For some reason I cannot recollect I was made a guest of the Chief Petty Officers’ mess aboard ‘Iron Duke’ and never fed so well all the time I was in the army. Tinned fruit and custard, something I had never even seen since I left home. I do not know how long that went on but at least until Iron Duke sailed away and the expected war came to nothing except an uneasy peace between Turk and Greek. This TurkoGreek antagonism continues even to the present day e.g. Cyprus (1980). The Turks did some awful things at Smyrna – there is a side to their character that I doubt the normal European will ever understand. Their treatment of animals and enemies leaves much to be desired. Whilst at Ismidt I learned quite a deal about the sickness of horses and mules and the treatment of same. Having a rather small hand it was always I who administered the pills (as large as hen’s eggs) by pushing them down the animal’s throat. Likewise inserting my arm up to the elbow at the other end to put in handfuls of petroleum jelly to assist colic – quite frequent in horses and mules deprived of fresh grass grazing. We fed our’s on chaff and locust beans I also liked a piece of locust beans now and then. Sometimes we added small peas or lentils.

The food preparation i.e. mixing measured quantities of each ingredient, on the food store floor was in charge of the fodder man, a man from Colne Lancashire. A nicer straighter fellow it would be hard to meet. A good staunch friend and companion. I often wonder if he is alive today. He was a cotton weaver by trade. As well overlooking feeding, condition of harness and horses and mules I had to draw and pay the wages each week from HQ for all the grooms and drivers. It was whilst at Ismidt that my malarial condition caught up with me in what was then known as intermittent malaria. One day I would be running a very high temperature with severe ague (uncontrollable shivering) and sweating. Next day feeling fit, next day ill. Having access to the company medical supplies I was giving myself doses of quinine (cinchona bark) in powder form, a teaspoon on the tongue with a drink of water. I dreaded being sent into hospital as I was expecting demobilisation papers any day. However, the transport officer got tired of ordering me to report sick so that on one of my worst days he had me carted off to the Medical Officers at HQ in Ismidt town. He was most kindly and efficient (Captain Davis) and put me to bed but said I must go to the general hospital in Constantinople run by the Army with the most efficient Queen Alexander Nurses, the finest in the world. Before that I must be taken to a small hospital on the Golden Horn for observation. This small hospital was very near where Florence Nightingale had her’s. So I was put into a first class compartment on a hospital train from Ismidt to the Golden Horn. Every comfort, even peaches and custard served by the medical orderlies (how well I seem to remember the good grub). This was a lovely small hospital in a lovely garden. I arrived in the late afternoon in time to wander round the garden before being ordered to bed under a mosquito net. I helped myself to one or two tomatoes from plants growing in the garden.

Next morning I was told that the staff had had to cope with me in a state of violent delirium and I was loaded on to a naval pinnace and shipped across the Golden Horn to the General Hospital in Constantinople. I do not know how long I was in that hospital. Some long time, I know and that I celebrated my twenty first birthday there. The nursing and conditions were of the best, all run on military lines but so efficient. I know I had many visits from the Chaplain and many enquiries were made regarding my home and parents. I think I was more ill than I realised at the time. Malaria then was something of a mystery to treat. Eventually I was sent to a convalescent camp outside the city, full of men from all regiments and all ranks, from privates and sergeant majors and all sailing from troop ships or, as in my case, hospital ships to be repatriated. Even here I was detailed for the special duty of going into Constantinople each day to report to GHQ for the orders applying to the camp. The GHQ was in the Old Sultan’s Palace and I had some high old times wandering round some of the rooms and passageways I had no business to be in. Some of the courtyards were very beautiful with coloured tiles and fountains playing but there was a prevailing stink about it all too, speaking of bad drains and ventilation. I did not realise how much I was seeing the end of our era. My shoulder epaulets carried a scarlet ribbon (our Brigade mark). As this happened to be that also of the GHQ I was allowed into places I’d no authority to be in, and really saw much more of the city than I otherwise would. The university was close to the camp and as I was more or less a free agent I used to walk into it and even sat in on some of the lectures on veterinary practice, not knowing word of what was said but very interested in the demonstrations. No-one even questioned my presence. Eventually word came through that I was to be put on a semi-hospital ship for Marseilles. A very rough voyage, I was very sick for a couple of days. I think the ship did everything except turn turtle. Somebody said even the Captain was sick (sick of us, no doubt). We stopped in Marseilles for a few days under canvas in frosty weather, then took train to Ostend, through Paris where ladies on the platform supplied us with slabs of French chocolate. It was at Ostend I saw my first English girls (WAAC’s) and what a glad sight that was. I had one night in a hut there being ordered to be ready to catch an early boat to Dover next morning. Forgot to mention that while in convalescence camp I attended a medical board which awarded me a 30% disability pension (about 10shillings a week – not bad money in those days). It petered out after about three years although I still had some defects from the malaria and its treatment. On a dark bitterly cold morning I was put on a boat to Dover from where I was transported to Euston, given some money (back pay) and a railway warrant to the Seaforth Barracks of the Regiment at Liverpool. My uncomfortable stay there and my subsequent journey to the demobilisation centre are all another story. I eventually arrived back in Manchester one Sunday morning either in late 1919 or early 1920, I am not sure which, but I seem to remember some kind of Christmas dinner in the Convalescence Camp. All the details of my homecoming are still quite vivid. After a month’s leave I was back at work in the Estimating Dept of W T Glover in Trafford Park at a very low wage, but lucky to be in any job at all, so many men returning from active service had no job whatever to return to. So that is about all of my life from 17½ to 21½ years, although there is still many a story I could tell of strange happenings to such a young man as I was then.

J E Heath Kings (Liverpool) Regiment October 1980