Meetings and Events Reports
Nov 8: Talk with slides by Hugh Miller: ‘Four Brothers & A Friend Called Dan’
Hugh said that, in light of the forthcoming Remembrance weekend, it was a poignant time to give his talk, based on a large family living in Pevensey around 1884. Living standards were fairly austere with 2 or 3 children to a bed. In 1901 all four brothers, Jack, Wilfred, Fred and Stephen, attended the same school in Pevensey, where they received a good education. Empire was at its height with Union Jacks hung at every occasion.
The children left school at 14. Jack, being the eldest, left school first and became a telegram boy for the local Post Office. Later he was promoted to work at Battle.
By 1910, the three other boys left school and took work on local farms.
On 4th August 1914, Great Britain declared war on Germany. Germany was attacking France on the west and Russia in the east (on two fronts), and on attacking via Belgium Britain had to engage 150 000 men.
Stalemate ensued at Mons; trenches on both sides were dug stretching 450 miles in length right up to the Swiss border. Lord Kitchener advertised for a new army of 100 000 men to replace losses. In the event over 1 million signed up to join the war effort.
All four brothers signed up at Herstmonceux Castle in September 1914. The brothers who had been working on local farms had to tell their employers that they were leaving to join the army; their daily work had involved working with horses for ploughing and cartage, and in the case of Wilfred, his employer said that it was only right that he should take his usual horse named Dan, with him.
They were with the South Down Regiment. Their first destination before readiness to leave for abroad was at Cooden Mount Camp, then at Whitley Camp. Here, Stephen was smitten with tuberculosis and discharged from service.
They eventually sailed on two ships and landed at Le Havre, then by rail and finally marched to their destination at the front in Northern France.
At this stage Hugh Miller talked about a family friend of the brothers: Nelson Victor Carter, remembered for his heroism in personally going forward to kill two German machine gunners that had been targeting his trench; then he returned to help several wounded soldiers, before being shot himself.
The Battle of the Somme, in 1916, was then described. The British lost more than 19 000 men in the first day of battle, and there were more than 420 000 British and Commonwealth casualties by the end of the November campaign. And it was in November 1916 that Stephen finally died at home of TB, and tragically Wilfred was killed in action during this year.
The Battle of Passchendaele - 31st July to 6th November 1917 - was then described: the appalling weather, rain, mud, indeed trenches full of liquid mud and for days up to waist high, many hundreds drowned; it was four months of hell with 250 000 wounded or dead.
Jack had leave and visited home, soaking up
the atmosphere of Pevensey, probably hoping that he had completed his
tour of duty. However, he was called back in 1918, the Germans
had pulled back 25 miles from their original line, and had formed a highly [cont
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