Major soldier

Ted Bailey

Description

This is the story of Frank Bailey, a man whose ordinary demeanour in civilian life hid a record of active service and heroism in the Great War.He embarked on a 36-year long career with the Essex Regiment when he left his tiny rural community and enlisted a few weeks after the death of Queen Victoria. This remarkable journey took him far away from England to the colonies, the beaches of Gallipoli and the trenches at Beaumont Hamel in The Somme.It is a touching personal story which starts with a dramatic rescue and youthful memories of this quiet man and along the way unearths an unknown family and a brother killed in action. With the men of Essex, we relive the gross horrors of the now infamous campaigns of the Great War, including the famous tank battle at Cambrai where Frank earned the Distinguished Conduct Medal for gallantry in the field.After surviving that terrible conflict, grandad Frank finally retired with honour as a Major and his story is indeed that of A Major Soldier.

Sujets

• 1914-1918
• Lettres et linguistique
• World War I
• Regiment
• Première Guerre mondiale

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 05 octobre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781908336231
• Langue: English

Extrait

Title Page

A MAJOR SOLDIER







By
Ted Bailey




Publisher Information

Reveille Press is an imprint of Tommies Guides Military Booksellers & Publishers
Menin House
13 Hunloke Avenue
Eastbourne
East Sussex
BN22 8UL
www.tommiesguides.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by
Reveille Press 2011
For more information please visit
www.reveillepress.com

Digital Edition converted and published by Andrews UK Limited 2011
www.andrewsuk.com

Copyright © 2011 by Ted Bailey

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition, that no part of this book is to be reproduced, in any shape or form. Or by way of trade, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser, without prior permission of the copyright holder.

Cover Design: Reveille Press




Illustrations

All illustrations © Ted Bailey, 2009 except those from those sources as acknowledged below. Every effort has been made to trace copyright owners and gain permission to use the photos and illustrations presented here. Some images appear in the public domain but the author would like to apologise for any inadvertent use of photos where copyright still exists.

Natalie Adams – 27
John W. Burrows – 22, 24
Essex Regiment Museum (FGB Thomas Collection) – 21
Colin Green, MRICS, per Essex Regiment Museum – 29, 35
Hilder Family, per Essex Regiment Museum – 54
www.1418.net.maps – 38, 39
www.commonswikipedia.com – 28, 43
www.diggerhistory.info/ – 25
www.enwikipedia.org – 5
www.firstworldwar.com – 23
www.iwm.collections.com – 40, 41, 45
www.schools-wikipedia.org/ – 9
www.upload.wikipedia.org/ – 42
www.wereldoorlog.1418.nl/ – 37
www.worldwar1photos.com – 18, 19, 20, 26, 31, 50, 51













Abbreviations

The following abbreviations appear in this book and the Appendices:

AA: Anti Aircraft (colloquially: Ack Ack)
ASC: Army Service Corps
BEF: British Expeditionary Force (Western Front)
Bde: Brigade
Bn: Battalion
Capt: Captain
C-in-C: Commander -in-Chief
Col: Colonel
Cpl: Corporal
CO: Commander Officer
DCM: Distinguished Conduct Medal
Div: Division
DOW: Died of Wounds
ERG: Essex Regiment Gazette
ERM: Essex Regiment Museum
GOC: General Officer Commanding
HQ: Headquarters
ITC: Infantry Training Centre
IRA: Irish Republican Army
IWM: Imperial War Museum
KIA: Killed in Action
L-Cpl: Lance Corporal
Lieut/Lt: Lieutenant (also as prefix to Colonel and General)
MEF: Mediterranean Expeditionary Force (Gallipoli)
MI/MIC: Mounted Infantry/Mounted Infantry Company
MM: Military Medal
MOD: Ministry of Defence
NCO: Non Commissioned Officer
QM: Quartermaster
RAMC: Royal Army Medical Corps
RAOC: Royal Army Ordinance Corps
Regt: Regiment
RFA: Royal Field Artillery
RFC: Royal Flying Corps
RSM: Regimental Sergeant Major
Sgt: Sergeant
TNA: The National Archive
V1/V2: Victory Rockets (German)
VC: Victoria Cross
WIA: Wounded in Action
WO1: Warrant Officer Class 1
WW1: World War One


























Dedications



To Frank, Ernest and Edgar
and all the soldiers of Essex






























Acknowledgements

A venture such as a search into an ancestor’s life and the consequent writing of a book is never conducted single-handedly. I received much guidance and help which, without exception, has exceeded my expectations. I have been consistently gratified by the lengths that the people consulted have gone to in providing me with assistance and also surprised by their genuine interest in what I was doing. I wish to acknowledge the invaluable contributions from the people mentioned below who played a key part in this project and without whom it would have been a much harder task.
I particularly wish to thank Ian Hook, the Keeper of the Essex Regiment Museum, for his prompt replies to all my enquiries and for a constant flow of crucial information which considerably extended the search with some surprising results.
Thanks are also due to: Keith Sellars and Owen Tuckett for their reading of the first draft; Jane Carter, serendipitously discovered as the owner of the Bailey Family Tree and great granddaughter of Ernest, grandad’s elder battalion brother who provided me with vital data and photographs; Ernest’s elder daughter Doris for some family insights; Joe Firmin, the grandson of Frank’s eldest sister who also extended family connections; Darren Tansley for organising the earlier edition and finally, Ann who motivated and supported me throughout.













Introduction

This is the story of my grandad, Major Frank Bailey, who left a small rural community and spent over thirty five years as a soldier in the Essex Regiment and was directly involved in all the major battles of World War One (WW1). It is about youth and ageing: my youth in his ageing and his youth in my ageing. It is the fond memory of my early years with him which, inspired later by sheer chance and an intense curiosity, really opened up the door to his hitherto unknown life. It turned out that, as well as being a professional soldier, he was nothing less than a quiet hero.
My discovery of grandad’s unsung heroism was indirectly triggered by two coincidences which, although they occurred at different times, for me came together to create a personal ‘big bang’. The first was my younger son, Nicholas, asking for any information about his great grandad’s WW1 involvement for a school Remembrance Week project and my inability to find much first-hand material. The second was catching a television documentary that made a passing mention of the Essex Regiment at Gallipoli, something I did not know. If they were there, was grandad Frank?
Trawling the WW1 websites revealed little data about the Essex although many other soldiers featured in relatives’ eulogies. I could only vaguely recall my granny’s many kitchen anecdotes about their army travels in the colonies but the war was never mentioned. Grandad certainly never uttered a single word about it. To my regret, I realised I knew little or nothing about him as a soldier and hoped it was not too late to find out. The time had come to uncover this mystery once and for all. I owed to myself and my sons. Now completely hooked, I embarked on a full detective search.
This book is the result of that search through a vast array of records and sources to unravel and record all available details of my grandad’s army life. Inevitably, chasing the tale of someone’s life from a bygone age led to many highs and lows but both were stimulating in their own way. A lot of time was spent in a state of anxious limbo waiting for responses to enquiries that seemed to take forever to appear. Then there were the sudden and totally unexpected revelations that blew the trail wide open.
What emerged was nothing short of stunning and filled me with pride. There was a surprising subplot. Two of Frank’s elder brothers were also in the army, one in the same battalion and the other in a different unit, killed in 1917 and buried near Ypres. I started out with a specific focus on Frank but having discovered the brothers I now felt the need to include them in a larger picture which encompassed a more mixed bag: part family story, part regimental eulogy and part battle and army history.
The last two aspects help to provide some background for the reader unfamiliar with matters military. The changing nature of the British Army is explained to show what kind of organisation Frank joined and how his final promotion as Major was still, even by then, a very remarkable social feat for a rural lad from a tiny Essex village.
Clearly the army made him, turning him from a farmer’s boy into a military man, from an unskilled worker into a qualified horseman and sharpshooter, from a quiet man at home into an inspiring leader and hero on the battlefield.
The story of Frank and the 1st Battalion Essex Regiment are inseparable: the battalion shaped him and he helped shape the battalion both in war and peace. It is right to recognise and honour Frank, his brothers and the brave Essex comrades and their immense contribution beyond the county in foreign battles.
The 1st Essex was at Gallipoli, The Somme and the long trail from Arras to Cambrai in 1917. These names thunder out to us from the past even now as dreadful reminders of the immeasurable carnage wreaked upon a whole generation of idealistic young men who were sacrificed in that most grotesque war. The history of these battles is a well-trodden trail but it is fitting they merit a brief revisit as background to the contribution of the 1st Essex. All information is as accurate as the evidence available but the background comments are all mine based on inexpert reading.

Although it is not an adventure story as such I employ the present tense to capture the feelings and fears