SALVAGE

by Frank Gardner

The BEF made great efforts to reduce waste by salvaging and re-using as much material from the battlefield as possible. Most of that work was done by the Labour Corps but combat units also did their bit. For example Canadian Corps recovered stores and equipment from the Vimy Ridge battlefield to an estimated total value of £250,000 which would be twenty-five times that amount today. Items collected ranged from 9,901,072 rounds of small arms ammunition to 3370 waterproof capes and included 11,714 rifles.

The Army Ordnance Service was responsible for the reconditioning and re-issue of salvaged items which was done in-theatre using civilian labour whenever possible. For example in the Paris Ordnance workshops French women cleaned, repaired and renovated clothing and gum boots; and in Abbeville they repaired gas helmets. There was also a boot repair factory in Calais employing 200 workers including German prisoners of War. Repairs to guns, rifles, instruments, vehicles and harness were done by Ordnance mobile workshops near the front or at base Ordnance workshops.

Some salvaged items had to be shipped back to Britain and the Great Western Railway designed a special machine to reform spent shell cases at its Swindon works. There were also several salvage depots at home where bulk loads of salvaged material were sorted for re-use.

After the Armistice many troops spent their last months in France clearing the battlefields but later this work was undertaken by civilian contractors. There is anecdotal evidence that tanks were used to clear away the vast barbed wire entanglements that abounded in the former battlefields.

Little is known about post war salvage and battlefield clearance so if you can elaborate on this or know where such information can be obtained, Bob and l would like to hear from you.

 

A PRICE FOR EVERYTHING

 by John Lethbridge

On Wednesday 24 January 1917 George Ingram, aged forty-seven, of Acocks Green was tried by the Birmingham Stipendiary Magistrate. He had been a clerk at a Birmingham munitions factory that was short of workers. He and his accomplices would approach men eligible for military service but who had families and were 'fairly advanced in years' (thirties or perhaps late twenties) and sell them badges letting them work in the clerk's factory and so dodge military service. The price was £10, about a month's average pay for a munitions worker. The money would be paid in instalments and the deals done in pubs. The prosecution produced a witness who had so paid for a munitions job and thereby dodged military service. The police inspector who led the inquiry also gave evidence. The prosecuting counsel said that the racket was run by a ring and that the accused was only small fry. His premature arrest had caused the other racketeers to at least temporarily cease their activities.

Defence counsel admitted that his client was guilty of one charge but stressed that the prosecution had admitted that guiltier men had escaped prosecution, and asked for leniency. What sentence did the Magistrate impose? (Answer overleaf)

 

OTHER CAMPAIGNS

9 Gallipoli

by Bob Butcher .

NOTE: This is the last in this series but l hope to be allowed to give a full length talk about the Suvla landings in the not too distant future.

After the naval attempt to force the Dardanelles Straits ended in failure in March 1915, it was decided that the Army should capture the peninsula in order to help the Navy get through. The first landings took place in April when, despite the difficulties, lodgements were secured by the 29th Division at Helles at the tip of the peninsula and by the Anzacs farther up the coast. The cost was heavy. The French successfully landed at Kum Kale. A number of subsidiary landings were made at slight cost but unfortunately were not exploited and were subsequently abandoned.

Fierce counter attacks against both beachheads were defeated with heavy casualties. However in the coming days the British at Helles, although reinforced, made costly but unsuccessful attempts to break out of the beachhead. When further reinforcements arrived, an attempt was made in April to break out of ANZAC beachhead, the newly arrived reinforcement divisions being used to make a landing from the sea at Suvla Bay in order to assist the ANZACS. The night attack from ANZAC made some ground but failed to make a clean break despite incurring heavy casualties. The landings at Suvla were successful and initially not too costly but poor planning and the lack of forceful leadership meant that a never-to-be repeated opportunity was missed. The Gallipoli campaign was now lost. The failure at Suvla was officially put down to 'old generals and new troops' but there was more to it than that. In any case further heavy fighting failed to break the stalemate.

Later the Suvla and ANZAC beachheads were abandoned, followed eventually by Helles. The campaign had cost 36,400 British, Australian, New Zealand and Indian lives plus 10,000 French. The BEF suffered 63,000 deaths in France and Belgium during 1915. Contrary to popular belief, the ANZACS suffered fewer deaths (Australian 7300, New Zealand 2400) then the British (25,000, Indian 1700). There were, of course, more British troops engaged than ANZACS.

 

CANNOCK CHASE

A trench used for training troops has recently been found on Forestry Commission Land on Cannock Chase. It has been scheduled as an Ancient Monument by English Heritage, but its exact location is being kept secret.

In the early days of the Great War a number of hutted camps were ordered to be constructed in various parts of the country to house the vastly increased army. One of these was to be situated on Cannock Chase. Work started in the autumn of 1914 by a force of about 800 including carpenters, bricklayers and labourers. Despite bad weather and, of course, strikes, the camp was ready for occupation by May 1915. It seems that the huts were 'hand made' on site and not mass produced.

The result amounted to a town in itself with power and water supplies, sewage, roads and a railway connected to Milton station. There were in fact two camps, Brocton and Rugeley which, between them, could accommodate about 40,000 soldiers and numerous offices, stores, cook houses, stables, soldiers' clubs, a post office, bank and newsagents. A number of rifle ranges were also constructed. The following year a ,000 bed hutted hospital was built at Bridley Heath.

The camp was used mainly by reserve and training battalions (which amounted to the same thing) by English infantry regiments and the New Zealand Rifle Brigade. They were later joined by women of the WAAC.

A camp for German PoWs was situated at Brocton (there is, of course, a German cemetery on the Chase).

NOTE: This has been extracted

from A Town for Two Winters

by CJ and CP Whitehouse (1987).

 

ANSWER: Two months' imprisonment. The magistrate said, '...it would be difficult to conceive a grosser act of treachery to one's country in these times than the offence that had been committed.'

 

The Bulletin of the Birmingham Branch of the WFA

Compiled by Bob Butcher

October 2007