Jack Watkins: An ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances

When studying World War One, it is easy to just focus on the large scale nature of the conflict. As the name suggests, it spanned the entire world, from Tsingtao in the far east to the fields of Flanders in Belgium. But when we look at this period, it would be remiss to ignore the human stories of the individuals dotted around the world, and how they saw what was then the deadliest conflict in human history.

Figure 1:A desolate battlefield in Flanders, Belgium. This is the sort of image of WW1 that most people think of when the think of the conflict, though it was one of many disparate locales in which the war was fought.

Figure 2: British and Japanese Troops participate in the siege of Tsingtao, a German port in Northern China. This was over 8,000 miles away from the western front of WW1 in Belgium.

One such individual who told an engaging story was Gunner Jack Watkins. Born in 1896 and raised in Aberystwyth, he was well off growing up, having been born into a quite mercantile family; his father was a wine merchant. At age 14 he enrolled in Aberystwyth County School along with his brother Leslie, to whom he entrusted his diaries to upon his death. Whilst at the school, he met Ivor Morgan, who had enrolled two years earlier; the two fought together in Palestine, where they became friends.

Figure 3:A photo of Jack Watkins, found in the Cambrian News in July 1917. As the photo suggests, and like many soldiers in the war, he was very young.

Having enlisted in 1915, Jack had to wait until July 1917 to be deployed to the Middle East, travelling through France and across the Mediterranean, becoming part of the British 75th Division. Created in Egypt in 1917, it took soldiers from Britain, South Africa and India, and mostly saw action fighting against Ottoman forces in Palestine. 

From 1917-1919, he wrote several diaries documenting his time in the military. These diaries give a day-to-day insight into his life, letting us peer into his war. While many of his entries are mundane, some of them describe in detail the battles in which he fought, including his account of the Sinai and Palestine campaign, between 19th and 25th September 1918. Whilst in Palestine, Jack found himself in a division with Ivor: in his diary Jack repeatedly mentions going to the soldiers’ club with Ivor, and it seems that they were very firm friends within their unit; Ivor’s name is mentioned very regularly, especially towards the end of his life.

Figure 4: Above is a page from near the front of Jack's original 1918 diary, which starts with a poem that paraphrases a poem of the same name ‘Lays of Ancient Rome’ by Thomas Babington Macauley, published in 1842. It is followed by several places he was encamped during his time in the middle east. Below this a doodle of a pyramid, a palm tree and camel. Scattered throughout his diaries are doodles such as this one.

Figure 5: Next image shows his 1918 diary and his newer, rewritten diary. At some point these two were stuck together and cannot be prised apart.The newer diary is much more legible and hence easy to read, but excludes some key passages from the originals. (Used with permission of the Ceredigion archive)

Interestingly, Jack decided to rewrite his diary after the war, most likely due to the small size of the original, which meant his handwriting had to be very small, and in some places practically illegible. In this newer edition, he chooses to omit some of his entries, which can tell us a lot about him as a person. The key omission he makes is anything related to Ivor, who died in battle on 18/19^th September 1918, during the final British offensive. It seems that the closeness of their relationship made it too hard for Jack to write about his friend after the war, even if he was just copying out his diary. Even the comment in the original diary was brief, simply writing ‘Haversack lost, Ivor Morgan killed, was speaking to him late last night'. We know from his diary entries and from letters to family that Jack wrote to Ivor’s father, Bunce, to inform him of his son’s untimely passing and to express his condolences; the fact that he shouldered this responsibility speaks to close friendship Jack and Ivor shared.

Figure 6: Ivor Morgan's obituary in the Cambrian News, Late Sept-Early Oct 1918. Bunce would likely have heard about his son's death from Jack Watkins.

Jack’s diary also features several much less tragic stories. Simple, humdrum day-to-day issues like believing that someone had stolen his bivouac or his mail getting lost, populate most of the diary, with other activities such as Jack learning to swim, or teaching his Sergeant Major to speak French interposed.

Ultimately, Jack’s diary allows readers looking back and properly engage with the human nature of the war. It is easy to look at the war in the big picture as the industrial slaughter that it was, though this angle is very impersonal, and doesn’t allow us to really comprehend the impact the war brought. Through the death of Jack’s friend Ivor, we can really understand the profound sense of loss that many soldiers and families felt back home, something he felt duty bound to write home to Ivor’s father about. 

It also paints us an image of a radically different day to day life that he experienced in comparison to the life he would have led in Aberystwyth before the war. When we study the war from the bottom up, looking at the stories of individuals, and then think about the fact that millions of men and women had stories like this all over the world, only then can we grasp the big picture of the world changing and tragic event that was the First World War.

Jack survived the war, but sadly died in the 1920’s of a respiratory disease he had developed while in the Middle East.

Bibliography:
‘Flanders Fields’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flanders_Fields, (September 25 2018), fig.2, accessed 23rd January 2019
'The Siege of Tsingtao’, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tsingtao, (December 20 2018), fig.6, accessed 23rd January 2019
Jack Watkins’ Diary, Reference ADX/1652, Ceredigion Archives
The Cambrian News

Blog by Nathan Davies, AberForward Project Assistant

Bravery, Determination and Warfare

Henry John Ballinger, a second Lieutenant of the Monmouthshire Regiment, was the son of John and Amy Amelia Ballinger of Sherborne House, Aberystwyth. Henry enlisted as a volunteer in 1914 for the Royal Welsh Fusiliers but on the 22nd April 1915, he was sent to the Monmouthshire Regiment and went to France on 19th July 1915 as a part of the First Battalion.

On the 3rd September 1915, he joined the 46th North Midlands Division and on the 13th October 1915 the Division was sent to assault the Hohenzollern Redoubt. This Redoubt was considered by the British to be the strongest and most well-defended Redoubt on the whole of the Western Front. This strong point was positioned very close to No Mans Land and protected the important flat-topped slagheap that the British named ‘The Dump.’ The Redoubt gave the German infantry scouting information for miles and allowed for fields of fire across every single direction. 

It is important to recognise that Redoubts were temporary fortifications but had the potential of being incredibly strong points of defence that were difficult to break.The Hohenzollern Redoubt was no different to this and was an incredibly well defended position.

After vicious fighting involving mass bombardment and back-and-forth combat, the 26th Brigade of the 9th Division took the Redoubt first after awful losses due to poisonous gas, enemy fire and enemy barbed-wire. But the Germans realising its importance had already made plans to retake it and, although the British were resolute in their stand, they eventually lost much ground. 

The 46th North Midland Regiment, that Henry John Ballinger was part of, then attacked the Redoubt on the 13th October 1915 after more gas had been released. The division suffered awful losses, 3,643 to be exact, and most of these were in the first ten minutes. The only gain for their losses was the capture of the western face of the Redoubt. The strategy was too basic and poorly thought out, the Division was supposed to overwhelm the German defence with its numbers, but it was overly reliant on this, and as a result, men were acting as cannon fodder for the German machine guns. Private Sidney Richards summed up this day, where many Welsh soldiers had fought bravely and died, by being an "absolute hell with the lid off. Dying and wounded all over the place. Shall never forget this day."

Henry was trying to hold his position in a German trench, after bravely capturing German machine guns to try and use against the enemy, but whilst manoeuvring them through fearful odds he was shot by a German rifleman and killed. He was just 19 years old. He has no known grave and is commemorated in the Loos Memorial, France.

The layout of the assault by the British forces that Henry would have been a part of

Photo: https://derbyshireterritorials.wordpress.com/the-great-war-1914-1918/1915-2/loos/

Blog by Jack Atherton, project volunteer

Sources :
https://www.wwwmp.co.uk/ceredigion-memorials/aberystwyth-ww1-war-memorial/
https://britainatwar.keypublishing.com/2017/10/02/the-hohenzollern-redoubt/
https://derbyshireterritorials.wordpress.com/the-great-war-1914-1918/1915-2/loos/

“Hello! I’m Julian and this is my friend Egbert...”

 We are all well aware by now of the terrible cost in human lives of war – but there is also a cost in pounds, shillings and pence. Guns and bombs have to be made and paid for. How does a government find the funds to finance a long and bloody war? It borrows of course.

During World War I the government instituted a War Savings scheme – people could either buy certificates or bonds, basically lending money to the government. Interest would be paid – a single certificate (launched in June 1916) cost just 15/6d (77.5p) but one pound would be repaid in five years, interest of 5.5% p.a. The idea was that everyone could contribute, no matter how little they had. The bonds were for people with more to invest.

 [This is a bit unusual to modern eyes – look in the top right hand corner! The swastika is an ancient religious symbol, used in many cultures.]

Obviously more was needed than just an announcement that the scheme was open. A heavy advertising campaign ran continuously, with weekly adverts in the local newspapers. But something more was needed, and the idea of a concentrated War Weapons Week was born. These took place in different towns at different times. The idea was to encourage everyone to invest every penny they could spare to help pay for the essential supplies that would ensure Victory. One advert (29/11/1918 – two weeks after the Armistice!) encouraged contributions with these words:

Feed the Guns with War Savings Certificates and help to end the War. Do not think that because Guns and Shells cost hundreds of pounds your savings are too small to count. One 15/6 War Savings Certificate would pay for 18 lbs. of High Explosive or 124 Machine Gun Cartridges. Three War Savings Certificates would pay for a round of our terrible 18-pounder Shrapnel

But even this idea of a concentrated campaign need a little extra something – how about a Tank?  

And so a couple of tanks (Julian and Egbert) were spared from the front line to tour round South Wales encouraging contributions. 

Anyone contributing at the tank would get a special souvenir stamp!

The War Weapons Week in Aberystwyth ran from 8th to 13th July 1918. The plan was that each town would have a ‘quota’ to raise - £2/10/0 a head – and, if the quota was reached, then a gun, plane or tank could be named ‘Aberystwyth’. In the case of Aberystwyth this meant a target of £22,500. Could it be done?

Well, perhaps with the aid of a Tank to attract the crowds it might just be possible. So Julian duly arrived in town (by train) on Monday 8th July. He (not she) came with a crew of three and an officer in charge, all recuperating from wounds. Julian then drove through the streets (no evidence is noted of any damage caused!) and ended up on North Parade, where he tackled piles of earth, stone and barbed wire. He spent several days in town, encouraging investors to dig deep into their pockets.

Julian was a ‘male’ tank – which meant that it carried a six-pounder cannon and three  machine guns, as opposed to the five machine guns of a ‘female’ tank. To quote the Cambrian News “It is a real tank returned from the Western Front, and showing signs of having been in action.”

Julian was commanded by Lt. Latch D.S.O.:

People even composed poems:

Tank Julian came to Aberystwyth 

The great War Loan to assist with 

The men of the town 

Planked all their bunce down 

To combat the Hun's mailed fist with.

But why “Julian”? According to the Carmarthen Weekly Reporter “Julian, the tank, is named after Sir Julian Byng, and not after the Roman Emperor of that name.” General Sir Julian Byng was commander of the Canadian Corps at the battle of Vimy Ridge. He was later Governor-General of Canada and Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, and became a viscount and Field Marshall.

Was Julian successful? Did Aberystwyth meet its target of £22,500. I think it’s fair to say it did. £682, 448 was raised during the week. £76 per head, and it was the highest amount raised per head anywhere in the Empire (with the possible exception of Singapore). So much for the tales of Cardis being ‘careful’ with their money! And were the Huns later terrified to see a tank called ‘Aberystwyth’ rolling towards them, guns blazing? We don’t know, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence that any tank was ever named ‘Aberystwyth’. Presumably the war ended before it could happen.

And the Savings Certificates? Over £207 million was raised from them. After the war they continued to be issued (debts needed to be repaid), but were renamed to the more familiar National Savings certificates.  And they were so useful:

Blog by Nigel Callaghan, Project Volunteer

Source: Cambrian News