Tag Archives: Mametz Wood

In Search of the Past: A visit to the Somme Part 6 by Penny Gerrard

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Lieutenant Colonel Harry Vivian Robert Hodson

Our two day trip was drawing to a close and so, lunchtime baguettes eaten and the loo in a local café visited, our thoughts turned back to Richard’s grandfather Harry Hodson.

After the battle of Mametz Wood, Harry assumed command of the 14 Royal Welsh Fusiliers on 18 July 1916 and redeployed with the 38 Welsh Division to the Ypres salient on the Yser Canal until June 1917 when he was appointed Officer Commanding the Brigade School.  Harry took command of the 1st Battalion the North Staffordshire Regiment on 9 April 1918 to reform and retrain the battalion after it had been virtually wiped out in the area of St Quentin when the Germans first launched the Ludendorff offensive.  The battalion was deployed in the Lens area from May to late September until relieved. The regiment was then redeployed to the Cambrai area to take part in the final stages of the war and the battle of the Selle.

In Search of the Past. A visit to the Somme. Part 6 by Penny Gerrard16
 “The peaceful River Selle as it is today”

We drove down a steep hill to find the River Selle which formed the setting of this battle and were rather nonplussed to find a small, tranquil and reed-edged river winding its way in a rather chocolate box way through a pretty village.   Not at all Richard’s vision of what the River Selle would be.    It was clearly a very different place when Harry’s regiment fought for control of what was a key bridge.

In Search of the Past. A visit to the Somme. Part 6 by Penny Gerrard26 “The landscape above the River Selle where Harry’s battalion fought”

Back up the hill Richard was able to bring the area of the fighting above the village to life for us, having an instinctive grasp for the lie of the land and the direction of the fighting which the rest of us lacked.

In Search of the Past. A visit to the Somme. Part 6 by Penny Gerrard3
 “Dark clouds over the fields above the River Selle”

Harry commanded his battalion in operations from 7 October to clear the enemy from the villages of Awoingt, Cauroir, Cagnoncles, Rieux, Avesnes, St Aubert until he was wounded at 11am on 13 October 2018, very near the end of hostilities.  He was twice “Mentioned in Despatches” for gallantry.  The war ended before he was again fit for duty and so he survived and returned to his wife and three children, one of them being Robin, Richard’s father.  He commanded his regiment again in 1925 and was stationed in Calcutta until 1929.  In 1930 he was compulsorily retired due to defence cuts, living to the age of 85.

As we stood on the road trying to visualise the battle raging across the landscape, we thought about how different things could have been if the bullet which hit Harry in the hip had actually killed him.  A long life could easily have been cut short as it was for so many thousands who went off to the Somme with such high hopes of serving their country a century ago.

Our time exploring the Somme battlefields was over and we left with just a little more understanding of the experiences of Robert, Walter, Gilbert, Harry and Frederick – only two of whom lived to tell the tale.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.*

In Search of the Past. A visit to the Somme. Part 6 by Penny Gerrard4 “St Aubert British Military Cemetery – just one more example of the dedication of those looking after these very special memorials all across France and Belgium”

*From “For the Fallen” by Lawrence Binyon

 

Penny Gerrard

with information & text from Richard Hodson

 

 

In Search of the Past – A visit to the Somme Part 5 by Penny Gerrard

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Lieutenant Colonel Harry Vivian Robert Hodson

The Gerrards and the Hodsons had completed a moving but successful first day travelling round the Somme and as our schedule only allowed us two days in the battlefield area we were up and about early on our second day, ready to find another one of Richard’s family members – this time his grandfather Harry Vivian Robert Hodson – Lieutenant Colonel of the North Staffordshire Regiment.  He was second in command of the 15 Royal Welsh Fusiliers which landed in France in January 2016 and, after a period of training, deployed in trenches in the area of Laventie.

In Search of the Past – A visit to the Somme Part 5 by Penny Gerrard1 Mametz Wood across the field of Oil Seed Rape

Our first destination of the morning was the infamous Mametz Wood which stands much as it always did in the middle of open rolling countryside.   What made it very different from how it would have looked on the day of the attack was the sea of yellow oil seed rape in which the wood now sat.    Then it would probably have been a sea of mud.  We walked up to the amazing red dragon memorial to the 15 Royal Welsh Fusiliers which sits on the small hill over which the battalion climbed before descending into the narrow flat area leading across to the wood.

In Search of the Past – A visit to the Somme Part 5 by Penny Gerrard2 The Red Dragon Memorial to the 15 Royal Welsh Fusiliers

The battalion took part in the attack on the wood as part of the Somme offensive, in the face of fire from both sides of the valley and from the heavily fortified wood.    Even walking across the field towards the wood through the golden yellow flowers on a sunny early summer morning with birds singing all around us, I could still feel the atmosphere of that place. Standing where I was one hundred years before would have meant almost certain death.   The battalion lost 12 officers and 252 other ranks killed or wounded in that offensive.   A dreadful day.

In Search of the Past – A visit to the Somme Part 5 by Penny Gerrard3“ Taken from the field the battalion crossed to reach Mametz Wood looking back at the memorial”

Lieutenant Frederick William Watkins

We had more of Harry’s Somme history to investigate later, but we had one more family member to track down first – Richard’s great uncle and the elder brother of his maternal grandmother.  Frederick William Watkins was a Lieutenant of 36 Jacobs Horse, Indian Army.    He was one of the survivors of the Great War so we were glad not to be searching for a grave or memorial.    He fought at the battle of Cambrai from 20 November to 4 December 1917 and later in 1918 with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force against the Turks in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq).   He remained in the Indian Army after the war and was later discharged from the army in 1942 on medical grounds.  He died aged  86.

In Search of the Past – A visit to the Somme Part 5 by Penny Gerrard4“The Canal d’Escaut as it is today”

Richard was keen to visit the site of an operation which did not work out as planned in which his great uncle was involved and we soon found ourselves at a bridge across the Canal de L’Escaut at Masnieres.   The canal was still and peaceful and we enjoyed a gentle walk along its banks before returning to the sturdy bridge near the Masnieres War Memorial to find a place to eat the baguettes we had thought to bring with us this time.

In Search of the Past – A visit to the Somme Part 5 by Penny Gerrard5 “No one does baguettes like the French!”

Richard described to us how, on 20 November 2017, Frederick’s first action as second in command of a cavalry squadron was to follow up the tanks and infantry on foot and bridge the Hindenburg Line where a breach was made to allow the Cavalry Divisions to exploit any break through.  The task was completed by 11 am, under spasmodic shell fire, but the leading Cavalry Brigade appeared two hours late and the opportunity for a real breakthrough across the canal was lost.    An information board by the modern bridge shows the embarrassing image of the first of the British 28 ton Flying Fox tanks proving too much for the bridge and sinking on the broken bridge towards the water below.

In Search of the Past – A visit to the Somme Part 5 by Penny Gerrard6“The destruction of the bridge over the Canal d’Escaut” 

From 29 November onwards Frederick was involved in dismounted operations to halt the German counter attack between Gouzeaucourt and Epehy in the area of Vaucellette Farm.