Commemorating the 110th anniversary of the Battle of Somme
From 1st July to 18th November 1916, the British Army fought what came to be known as the BATTLE of the SOMME. As we commemorate the 110th anniversary of that Battle, in which 17 Southampton footballers fought, club historian David Bull honours the seven of them who fell: five of them in this Battle; and two more later in the War.
This condensed attempt to do justice to the experiences of those seven men – six contracted Saints and one war-time “guest” – will proceed from the first day to the last, via the engagements at Delville Wood and Le Transloy.
The first day, 1st July, and afters: We know of seven Saints who fought on the opening day, plus a late arrival who was in time for the return of the action to the original area on 3rd September. Three of those eight men died. Each of them was in a Pals Battalion. An alumnus of Southampton’s King Edward VI School, Stanley Neil played once for the Saints Reserves before moving to Yorkshire, where he joined the Leeds Pals. He arrived on the Somme as an Acting Major. Most of his battalion’s advance fell to heavy machine-gun fire in the first 100 yards of No Man’s Land. He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing.
So, too, is Ralph Thompson. He had played in the Football League for Grimsby Town in 1913/14. While training at Sutton Veny with the Grimsby Chums, he guested for the Saints. He fell when his commanding officer reportedly “ordered one of the most senseless assaults” of the day, in which the leading Chums were “instantly mown down.”
Although living in Southampton’s Territorial Drill Hall, where his ex-soldier father was the caretaker, Bill Durham joined the Pompey Pals. In 1915/16, he played in a dozen friendlies and one war-league match for the Saints before he went to France, arriving on the Somme in late August 1916. When the Pals went on the attack on 3rd September, they suffered heavy casualties: 457 of their 570 officers and men. Durham died of his wounds and is buried at the Doullens Communal Cemetery Extension No 1. He was commemorated on the shirt worn by Portsmouth’s players in 2014/15 – a shirt that carried the names of 1,422 Pompey Pals who died in this war. Ironically, the only pro footballer named was the young man who had played one competitive war-time match for Southampton.
The above three men are pictured at the top of this commemoration – left to right, Neil, Thompson and Durham – along with Edward Bell, the decorated hero of Delville Wood (below) who would be killed in 1918.
Delville Wood 15th July-3rd September: Captain Edward Inkerman Jordan Bell, who had played a few times for the Saints, pre-war, was serving in the Footballers’ Battalion as adjutant to Major Frank Buckley, the England international in charge. When the Major was severely injured, Bell assumed command in such a manner as to be awarded the Military Cross for “conspicuous gallantry”. When the battalion was disbanded in February 1918, he was attached to the 99th Infantry Brigade. He was killed on 24th March. Awarded a posthumous Bar to his MC, he is believed to be buried at the Albert Communal Cemetery.
Le Transloy 1st-18th October: As the Battle entered its fourth month, action was suspended while the infantry waited for the rain to stop – as it did on 7th October, a fine day for a fight. Bill George and Cecil Christmas were among the men who had been kept waiting.
Arriving at The Dell from Bitterne Guild in 1901, George averaged a game per season over the next three years. Whereupon, he enlisted in the Royal Sussex Regiment, with whose 7th Battalion he was at Le Transloy on that fine day of 7th October, when this battalion was involved in a support-attack, along with the 41st Division that included Christmas. George survived but would be less fortunate at Arras, the following spring, when he was reported missing. His body was never recovered. He is commemorated on the Arras Memorial.
Four old boys of Banister Court School, just up the road from The Dell, played for the Saints on their way to becoming officers in this war. Three were commissioned on the strength of serving in their school’s Officer Training Corps, but Cecil Christmas had to qualify from the ranks to become a Second Lieutenant in the 18th King’s Royal Rifle Corps. When the British advance of 7th October was halted by machine-gun fire, Christmas was among the losses.
When the 18th KRRC faced the 16th Bavarian Reserve at Le Transloy, the latter’s Adolf Hitler (front left with fellow despatch riders) was wounded, while the former’s Cecil Christmas (right) was killed.
The 18th KRRC had been facing the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment from Munich, one of whose despatch riders later claimed to have been injured and sent home on that same day of 7th October. That soldier was Adolf Hitler, writing in Mein Kampf, inviting the obvious what if: supposing the British death and the German wounding had happened the other way round? Such counter-factual musing became redundant in 2010 when research into Hitler’s regiment showed that he had been wounded by a British shell – the artillery could keep firing in the rain – on 5th October and was in a German hospital when Christmas fell. Cecil’s body would not be recovered and his name is on the Thiepval Memorial. In stark comparison, Hitler would live to start another war.
The final day: Inverness-born William Gray had graduated from his hometown Thistle to Partick Thistle of the Scottish First Division. He became a Saints fixture in 1906/07 until he was suspended sine die in March for drunken misconduct. So he returned to Scotland, stopping off at Partick on his way home to Inverness, where he combined playing again for the local Thistle with working on the railways. Having enlisted in the 4th Seaforth Highlanders in September 1915, he participated in the final week of action on the Somme, in which a gain of 1,000 yards cost more than 20,000 casualties, his life included. He died of his injuries on 18th November 1916, the day on which this bloody four-and-a-half-month battle ended. His body lies in the Abbeville Communal Cemetery Extension, while his name is inscribed on the Highland Railway Company’s War Memorial, in Inverness.
William Gray, who fell on the Somme’s last day, is commemorated on the Inverness Memorial to workers of the Highland Railway.
Lest we forget the survivors: In the space available, I have been able, above, to commemorate seven Southampton footballers who fell in this war, five of them on the Somme and two later. Let us not forget, though, the 10 survivors: Septimus Blair, William Burroughs, David Chalmers, Charles Curtin, Bill Dobson, Martin Dunne, David Kenny, Herbert Parsons, Fred Simms and Reg Slade. Their experiences on the Somme are told in one of the 45 chapters in Saints in the Great War, the club historians’ book from which this article is excerpted (copies available online or in the Saints Store at St Mary's).
