Siegfried SASSOON, 1886-1967.
When war broke out enlisted as a trooper in the Sussex Yeomanry.
In May 1915 was commissioned into the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Won the
Military Cross in June 1916 for single-handedly bombing and capturing
a German trench. Invalided home with trench fever, August 1916.
Returned to France February 1917. Joined the 2nd Battalion RWF on the
Somme, March 1917. Wounded 16 April and hospitalized in England. Sent
to Craiglockhart psychiatric hospital in Scotland in June 1917. On 30
June his statement against continuing the war was read out in the
House of Commons. Threw his Military Cross ribbon into the Mersey.
Became outspoken critic of war, his actions verging on treason. Posted
to 25th Battalion RWF in Palestine, 7 January 1918. Returned to France
with battalion 9 May. Wounded in the head 13 July and sent back to
England. Retired from Army 12 March 1918.
~~~ THE OLD HUNTSMAN
(Heinemann, 1917).
~~~ COUNTER-ATTACK AND OTHER POEMS
(Heinemann, 1918).
~~~ THE COMPLETE MEMOIRS OF GEORGE SHERSTON (Memoirs of a Fox-Hunting Man; Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, & Sherston's Progress) (Faber & Faber, 1937).
~~~ THE WEALD OF YOUTH (Faber & Faber, 1942).
~~~ SIEGFRIED'S JOURNEY (Faber & Faber, 1945).
~~~ COLLECTED POEMS (Faber & Faber, 1947).
~~~ Wilson, Jean Moorcroft, SIEGFRIED SASSOON: THE MAKING OF A WAR POET, A BIOGRAPHY, 1886-1918 (Routledge, 1998).
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Edward Richard Buxton SHANKS (1892-1953).
Commissioned into the South Lancashire Regiment in 1914; invalided out,
1915, and worked in the War Office until war's end.
~~~Songs (1915) poems
~~~Hilaire Belloc, the man and his work (1916) with C. Creighton Mandell
~~~The Queen of China (1919) poems
~~~The People of the Ruins (1920) novel
~~~The Island of Youth (1921) poems
~~~Poems 1912-1932 (1933)
~~~Old King Cole (1936) novel
~~~Edgar Allan Poe (1937)
~~~Queer Street (1938)
~~~Rudyard Kipling - A Study in Literature and Political Ideas (1940)
~~~Poems 1939-1952 (1953)
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Patrick SHAW-STEWART. Patrick Houston Shaw-Stewart
was born on 17 August 1888 at
Aberartro Llanenddwyn on the Merioneth coast, Wales,
son of a Major-General. Educated Eton,
Balliol College, Oxford with Julian Grenfell. Brilliant scholar ~
Hertford & Ireland scholarships; double First. Became Lieutenant-Commander
Royal Naval Division, friend of Rupert Brooke. Served at Gallipoli.
Killed in France on December 30 1917 with Hood Battalion.
Buried Metz-en-Couture Communal Cemetery British Extension.
More in biography by Ronald Knox (1920).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I saw a man this morning
Who did not wish to die
I ask, and cannot answer,
If otherwise wish I.
Fair broke the day this morning
Against the Dardanelles ;
The breeze blew soft, the morn's cheeks
Were cold as cold sea-shells
But other shells are waiting
Across the Aegean sea,
Shrapnel and high explosive,
Shells and hells for me.
O hell of ships and cities,
Hell of men like me,
Fatal second Helen,
Why must I follow thee ?
Achilles came to Troyland
And I to Chersonese :
He turned from wrath to battle,
And I from three days' peace.
Was it so hard, Achilles,
So very hard to die ?
Thou knewest and I know not-
So much the happier I.
I will go back this morning
From Imbros over the sea ;
Stand in the trench, Achilles,
Flame-capped, and shout for me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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William Ambrose SHORT , (1871 - 1917). Born Oswestry, Shropshire. Educated Winchester College. Commissioned in the Royal Field Artillery in February 1891 & served in India for ten years. When war broke out in Europe, he was commanding 68 Battery, 14th Brigade. Arrived in France in August 1914, where he served until April 1917, at which time he assumed command of 286th Brigade, RFA in the Houplines - L’Epinette Sector, near Armentieres. Killed in action 21 June 1917, aged 45. Buried Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery, Armentieres, France.
~~~ POEMS, Arthur Humphreys, 1918.
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Henry SIMPSON.
Born 5 June 1897 at Crosby-on-Eden, Carlisle. Educated Pembroke College, Cambridge. Commissioned in the 1st Battalion Lancashire Fusiliers, June, 1917. Was in France at Ypres by August of that year. Killed by a sniper's bullet a year later on 29 August 1918 while the Battalion was in front line trenches at Strazeele, near Hazebrouck.
I cursed each tune
Of night-dim wood
And Naiad's stream,
By that mad moon
Asearch for blood
And the waxen gleam
Of dead faces
Under the trees
In the trampled grass,
Till the bloody traces
Of the agonies
Of night-time pass.
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Sir
Osbert SITWELL (1892-1969). Commissioned as a Regular officer
into the Grenadier Guards, 1912. Served on the Western Front. Fought at Loos.
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Major
Sir Edward de STEIN, 1887-1965. Served in France with the King's Royal Rifle Corps (60th Rifles), 1914-18.
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John STILL. Captured at Gallipoli by the Turks while serving
with the 6th East Yorkshires at Suvla Bay in August 1915. Was a
prisoner-of-war for over 3 years. His poems were written in
captivity on 10 sheets of paper concealed in a hollow walking-stick.
Published Poems in Captivity, 1919 and A Prisoner in
Turkey, 1920 by The Bodley Head.
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Sergeant John William STREETS. Served in the 12th. York &
Lancaster Regiment. Known as "The Miner Poet". Published a
sonnet the Times in April 1915 entitled, "Gallipoli." Died on the Somme in 1916.
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Padre
G.A. STUDDERT-KENNEDY (1883-1929), otherwise known as "Woodbine Willie" for his habit of handing out Woodbine cigarettes to the troops, among whom he was well-known. Wrote ballads in the style of Kipling, and dialect poems.
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Acting Captain
Edward "Bim" TENNANT .
Born in Wiltshire. Eldest son of Edward Tennant, Liberal Member of Parliament
for Salisbury in 1906 (created Baron Glenconner of Glen in 1911).
"Bim" Tennant was educated at
Winchester College. Commissioned at age 17 in the 4th Battalion
Grenadier Guards in August 1914. A year later he went to France with
his Battalion despite a Brigade order that no-one under the age of 19
should be sent to the trenches. Served, among other places, at
Loos, Poperinghe, Ypres & Beaumont Hamel on the Somme. He was
killed by a sniper's bullet on 22 September 1916 near the village of
Lesboeufs & was buried in Guillemont Road Cemetery.
Special thanks to Jon Whitney for the photograph of Lt Tennant
in his Grenadier Guards uniform.
~~~ WORPLE FLIT AND OTHER POEMS.
Blackwell, Oxford, 1916.
~~~ WHEELS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF VERSE.
Blackwell, Oxford, 1917.
~~~ Glenconner, Pamela (mother to the poet),
A MEMOIR.
Bodley Head, 1920.
~~~ Powell, Anne, 'BIM': A TRIBUTE TO LIEUTENANT, THE HONOURABLE EDWARD WYNDHAM TENNANT.
1990.
THE MAD SOLDIER
I dropp'd here three weeks ago, yes ~ I know,
And it's bitter cold at night, since the fight ~
I could tell you if I chose ~ no one knows
Excep' me and four or five, what ain't alive
I can see them all asleep, three men deep,
And they're nowhere near a fire ~ but our wire
Has 'em fast as fast can be. Can't you see
When the flare goes up? Ssh! Boys; what's that noise?
Do you know what these rats eat? Body-meat!
After you've been down a week, 'an your cheek
Gets as pale as life, and night seems as white
As the day, only the rats and their brats
Seem more hungry when the day's gone away ~
An' they look as big as bulls, an' they pulls
Till you almost sort o' shout ~ but the drought
What you hadn't felt before makes you sore.
And at times you even think of a drink...
There's a leg acrost my thighs ~ if my eyes
Weren't too sore, I'd like to see who it be,
Wonder if I'd know the bloke if I woke? ~
Woke? By damn, I'm not asleep ~ there's a heap
Of us wond'ring why the hell we're not well...
Leastways I am ~ since I came it's the same
With the others ~ they don't know what I do,
Or they wouldn't gape and grin. ~ It's a sin
To say that Hell is hot ~ 'cause it's not:
Mind you, I know very well we're in hell.
~ In a twisted hump we lie ~ heaping high
Yes! an' higher every day. ~ Oh, I say,
This chap's heavy on my thighs ~ damn his eyes.
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Edward THOMAS (1878-1917). Enlisted 1915 in the Artists' Rifles; promoted Corporal March 1916. Commissioned into the Royal Garrison Artillery, November 1916. Posted to 244 Siege Battery. Went on active service in France, March 1917. Killed by shell-blast at Arras, 9 April 1917.
Thomas, Edward, "The Beginning of a Writer",
TO-DAY 1 (1917): pp 104-7. Memoir.
~~~ COLLECTED POEMS
, with a Foreward by Walter De La Mare.
Limited to 100 copies. (London: Selwyn & Blount, Ltd., 1920).
~~~ COLLECTED POEMS
, (Faber & Faber, 1944).
~~~ "Diary of Edward Thomas."
Introduced by R. George Thomas.
ANGLO-WELSH REVIEW 20 (Autumn 1971), pp 8-32. War diary.
~~~ COLLECTED POEMS
, edited by R. George Thomas. (Oxford: The
Clarendon Press, 1978).
~~~ POEMS
, by "Edward Eastaway". With an
Introduction by Myfanwy Thomas and Reproduction of
a Letter Written by Edward Thomas (London,
Imperial War Museum, 1997). No. 10 in the IWM's Art and Literature Series. A facsimile edition of the author's first book of poetry which contains 64 poems.
Cook, EDWARD THOMAS (Faber & Faber, 1970).
Thomas, Helen, AS IT WAS ~ WORLD WITHOUT END (Faber & Faber, 1956).
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Albert Ernest TOMLINSON
was born in 1892. Studied Modern Languages at
Emmanuel College, Cambridge, (where he heard Rupert Brooke lecture). Served as 2d Lt, South Staff. Regiment; in France from March to July 1916 and August 1917 to January 1918, as well as in India until demobilisation 1918-19. In addition to his war writings (poetry, a play, letters & a memoir) he later wrote many articles and poems about the Suffolk countryside.
~~~
CANDOUR: FIRST POEMS (London: Elkin Mathews Ltd, 1922).
~~~ Copp, Michael (ed), FROM EMMANUEL TO THE SOMME: The War Writings of A. E. Tomlinson. (London: Lutterworth Press, 1997).
~~~~~
from "Bellicosity"
A sob from the slain of all nations, the million passers-by
Who saw the empurpled placards roaring for war;
And stood from the mother's fender, and stepped out to die,
Shot down like a twopenny rabbit, or gassed
 like an obsolete whore.
~~~~~
from " 'Soldiers' By a Pacifist"
As the berg grinds free from the floe, all nations will
break from
the years;
These cannaille in field-grey and khaki have had flair
of the red as
it runs.
With that tigrish stench in its sweetness, they'll stir,
when the
tiger stirs,
On the Ox-heads who drilled 'em like dogs, and squandered
their lives
to the guns.
~~~~~
from "To German Soldiers"
As crump-hole differs from crump-hole, as mire may be
softer than
mire,
As the cut of the tunics won't help much when the men are
maimed yet
alive,
So killerman Grey and killerman Drab are oafs of one sire,
Settling problems of population with Mills, Number Five.
~~~~~
from "To Old Men"
Red full-rationed old men who telephone troops to the kill;
Red cocks among red-haggled lads who lick the blood of their spurs,
Whose red readiness of smug "sirring's" the comic relief on the bill,
For others that dribble calamity in No Man's dement of the flares.
Unclassed rejected old men, febrilely recruiting the fit;
Self-insisted unfit to be strewage of muck for the guns,
Reject your chair from the talk round the fire where fightermen sit,
Out to the unconsiderate death you see in the face of your sons.
~~~
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Robert Ernest VERNEDE (1875-1917). Served with the Royal Fusiliers. Killed in action 9 April 1917. Novelist and poet. His War Poems was published in 1918.
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Arthur Graeme WEST (1891-1917). Enlisted in the ranks, 1914. Served in France, November 1915 to March 1916. Commissioned September 1916. Killed by sniper fire, April 1917.
~~~ THE DIARY OF A DEAD OFFICER (Allen and Unwin, 1918).
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Gilbert WATERHOUSE.
Born 22 Jan 1893 in Chatham Kent. Educated Bancroft's School, 1894-1900,
and at London University. Working as an architect at time of his enlistment on 8 Sept 1914.
Entered as a Private soldier in 18th Battalion Royal Fusiliers. Commissioned 2nd Lieutenant in May 1915 and posted
to 3rd Battalion Essex Regiment at Harwich. By Feb 1916 he was serving in France with 2nd Battalion Essex Regiment.
Killed on opening day of the Somme, 1 July 1916. Unclear whether he was killed during the battle or died sometime later of wounds.
Buried in Serre Road Cemetery (see photo below).
|
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~~~
RAIL-HEAD AND OTHER POEMS
(London: Erskine MacDonald, Dec, 1916).
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A CASUALTY CLEARING-STATIONby Gilbert Waterhouse
A bowl of daffodils,
A crimson-quilted bed,
Sheets and pillows white as snow—
White and gold and red—
And sisters moving to and fro,
With soft and silent tread.
So all my spirit fills
With pleasure infinite,
And all the feathered wings of rest
Seem flocking from the radiant West
To bear we thro’ the night.
See, how they close me in,
They, and the sisters’ arms.
One eye is closed, the other lid
Is watching how my spirit slid
Toward some red-roofed farms,
And having crept beneath them slept
Secure from war’s alarms.
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All information and illustrations regarding 2d Lt Gilbert Waterhouse courtesy of Gordon Brown. Mr Brown writes:
"Gilbert Waterhouse and I share the same school - Bancroft's - and we honoured his sacrifice last Sunday 2nd July at our annual Old Bancroftian's
day - the 90th anniversary of course, since the Somme, with both a reading of his poem, "Rail-head" and inviting relatives to attend our ceremony
(we were also honouring two Bancroftian VC holders). His name is recorded on our School roll of honour, and his Great-niece, Rosemary Burn left a
floral tribute. I was also proud to present a copy of "Rail-Head and other poems" which I had managed to obtain via a military bookseller (after
much searching!) to the School for it to be held in the Library."
Additional information on Gilbert Waterhouse may be found at Wikipedia,
in an article composed by Mr Brown.
See also:
Poets killed on First Day of the Somme.
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T.P. Cameron WILSON
~~~ MAGPIES IN PICARDY AND OTHER POEMS (The Poetry Bookshop, 1919).
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Edward Hilton YOUNG (1879-1960). Served throughout the war as a Lieutenant in the RNVR, mostly on ships, but at one time with the Naval guns in Flanders. Was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Wounded at Zeebrugg, 1918. Promoted Lieutenant-Commander. Saw action on the Archangel front, Russia, against the Bolsheviks.
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