Joe’s War: One Irish Soldier’s Path Through Gallipoli, the Somme and Beyond…

PillinPillin are Slugger readers living in Spain

My Grandfather was a Private in the Royal Irish Fusiliers. He fought at Gallipoli and on the Somme. We learned the following from the RIF museum.

Of the 16,000 who volunteered in Armagh, Fermanagh and Tyrone only about 600 survived. So my family´s existence hangs by a thin thread. In all at least 200,000 served and 49,435 Irish soldiers died in the First World War.

The 10th Division was the first Division almost entirely composed of Irish Battalions who faced an enemy.

The men, who had differed in religion and politics, and their whole outlook on life, became brothers in the 10th Division. Unionist and Nationalist, Catholic and Protestant, lived and fought and died side by side, like brothers.

They combined for what they believed was a common purpose: to fight the good fight for liberty and civilisation (or was it actually for Britannia Rules the waves?)

They were a Division of the new Army entirely made up of men who had no previous military experience, and who had never heard a shot fired. Yet, the very day they landed at Suvla (Gallipoli), they found themselves precipitated into the most tremendous and bloody conflict, exposed to heavy shrapnel and machine-gun fire, on an open strand, where cover was impossible.

And yet we have the testimony of everyone, from the Generals in Command down, that the Division behaved magnificently, in spite of the most terrible and unlooked-for difficulties and, sufferings.

Before they went into action, their artillery was taken from them for use by another Division, and they landed at Suvla and Anzac without a single big gun.

We have another record of what my grandfather Joe endured

“5^th Battalion Royal Irish Fusiliers in the Great War”

This is what one of the officers present says about the attack on Chocolate Hill.

The attack was opened on 11^th July 2016 by the battalion ….The advance began by a descent shorewards ..along the sand dunes..This movement was immediately observed by the enemy who laid upon the dunes a heavy barrage of high explosive….it became necessary to cross the mouth of the Salt lake a morass some sixty yards in breadth where men sank above the knees. At this point heavy casualties were sustained for here the enemy concentrated the fire of about twenty of his heavy guns. The main Turkish force was on the heights that overlooked the plain, but in the scrub lurked dozens of snipers a great many of whom remained silent until the advancing troops had passed them ..these then took a heavy toll of officers and men. By dusk the plain had been crossed in spite of heavy casualties and the objective was within reach. By 8pm Chocolate Hill had been stormed and captured.

The next day at 4am the enemy launched two counterattacks but were driven off….During all this time the troops suffered greatly from the lack of water.. the few wells that were found were subjected to continual sniping..and many men who bravely volunteered to fill the water bottles of their comrades lost their lives …The great heat , the sand , the flies , the very food – bully beef and biscuits –all combined to intensify the thirst of the troops . At 4am the next morning the battalion was relieved by the Royal Dublin Fusiliers and marched back to the beach but before shelter was reached a heavy shell fire was opened on the unit. Respite from the struggle was shortlived for the same afternoon orders were received to relieve the Lancashire Fusiliers on a high hill some three miles away. About this time dysentery which in a fortnight had reduced the troops to a state of great weakness first made its appearance……by the evening of 16^th July the battalion had been reduced to just 4 officers and 100 men..the remaining number was reduced in health by bad food scarcity of water and alternate exposure to burning sun during the day and a damp cold at night. Suffering was still further increased by the continual strain of action , lack of proper rest or sleep and by the heavy digging ….all this continued until 30^th September when the battalion was taken off the beach and sailed to the island of Lemnos to recuperate.

By 26^th September the battalion – with new reinforcements – was back in action in Serbia….by 21^st December they were in action in Macedonia…then by summer 1917 they were in Egypt and on 25^th September they arrived in Ismailia – 32 years before Joe´s son Hugh and his wife and children (us) arrived in the same town!! By the autumn Joe was fighting in the Palestine Winter Campaign of 1917-18.

In May 1918 the Battalion arrived in Marseilles and for the first time since Christmas 1914 the men were allowed in groups of 2 to 3 hundred to return to Ireland to see their families. Then they were back in action on the Somme and in the first week of October in the ruins of the village of Auchy the battalion was subject to its heaviest gas bombardment – Joe was a casualty and suffered the consequences for the next 22 years until his death. The Battalion then paused in the village of Ennevelin where the civilian population held a thanksgiving service for their deliverance and the Irish soldiers replaced the church bell stolen by the Germans. A tablet in the church says “Presented by the 5^th Service Battalion of the Royal Irish Fusiliers as a token of their esteem and regard for the French Nation”

The battalion continued advancing under heavy bombardment to the River Scheldt and on 10^th November moved in Antoing . On 11^th the armistice was signed

Thus ended the Battalion’s efforts in the Great War.