Category Archives: Loos

Stanley Martin

Alfred Sutton School War Memorial, Army, Loos, Other Regiments, Royal Berkshire Regiment, Somme

Stanley Martin M.M.
Sergeant 200620
1st/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment  and

2nd Lieutenant
2nd London Regiment, Royal Fusiliers

Sergt Martin, Stanley photo MARTIN S2 AS

Stanley Martin was the son of Charles Alfred and Maria Martin who lived at 22, Hatherley Road Reading. The home address in 1901 was the same as the caption on the photograph. Charles Martin’s occupation was a cooper, by 1911he was a foreman cooper at the Huntley and Palmers Biscuit Factory. Stanley was the youngest of four children, he had two older sisters and an older brother. In 1911 he was still in school.

He enlisted in 1914 in the 1st/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment aged 17½ and reached the rank of acting C.S.M. when he was recommended for a commission being promoted to the rank of 2nd Lieutenant with the Royal Fusiliers.  He was still with the  1st/4th’s when he received the Military Medal for “conspicuous good work in an attack on April 5th 1917.

Details of the action were published in the Standard May 12 1917 in relation a Lance Corporal Herbert Degrucy of 29 Grosbrook Road, Caversham who, like Sergenant Stanley Martin  was awarded the Military Medal for conspicuous good work.  ‘During the attack on the villages of Ronssoy, Basse and Lempire, after the village was entered the company had to push on to link up with another battalion 1,000 yards through the village, and during the flight that ensued this N.C.O. showed great ability, being a great help to the C.O.  he set a fine example and displayed great bravery and devotion to duty.  Sergeant Stanley Martin, was awarded the Military Medal in connection with the engagement detailed above.

He was killed in action on September 18 1918 aged 24 years and buried at Ephey Wood Farm Cemetery, the Somme.  The village of Epehy was captured at the beginning of April 1917.  It was lost at the beginning of the spring offensive on March 22nd 1918, after a gallant defense by members of the 21st Division.  British defenses were broken through on this day and the allies made a hasty retreat.  The Germans claimed the taking of 16,000 prisoners and 200 guns.

The village was retaken on 18 September 1918 in the Battle of Epehy, which started September 12 1918.  The cemetery takes its name from the Ferme du Bois and Plots I and II were made by the 12th Division after the capture of the village, and contains the graves of the men and officers who died during the battle 18th September 1918.

Charles Love

Alfred Sutton School War Memorial, Army, Commemorated name/s, Loos, Royal Berkshire Regiment, Somme, St. Batholomew's Church

Charles Love
Sergeant 3435
2nd/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment

Division 59

Charles Love

Charles Love was the youngest son of Mr George  William and Ethel Ann Love of 223. London Rd.   In addition to being  commemorated on the Alfred Sutton Memorial he is also remembered on his parents grave in Division 59 of The Reading Cemetery. He came from a large family with his mother giving birth to twelve children, three  of whom had died. The family were involved in the  trades of decorating and plumbing and George Love ran his own business. Charles was stated in the 1911 census as a house furniture assistant.

The formation of the 2nd/4ths and their time in France until July 1916 can be found in the section relating to Leslie Beard.  Charles Love  joined the battalion in 1914 and would have been involved in the actions previously recorded. It is known that he was  an instructor and lecturer although there is no specific information about this role.  In the weeks leading up to his death Charles Love would have experienced the following events.

Immediately after the unsuccessful trench raid in which Leslie Beard was killed the battalion had to make ready for an attack which was due to take place on July 16th.  The attack was delayed for several days due to poor weather, several men were lost in the intervening period as they were shelled getting into and out of the trenches.  On the morning of the 19th July the British artillery began shelling the German lines to soften them up in readiness for the assault in the evening at 6p.m.  However, the Germans replied with shells of their own which did a great deal of damage in the crowded front line trenches and many men were lost.  Further difficulties were experienced when the men tried to leave the trenches at zero hour via two sally ports and found that the Germans already had machine guns trained on the openings and many men were wounded or killed.  Those who did get through eventually had to fall back because of lack of support and because the German wire was uncut and prevented any forward movement.  Other units which had been involved in the attack, including the Australians, were also unsuccessful.   After this action the battalion was relieved and was not in the front line again until the end of August.  Although all of September and the first half of October was spent in and out of the trenches the battalion history records that there was “little to note.”   On the night of the 14th – 15th October a successful raid was carried out on German trenches by five offices and sixty men.  The men had moved out under the protection of a barrage and two Bangalore torpedoes effectively cut the enemy wire.   They were able to collect a great deal of information and cause a number of casualties among the Germans with only four men injured and one missing.   The battalion then went into training for a month and on their return to the trenches found themselves in the Somme sector at Bouzincourt near Albert from the 19th November.  It was here on the 26th November that they experienced a particularly heavy day of shelling and Charles Love was killed.  Information as to his death comes from various sources including a report in the Reading Chronicle.  He was recorded as “killed in action whilst on patrol” and  “killed instantaneously by a shell”, in these circumstances it would be difficult to retrieve a body and would account for the fact that he has no known grave.  He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing on Pier and Face 11D.  He was aged 21 at the time of his death

Leslie Ernest Lindsay

Alfred Sutton School War Memorial, Army, Loos, Other Regiments

Leslie Ernest Lindsay
Private 2488
9th Battalion East Surrey Regiment

Lindsay LE photo

Leslie Ernest Lindsay was the son of George and Mary A. Lindsay, of, 14 Palmer Park Avenue.  He died on the 26th September 1915, the second day of the battle of Loos, aged 19.  Prior to the war, according to the 1911 census, he had worked for the Co-op.  He has no known grave and is commemorated on the Loos Memorial Panels 65 -67.  Specific details about the death of Leslie Lindsay are not known but a general account of the battle, particularly the second day, is set out below.

The 1915 BEF offensive in Artois was centred around Loos.  The Germans held the high ground and their second line of defence was well protected on the reverse slope.   They were well aware of the impending attack and their line was strengthened with well constructed concrete machine gun posts.  The German artillery tactic was to bombard the assembling British troops and to lay a barrier of fire across no man’s land once the attack had started.  Those men of the BEF who penetrated the barrier would be stopped by machine guns.  It was at Loos that the British first used chlorine gas in retaliation for the gas attack by the Germans outside Ypres in April 1915.  The discharge of gas hung around the battle field and even  drifted back into the British trenches, hindering rather than helping the advance.

Loos was to be the first testing ground of the “New Army”.  John Keegan in his book “The First World War” (page 218) describes the scene as the New Army 21st and 24th Divisions went into line on the morning of the 26th September and started their attack in early afternoon.

“….they moved forward in ten columns ‘each [of] about a thousand men, all advancing as if carrying out a parade-ground drill’.  The German defenders were astounded by the sight of an ‘entire front covered with the enemy’s infantry’.  They stood up, some even on the parapet of the trench, and fired triumphantly into the mass of men advancing across the open grassland.  The machine gunners had opened fire at 1,500 yards range.  Never had machine guns had such straight forward work to do …with barrels becoming hot and swimming in oil, they traversed to and fro along the enemy’s ranks; one machine gun alone fired 12,5000 rounds that afternoon.  The effect was devastating.  The enemy could be seen falling literally in hundreds, but they continued their march in good order and without interruption’ until they reached the unbroken wire of the Germans’ second position: Confronted by this impenetrable obstacle the survivors turned and began to retire.’

The survivors were a bare majority of those who had come forward.  Of the 15,000 infantry in the 21st and 24th Divisions, over 8,000 had been killed or wounded.  Their German enemies, nauseated by the spectacle of the ‘corpse field of Loos’, held their fire as the British turned in retreat, ‘so great was the feeling of compassion and mercy after such a victory’.”