The 1st Bedfords at Montgard Mill

The church in Sermoise

Wednesday 16th September 1914: Today the 1st Bedfords have been resting in and around the mill at Montgard near Jury. Our contact writes: “The owner of the mill is a most objectionable old man with his wife and family and will not do anything much to help us and anything that we want to buy we are told that he either has not got it or that he wants an impossible price for it. However we managed to get some very good honey out of him at a fairly reasonable price”. The battalion can see the village of Sermoise on the south bank of the Aisne, just across from Missy, is on fire.

Sources: X550/2/7

A Day in Missy

Tuesday 15th September 1914: The adjutant of 1st Bedfords reports that they have spent the day in Missy in support of the front line. They were heavily shelled with high explosives about midday and also came under rifle fire. One officer was killed, two wounded and around thirty five other ranks also became casualties.

Our contact with the battalion reports: “Up again at 4.45 am and managed with the faithful Drummer Chequer to brew some cocoa. We also shared some tobacco. I had none and Chequer had a few scrapings so we made it up with brown paper. I had never so longed for something to smoke so much before”. Making his way to Brigade Headquarters he reports: “They shelled and sniped us all the time and the General stuck his red hat on a stick and got it peppered!”.

“I went up to the front to see what was doing in an interval and was quite close to Johnnie Ker who was sitting on a bank. He got up and stretched himself and yawned saying that he was tired of it all and wanted a good sleep when a sniper shot him through the head and he died at once. Almost at the same time, if not with the same bullet, H. Courtenay was hit in the eye but not killed. It was an awful blow losing poor little Johnnie”[1].

“Sniping was getting pretty bad and the Germans very wily about it all, putting up their dead in position for us to shoot at and act as decoys. The battalion then held the line of the light railway and the edge of the village”. He went to the hospital to check on the wounded and returned to his command: “and was told in the darkness by some man that I had been killed during the day!”

“We then made arrangements to bury poor Johnnie and McCloughin[2] in the orchard, just south of the village and near the light railway. They were buried at 9 pm and the Brigade Interpreter, who was a Church of England parson in Paris, took the service”

Sources: X550/2/5; X550/2/7

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[1] Hugh Courtenay would be killed on 23rd August 1918 as Lieutenant-Colonel, serving with the battalion, aged just thirty.
[2] This looks like an error as McCloughin did not die for another three days! Perhaps the other burial was Private Gibson, the other deaths with the battalion on that day having no known grave.

HMS Carmania Sinks a German Ship and the Bedfords Cross the Aisne

RMS Carmania

Monday 14th September 1914: We have received a report of a victory at sea from Able Seaman Cheshire of Clifton Road, Shefford. He is a member of the crew of HMS Carmania. She is an ocean liner which has been fitted with eight naval guns of 4.7 inch calibre to help protect herself and other merchant ships against German commerce raiders. AB Cheshire has told me that today Carmania engaged and sunk a German armed merchantman, looking, I am told, suspiciously like Carmania herself, off the Brazilian island of Trinidade.

He says: “We met here off the coast of South America. The scrap started soon after 12 o’clock midday, and in one hour forty minutes  we put her down; a glorious victory as she looked a far superior ship to ours. Our gunnery was splendid, without any boast. I can tell you it was hot stuff whilst it lasted. Of course we did not get off scot free – we had a few shot holes. The worst part of the whole affair was that we caught fire but we got it out with a little hard work. We had nine killed and between twenty and thirty injured, which was a very small casualty list compared with the Germans[1]. We gave her a good rousing British cheer as she disappeared to the bottom. Our captain was splendid – as cool as a cucumber, smoking a cigarette”.

In France the adjutant of the 1st Bedfords writes: “We crossed the River Aisne by pontoon and raft and attacked Missy. We were heavily shelled and had about forty casualties”. Our contact with the battalion, as usual, adds some more revealing information:  “The battalion moved forward and began to cross the river at 2 am … The battalion crossed over in two rafts, being pulled from side to side by ropes and got over about 3.30 am”. The battalion made its attack: “The Norfolks had a pretty bad time on the ridge in front as they had advanced with our battalion and we had succeeded in practically clearing the crest when the British guns mistook them for the enemy and started shelling them. The Germans in the meanwhile put down a barrage behind them. In the confusion the Norfolks lost direction and charged their other half battalion with fixed bayonets in the woods. We all had to clear out of the woods and lost a good many men through it”

“Private Smith had been hit in the stomach on the way down and Drummer Chequer[2] and I looked after him. Poor devil, he was in agony and we had to take turns sitting on him to keep him from throwing himself about; we could do little for him but eventually managed to get him taken across the river and put in a cart and taken to hospital where he died the next day[3]. McCloughin was also hit that day and died in a house in Missy after the most awful agony”.[4]

Source: Bedfordshire Times 9th October 1914; X5502/5; X550/2/7

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[1] In fact between 16 and 51 Germans are mentioned by various sources as having been killed. The rest, some 250, were rescued by smaller German vessels.
[2] Drummer Chequer would be killed on 28th September 1914.
[3] As can be seen from the Roll of Honour Private Smith is officially recorded as dying of wounds the same day.
[4] He died on 18th September.