Knocked Out by Jack Johnson

Park Street from the junction with Chobham Street [Z1306/75/10/52/9]

Tuesday 15th June 1915: Private Albert Kempton, 7886, 1st Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment has been home for a few days and is now undergoing medical treatment at Bedford. He hopes to return home to his wife and family, 1 Chobham Street, Luton, this weekend.

Private Kempton says: “I met with my ‘accident’ in the fateful Hill 60, I was buried alive in a big house and it took some time to get me out. I was ‘knocked out’ by a ‘Jack Johnson’(1) shell which burst and blew the whole place up. I was underneath, with about eight or ten tons of it over me – bricks and wood, and the smoke from shells which strangles people. How I got out God only knows. They had to dig me out, so they told me, but I knew nothing until I found myself in hospital. I was also shot in the leg and had concussion of the brain. I am getting on nicely now. I was taken to the hospital Rouen, and then to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, where I had every attendance I could wish for. It was like being in Heaven after what we had been through. I was taken out in a car, but it upset my head, so I had to get back to my bed again. Never mind, I was pleased when I got in Luton once more. I have been out there since August and I never experienced anything like it before in my life. I thank my lucky stars I have got through as well as I have”.

Private J. Kempton, 8710, 1st Battalion King’s Royal Rifle Corps, a brother of Private Albert Kempton, is a prisoner of war in Germany. They hear from him occasionally and he is usually begging for bread.

Source: Luton News 17th June 1915

---

(1) A German shell of 150mm calibre.

War Poetry

Friday 5th March 1915: Corporal W. J. Mayhew of 2nd Bedfords has sent us the following poem “My Little Wet Home in the Trench”. It is a parody of the popular ditty “My Little Grey Home in the West” and was no doubt appreciated by the censor:

My little wet home in the trench,
Where rain streams continually drench;
There’s a dead cow close by
With hoofs turned to the sky,
And it gives off a terrible stench.
On the ground in the place of the floor
There’s lots of wet mud and some straw,
And the J. J.’s they tear(1)
Through the rain-sodden air,
O’er my little wet home in the trench

There are snipers who keep on the go.
So you must keep your napper down low;
For the star shells at night
Make a deuce of a light,
And it causes the language to flow.
Bully and biscuits we chew,
And its weeks since we tasted a stew,
And the shells dropping there –
There’s no place to compare
To my little wet home in the trench 

Now the Germans were sure of success,
But now they are full of distress.
So French(2) gave them a wrench
And they could not entrench;
Then the B and the F(3) did the rest.
While the Germans were shelling Ypres
The Uhlans(4) they crept through the trees,
And to them we gave chase,
Like a marathon race,
From our little wet home in the trench

Source: Bedfordshire Times, 5th March 1915

(1) Jack Johnsons – named after the African-American world heavyweight boxing champion – they were German shells.

(2) Sir John French, commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force

(3) the British and French, presumably

(4) German cavalry equipped with a lance and used for scouting.