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A 1/4TH HAMPSHIRE REGIMENT

 

SIGNALLERS DIARY

 

NOVEMBER 1916 TO SEPTEMBER 1919

 

BY

 

THE LATE ARTHUR JAMES FOSTER
(1899-1973)

 

(Ex Corporal of the Hampshire Regiment)

 

 

 

 

 

EDITED

 

BY HIS SON

 

RICHARD CARFAX-FOSTER

(carfaxfr@bigpond.com)

AUSTRALIA   AUGUST 2001



 

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

This is an edited account of my father’s recollections of his experiences as a soldier in the British Army in the First World War.   These recollections were set out in two documents that were my father’s revisions of a diary that he kept during his World War 1 service.

 

My father died in 1973 and thus having no direct part in the preparation of this account.

CONTENTS

In order to set the diary entries into context I have set out this document in the following way:

 

·        This Preface.

·        A Prologue giving background information about my father, his unit and his military experience up until the first diary entry.

·        The edited version of the diary presented in two parts.

·        The Epilogue giving a brief account of his military service after the last diary entry.  This covers not only his immediate post-war service, but also his experiences with the Greek, Australian and US Armies between 1921 and 1946.

INTRODUCTION TO THE DIARIES

Content

The two documents are reproduced here in two parts:

 

Part 1

Part 1 covers the period November 1916 to October 1917.   This part is reproduced as it was originally written.

 

Part 2

Part 2 covers the period October 1917 to September 1919.   The source for this part is not the original diary, but appears to be a draft of “faction”, that is a work of fiction based on my father’s experiences.  For the record my father was from time to time an amateur author writing magazine articles and radio plays;  the last of these being written very shortly before his death.  The source document was obviously written some time after the First World War.  Its author is an older man than the author of the first diary. 

 

Consequently I have heavily edited this part of the diary to remove the fictional overlay and leave only the factual substrate.

Style and Annotations

To the greatest extent possible my father’s work has been reproduced as he wrote it complete with his own oddities of style, layout, spelling and grammar.

 

My annotations are either footnotes or comments inserted into the text like this:

 

Such comments are distinguishable as they are in italics and are indented from both margins.

 

GEOGRAPHY

The events described in the diary take place mainly in the Middle East through Mesopotamia into Persia, to the south of the former USSR and to India.   In modern day terms Mesopotamia and Persia are now Iraq and Iran.   An examination of a modern atlas shows that many of the place names mentioned in the diary have not changed, for example Baghdad, Basra and Baku.

 

Those who have read accounts of military campaigns in Mesopotamia and Persia during both World Wars (eg Slim, John Masters and Russell Braddon) will recognise names and even battles.

DIFFICULTIES WITH RESEARCH

In the 1960’s my father tried to obtain information about his WW1 service but was thwarted by the discovery that enemy bombing in the Second World War had destroyed the bulk of his records.  The only information available came from the medal rolls and these provided a list of his regimental numbers that subsequently enabled me to link him to a name in the Hampshire Regimental records.

 

With the exception of the diaries and my dim memories of his reminisces, this story is based on educated guesses and assumptions about the significance or content of documents and photographs that he retained to the end of his life.   I must therefore take total responsibility for errors and inaccuracies outside what my father actually wrote.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I have been enormously aided in the preparation of this work by the Regimental Headquarters of the Royal Hampshire Regiment.  They were kind enough to send me photocopies of parts of “The Hampshire Regimental Journal” that either mentioned my father by name or had articles about the 1/4th Battalion or Dunsterforce.

PROLOGUE

 

Arthur James Foster was born into a tradesman’s (painter and decorator) family in Portsmouth in the English County of Hampshire in October 1899.  At the start of the First World War he was almost fifteen years old. 

 

The date on of his items of memorabilia suggests that he enlisted in July 1915, but there is no other evidence to support this.

 

A photograph, apparently taken in May 1916, shows him as a member of the 2/6 Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment (2/6 Hamps) at a training camp at Lyndhurst, England.  Since he was not yet seventeen it is most likely that he put his age up in order to enlist.  The 2/6 Battalion was most likely a training battalion providing reinforcements for Battalions on active service.

 

As part of my research for this story I saw many photographs taken of English Army troops in Mesopotamia in WW1 and have been struck by their obvious youth and immaturity.  These photographs add credence to my father’s ability to join up at the age he did.

 

He was trained as a regimental signaller.  The skills learned included morse code and various methods of transmitting messages such as heliograph [1] (70 miles range across the desert he would claim), flags, signal lamps and direct morse key line signaling.

 

A British Army 1914 Field Service Manual - Infantry Battalion (Expeditionary Force) describes the manning and equipment of an infantry battalion.  While my father’s battalion may have differed in detail from what is described in the Field Service Manual, its organisation would be close enough for us to gain some understanding of it for the purposes of this story.  

 

The battalion was around a thousand men in strength made up of:

 

·        a Headquarters,

·        a machine gun section, and

·        four rifle companies. 

 

Each company, commanded by a Major, comprised four sections each commanded by a Lieutenant or Second-Lieutenant with a Sergeant as second-in-command.   Then, as in the Australian Army in which I served in the 1970’s, the companies were distinguished by the letters A to D.

 

Regimental signallers were part of the Battalion Headquarters.  The Field Service Manual shows a complement of 17 signallers comprising:

 

·        one Sergeant,

·        one Corporal. and

·        15 Privates (of which a number may be Lance-Corporals). 

 

The signallers were equipped with binoculars, prismatic compasses, signal flags, heliographs [mounted mirrors which communicated by flashing reflections of the sun], telescopes, watches and bicycles.  In the Field Service Manual the equipment is listed in sets of eight.  This suggests that in the field each company would have had attached to it three signallers with one of them being a Lance-Corporal where possible.  The remaining three signallers would have been based at the Battalion Headquarters along with the Sergeant and Corporal.

 

These soldiers would have charged with sending and receiving messages between the Company and Headquarters as well as with adjoining companies.

 

Except for written messages carried by foot (or bicycle), the messages would have been sent using morse code and perhaps semaphore.  However, morse code would have the most common method being the one easiest to transmit over long distances and by heliograph.

 

According to the Royal Hampshire Journal a reinforcement draft from 2/6 Hamps left Devenport for the Middle East in December 1916.

 

Arthur Foster was probably a member of an earlier reinforcement draft from 2/6 Hamps as his diary opens in November 1916 when he was in Capetown en-route to join the 1/4 Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment (1/4 Hamps) in Mesopotamia.

 

THE DIARY Part 1 - November 1916 to October 1917

 

November 10th [1916]

It is some weeks since I touched this diary.  The last time was in Bournemouth before I left.  Since then I have travelled to the places I have always dreamed about.  Madeira, Sierra Leone and at the time of writing we are lying in the docks of Capetown.  I am in hospital with sun stroke after long spells of Signal duty in the sun.  I go out tomorrow.  The orderly says I was lucky as I had a temperature of 106.  I only remember them giving me a bath which I resented because I thought they thought I was dirty.  Now I know it was an ice bath to cool me down.  Although it felt quite warm and I think I believed I was going to die.  If I was near Death then it is quite peaceful and nothing to be afraid of.

 

I do not know if you will ever see this Dad as I have already lost the first book of my doings in camp and billets.  Of this voyage I cannot say much good, it is awful.  The food is not fit for dogs; only the bread and jam is eatable and we have no money to buy any.  Two of us are getting a little acting as look-outs for a gambling "school" on our deck, but what we get we very often lose straightaway at "Banker" or "21".  We have found a way of spearing bread on a broom-handle through the window of the galley stores.  I was caught once and got a hiding from a cook.  The ship is disgustingly dirty and we are all catching lice.  There are 5000 old troops abroad and she is marked as having accommodation for 2600.  There are police on the water taps and we get rations of two cups a day.  The mess orderlies line up for the food two hours before time and if they are last they stay there from 11 am to 2 pm.  We are sleeping anywhere and down below in the tropics it is stifling.  We are all fed up and all longing for decent food.  I hope when you read this that you do not think I do not like the Army but I do wish you could see how we are treated at times.

 

We called at Madeira for a few hours, but we did not get ashore, as also at Freetown.  There we steamed up a long estuary and the town looked wonderfully pretty from the ship.  I loved the look of the palms and greenery on the hills.  Blacks - quite naked, came off kneeling in canoes and dived after pennies, dodging the sharks which they seemed not to worry about, but wasted no time in getting back into their canoes when we shouted "shark" at them.  Bumboats, also sold fruit and sweets to us or exchanged them for shirts or socks etc.  I could not get much I have only one shirt left now as owing to the lack of water we wash our clothes by dragging them on a line over side and if one leaves them too long they come back as a tangled mass of shredded cloth.

 

When we left we were all nearly sweated dry.  To move an arm down below caused a stream of perspiration.  How people live there I cannot imagine.

 

Two days out we turned around and steamed back for 36 hours to avoid a raider.  The "Highflyer" went over the horizon at a great rate.  You will know the "Highflyer" - her main mast is shorter than her foremast and from a distance she looks as though she is going the other way.

 

Capetown looks interesting from the porthole.  Right outside is a sign reading "Pas can veer de cranen" meaning, I suppose, "Beware of the Cranes".  Negroes are warming around and seem to be coaling us.  I forgot to say that we were coaled from lighters at Freetown, the natives running up planks into the coaling doors with small basketfulls on their heads.

 

Later.  I have seen the famous Adderly Street, and had a gorgeous time ashore.  The people are as kind as can be and there are several free tea-rooms for troops where we can get a nice meal.  Most of us have had invitations to tea at private houses.  I went today to a dear old lady's house with Sergeant Brent.  It was funny - both of us had had our hair cut a few days ago like convicts to keep clean of lice, and when I got inside the house I was so ashamed that I kept my cap on.  Mrs Wetjen looked several times wonderingly and I got redder and redder until Brent laughingly snatched my cap off and explained.  It was a good joke and I got a kiss from the old lady.

 

In the beautiful park at the top of Adderly Street in the evening we sat and watched the people pass.  And a queer lot they are too - queer in clothing and in habits and speech.   The native South African whites have a peculiar sibilant way of saying "yes", like "Yee-es", which I shall always identify again.  The native police carry a big knobbed stick.  Among old habits is that of the curfew which, however, no-one seems to obey.

 

It is all very strange and wonderful and I seem to be living in a kind of enchantment - things are crowding on me so fast that my brain gets only a confused impression.  I suppose if it were not war-time I should not take so much notice of what, I take it, must be a very ordinary trip.  But we are conflicted with so many rumours and tales of the dangers of the scrapping in the North-East that I am beginning to realise what we are in for.  We sail for Durban tomorrow.

 

Durban has accorded us a royal welcome - we arrived to meet a storm of fruit and cigarettes which were thrown aboard as we came alongside.  The docks were at the end of a long tree-lined road leading into the centre of the city, a road fit for a royal procession.  It makes me wonder how our own towns manage the traffic through the average narrow winding home-town streets.  A majestic Town Hall, good tram service, big shops, marvelous Zoo, courteous people, picturesque rickshaw boys with their plumed, horned headdresses and painted stockings, fine beaches and harbour -- truly I think the Colonials are to be envied and I mean to come back some day.

 

November 17th [1916]

We are now on the final stage for Mombassa and the ship is standing on her nose and head alternately.  I shall have to leave this till we land.

 

December 28th [1916]

My good resolutions went by the board soon after I wrote last.  We ran into the tail of a hurricane and put into Zanzibar for shelter -- and I have been so interested in events since I am only now able to raise energy enough to resume.

 

Zanzibar is a memory to me of cinema-like rapidity.  Chumbo lighthouse, vivid green hills and ravines, bright-coloured houses amid the palms, the many balconied Sultans' palace, minarets, towers, Arab dhows, Swahili fighting canoes, launches and small cutters, green islets in the bay, white sandy foreshore and red roofs behind.  A scene of intense vivid beauty.

 

A night from Zanzibar found us off Kilineili, the landing place for Mombassa, two miles away.  Those of us landing went ashore at once, fully laden with all our kit.  It was a long two miles too, but the scenery made up for a lot of discomfort.  The heat is terrific, and I was glad when we got into the queer open-sided train for Nairobi.  This when we arrived, I found to be a bare, bleak looking one-street and we were accommodated in tents -- just outside.

 

The next morning we were off -- marching in light marching order without packs (what a relief).  The first day was not bad as the road was a fairly decent dirt surface, but it soon ended and we had to take to the native trails.  No one knew where we were going except the high and mighty ones, and I am no wiser now.  I do wish the officers would realise the men are interested in the War too.  It is not very pleasant to go trekking into new country and not have the faintest idea of one's destination.

 

We covered ninety miles in seven days, good going in the heat and poor tracks.  Our loads were carried by fine upstanding Swahili porters and we strung out over some two miles of path.  On the fifth day I saw two things I shall always remember -- one at each end of the scale of human emotions.  The first -- I was on advance guard and we came to a small stream, not more than ten feet wide but looking very, very dirty evil in the grey dawn.  we halted -- up came our Sergt. Major ripping out oaths at us and the main column soon after him.  Now this S.M. is a worthy man but the embodiment of dignity.  No one was keen on going into the water so he with a brave air shouted out "Come on, I'll show you the way -- afraid of a little water?"  pushed boldly two steps into the stream -- and vanished!!  That little ditch was ten feet deep and it took six of us to pull him out.  The sight of his heroics and his muddy face when we got him out was too much for us.  We all, officers included, laughed till we cried and I do not think we have recovered yet.

 

The second -- The same evening we camped on a small plateau only about three miles

air-line from where we had started that morning across the valley.  I was swotting mosquitoes from my neck and doing my best to keep the flies out of my tea when I saw a lad suddenly sit down and roll over.  Immediately there was a flat report from somewhere behind me -- then three more.  As I turned back I saw an Indian orderly holding his neck and blood spurting from his fingers.  I cannot hope to make you understand my feelings at the moment.  I did not know whether to laugh or cry -- or run away.  A machine gun cut loose at the camp edge and we dived for equipment and arms.  Nothing happened -- and we soon settled down.  The man who was hit first was hit through the heart -- we buried him that night.  He was only seventeen and I liked him thoroughly as a fine boy and a good comrade.  Such was my introduction to War at close quarters -- the two following days we were sniped but had no damage except two carriers wounded.  Their wounds were ghastly from the size of the big lead bullets which expanded on impact and took great pieces of flesh right away.

 

The seventh day we struck a post of African Rifles -- about a platoon and two officers.  We had no sooner arrived than we heard the news.  The campaign in that district was over -- the Germans having withdrawn -- and we were to return to Nairobi.  I was not sorry.

 

We trekked back to Nairobi.  Stayed two days in close confinement owing to some outbreak of disease in the native town (or to keep the Tommies out of temptation?) on the train and soon we were once more aboard the same ship on which we had arrived at Mombassa.

 

There is a an obvious gap in the diary here as the ship must have  first gone to the west coast of India before arriving at its destination in the Persian Gulf

 

This morning we are lying in the stream below the bar in the Persian Gulf waiting to transship to a smaller vessel to go up to Basra.  So after my adventures in Madras and East Africa I am to join our Fourth Battalion in Mesopotamia.  From the porthole it looks like one of the places which our Creator forgot.  Dismal, rainy, flat, with no sign of any redeeming features.  It is not even pretty.  But we are going to see some fighting as we hear definitely that the troops inland are on their last legs and that is the reason we have been sent here.

 

January 1st, [1917]

So I start the New Year.  We came up the Shatt-el-Arab, the estuary of the Tigris and the Euphrates, past Arab villages and picking a devious course around the two ships which the Turks sunk to block the passage -- through narrowing, low, palm clad banks and are now at Magil camp, the base for the Army.  Mud, mud and again mud.  If, as is rumoured, we start to march to Qurne at the junction of the two rivers, we appear to need mud pattens like the cockle-gathers at home!!!

 

Later

Thank Providence we are not marching up river.  We have just got aboard a river steamer after packing and leaving behind all our kit except what we can carry in our packs.  As I had this book handy I thought the time could be passed in describing the trip, but I am not going to get much chance as it is cold and wet and I am never happy out of the sun.  This craft is the queerest of the many vessels which have each done a part in bringing me out here.  (By the way our voyage, considering where we have been, is said to be a record).  She has a high clumsy side-paddle steamer and carries two long barges tied to her sides.  They are filled with animals -- mules, horses, and sheep.  The Arabs who did the stevedoring were like characters out of the Bible.  Short, thick-bodied, huge limbed, they carry immense loads and I saw one pick up a 200 lb sack of grain with one hand, give a small grabbing jerk with the other and the sack was on the shoulder as easily as I would lift a year-old baby.  Which reminds me that the babies here are incredibly dirty and as pot-bellied as they can be without bursting.

 

March [1917]

On the 8th we were still passing over the endless expanse of clayey desert.  We were halted and the Brigade was detached to go out to the Diala to cross the river which "Johnny" was holding.  I did not go; they came back on the 9th nearly dead with the hard march and lack of water.  We had sent water half way to them to get them back.  They seem to have escaped heavy casualties, only one shell hit the Battalion -- which accounted for a whole machine gun section.  The Hants [2] farther up came up against a strong force and their Brigade I hear made a fine crossing and collected some V.C's.

 

All day on the 10th we bivouacked in an awful dust storm and on the 11th still in the dust storm, which made life a misery.  We crossed the Diala and camped about 9 miles Baghdad.  On the 13th we entered Baghdad -- not the first troops as it turned out but close after them.  We were put into these barracks but few of us slept that night for the vermin.  I am on sick list with my leg and so have so far escaped my share of the heavy duties which are our share.  The Battalion is about half strength from casualties and sickness but everyone is happy.  The War in Mespot is about over now.  We are back to the old routine of clean clothes and spick and span guard mounting.  The "Tommy" is not allowed to forget the way to keep his boots clean;  even if they are rubbed with some of the bacon fat from his ration!  I hear some are going on leave to India.

 

Later

We have had an appalling tragedy.  We all thought the War was going to leave us untouched for a while -- but even here it pokes its grisly fingers into our bowels.  We were all at breakfast yesterday when there were three terrific explosions.  I thought "Johnny" had bombed us -- we all rushed out and joining the throng I was greeted with the most horrible sight I've seen so far.  Turning a corner where lay the body of a sentry the first thing I saw was the body of a man plastered on the mud wall -- imbedded -- literally blown into it -- a mass -- the beaded blood starting from the quivering flesh.  All around was blood and portions of bodies and reeking flesh, mule flesh and human flesh -- scattered, gory splotched on the ground and walls.  A leg here, a mule's hoof there -- a tangled mass of iron that had been a cart -- it was ghastly, sickening.  Thirteen men and six mules blown to atoms in a fifty feet quadrangle.  One moment alive and joking -- the next moment pieces of reeking carrion.  They had been loading bombs and shells from the Turkish arsenal when, by some accident the whole lot exploded.  The Sergt. standing on top of one load was simply obliterated -- the only piece recognisable was a part of his chest which carried a tattooed butterfly.  The incident has cast a gloom over everybody -- God knows we have lost enough without this.  Is the God of War insatiable?

 

I ate breakfast with one of them the day before -- he was happy because he had a letter from his mother.  War -- War -- War -- is this awful conflict never going to cease?  What tract of country will ever be payment for our lives?  Is all War like this?  Sickness, hunger, death.  If one does not get you, then the others will.  I am more sad today than I've been since I joined -- I'm tired bodily, and my brain seems incapable of grasping the relative importance of keeping myself alive.  I think I've got a touch of malaria again.    

 

August 11th [1917]

Some months have passed since I wrote in this book.  I've not felt fit enough for one thing and I wonder at times what is the use of keeping a diary since I do not expect to get out of this hell hole alive.  I'm going down the valley fast.  My nerve is giving too -- I'm scared of shadows -- I'm everlastingly ill with malaria or sandfly fever or diarrhea or some complaint or other.  I feel like an old man at times -- I'm not eighteen yet but it seems ten years since I left school; it's only three years this month.

 

These last two months I've been living in a nightmare.  I'm desperately unhappy -- the men in my tent annoy me -- if I had sufficient energy I'd fight every day with one or other.  Heat -- dust -- flies -- mosquitoes -- sandflies -- early morning entrenching -- long treks on convoy duty -- weary guards and picquets -- sickness -- they've reduced me to utter misery, despair at the useless monotony.  I go in fear of my tent mates -- of the loud mouthed Sergt. Majors and dread the Adjutant and Officers.  I drag my weary body around the camp looking for one quiet spot to rest -- to get away from the sweaty tents -- the obscene chattering -- the awkwardly offered sympathy of my chums who have sense enough to realise that I'm next on the list.  I visualise my name in Part 11 orders -- "Died of sickness".  My body -- I was so proud of  -- it has betrayed me -- I am nicknamed the "Shadow".  I am alone, a weary soul in a strange land, God knows when I shall go down finally.  I've reported sick twice -- each time I was given quinine or opium pills -- and returned to duty after a day on "light duty".  I'm not reporting again.

 

We left the Turkish barracks in Baghdad and were camped in a beautiful grove of dates and figs on the left bank.  Our old barracks were turned into a hospital.  I did not after all see much of Baghdad.  I went around a bit at first but soon tired of the sights.  Quite the most interesting sight I saw was a member of a very ancient profession who had her name tattooed in vivid blue across her stern!  I understand she was very popular and would exhibit the tattoo for a penny.  She showed it to two of us for nothing!

 

We marched here in July.  We came up in three nights of which the last was very trying. 

( 340 carts and over 1000 animals the column extended over 3 miles marches were started in early hours 1 man died 50 others collapsed reached Baquba )It was a hard march.  We are in big E.P. tents on the ground , which separates the barren plain from the strip of cultivated land by the river.  Figs -- Grapes -- Melons and dates were ripe when we arrived -- everything seems easy to grow if there is water enough.  We are about a mile from the river Diala and about 3 miles from the line of strong points of "lunettes", which we are holding.  We are also digging lines of trenches -- what for, the Lord alone knows -- we haven't smelt a Turk for months except one or two prisoners.  It is not so hot here as down the line but quite hot enough.  We get an occasional visit from a Turk "plane" which reminds me that I am hoping to go to the Air Force as a Wireless Operator.  We are losing men steadily from sickness, but are paid once a month and we are occasionally treated to some canteen stores, which are to be bought in the E.P. canteen in Baquabah, three miles away.  That gives us a feast of condensed milk and salmon and extra cigarettes.  If I were feeling fitter I think I would quite enjoy the stay here.  I suppose I'm a weakling -- but there it is.

 

October 3rd [1917]

Here I am at Ahwari, some two miles north of Baghdad -- at the R.F. Corp camp.  Tomorrow I go back to the Regiment -- at my own request.  Air Force work does not suit me and now that I've been away from the Battalion for six weeks I want to get back.  Things have not been too easy -- I did not get on with the men here at all -- and I am certainly scared of any more aero plane work.  The force has, like all Mesopotamian shows, been starved for equipment

-- one De Haviland is the latest plane here, the others are antiquated BEs, which are falling to pieces on the ground.  They would (and do) fall to pieces when flown.  My first flight as observer was a voluntary one -- working, or attempting to work a portable wireless set.  It was quite exciting in some ways but disappointing in others.  Flying is much the same as going in a fast motor car except that I was violently sick.  We were shelled over the Turk line towards Mosul, but nothing came near the plane.  The lines look curious from the air -- somewhat like the sand models we made in training at home.  I've been up several times since then and each time we've had to streak for home -- once with the engine shaken to pieces.  A nut dropped off the propellor boss and chipped a piece of wood off the blade -- threw the blade out of balance and the engine shook itself to pieces.

 

THE DIARY Part 2 - October 1917 to September 1919

 

1918 [3] - Paitak Pass - Persia

We left Baqunba on October 2nd (1917) and marched for 3 nights to the north east through Abu Jisra, Mendeli, to Shabraban.  We lay there a day, watching the preparations for a big push into the Jebel Humran, the range of hills lying parallel to the Persian frontier.  It was a long, tiring march, as usual and I, for one, was heartily thankful of the spell at Shabraban.

 

Again as usual, no one seemed to know what part we were booked to take in the scrap.  Shabraban is just a collection of mud huts, dogs, filth and bad smells.  That evening we were ordered to parade for a night march;  we sat about watching the planes;  I was glad to be on the ground.  We were in the centre of a big concentration, that was evident, but we were all ignorant as to the exact plans.

 

We moved off and marched into the east;  through dust and darkness.  It was weird; no ordinary march at night worried me by then, but this evening strict silence and "no smoking" was the order.  The thud of feet and the constant jangle of equipment were the only clues to the movement of troops through the desert night.  After six hours of steady march-halt-march-halt we were ordered to sleep where we stood.  No one needed telling twice - I had slept through each halt and for the last two hours on my feet;  mechanically following the men ahead but really sound asleep!

 

My short Indian "Warm" overcoat just covered me from shoulders to bare knees;  I spared five minutes for a soothing cigarette under the shelter of the coat;  this in spite of the very urgent warnings against lights.

 

At dawn we were astir and I found that our Battalion was accompanied by Indians, (Punjabis) some machine guns and part of a Field Artillery Battery.  We headed on across the desert as the sun came up - a range of hills on our left seemed to promise a pass about 10 miles away and to this we headed.

 

Away in front the misty haze cleared in patches as the sun gained warmth and later a few mounted figures held out hopes that we were getting into contact with friend Johnny again after eight months.  We eventually closed in on the foothills and some excitement was caused when we struck loose pebbles;  stones are unknown lower down the country and we each snapped up a small pebble to suck as we trekked!  We halted in a little valley;  at a spring or sulphur-tainted water;  the hours passed away;  a few mounted men made sorties in different directions but we were quite content to remain crouched under our impromptu bivouacs.

 

From Chabriz [4] we moved back to Telebara where we had slept after Shabraban; leaving a picket at Chabriz which we relieved at intervals and with which we kept in touch by hello and "big flag" during the day and by lamp at night from a curious high mound just outside the camp at Telebara.

 

We had evidently strayed beyond the ken of the "High Lord" at Baghdad.  We bivouacked for several days and then as no tents arrived, we were put to the task of building reed huts!  The reeds we gathered from a marsh and when the resultant huts were finished - - Ye Gods!!  What a sight the camp presented!  I'm sure that no Turkish planes would have suspected it as being the abode of British troops.  Some of them were fairly strong - all leaked, naturally, and numbers had to be held up as soon as the gentlest breeze blew!  Food was reasonable, the officers a good lot with one exception;  I was picking up strength again and starting to take an interest in life.  At length tents arrived for us and we were issued with winter clothing;  this was altered to fit by amateur tailors.  We took down our grass huts and burnt them with some feelings of regret.  We were proud of them!

 

The Battalion moved at the beginning of December to Ruz,  the new bridgehead which was formed after the Turks were cleared out of the Jebel Humrum a month or so before.  Two of us were detached on the 2nd to some Divisional Signals operating in front of Qizil Robat.  We marched through the pass at night and I was detailed to my post on a test point with a linesman.  I stayed there all night listening to the messages to the B'de which was attacking in the morning.  At six o'clock with a roar the guns opened a mile away and the troops at 9 o'clock had made a successful crossing and the Turk routed.  Our old friends the Buffs, were the main assault troops and suffered a fair number of casualties.  Through glasses I could see them go over amidst the dust and smoke from the barrage and I found it hard to realise that they were actually men -- working in peril of death.  From where I stood the flames seemed to be diving into the smoke from the shell bursts.  About 8 o'clock our point was rendered unsafe for a few moments by high angle machine gun-fire.  Probably by accident through the gun firing at a low-flying plane.  Intentional or not, a bullet punctured my last tin of condensed milk, or "Dood" as we always call it.  Most of our possessions are known by the Hindustani names; rifle is "Bandhuk"; bread is "roti", butter is "makin" etc., and our speech is flavoured freely with the picturesque "Bant".  Numbers of us speak Hindustani quite freely if not too correctly.  I also speak fair Turkish which I acquired from prisoners and in Baghdad.  I find it quite useful in this part of the country as Turkish is understood well by the inhabitants.

 

Rejoining the Battalion at the north end of the pass, we moved off the following day to a point some three miles away.  We lay there in company with several Indian Battalions and a British Machine Gun Company.  We were in a Perimeter Camp;  square with shelter trench dug around enclosing the tents.  Several times we were visited by aircraft but we were unable to make any impression on them with the continued [5] Lewis and machine guns.  Half the Battalion moved north-east 20 odd miles to Khanikin, close to the Persian Border, about the 15th December.  We stayed in camp at Merjana a fortnight longer, having an easy time except for ration shortage.  I suppose Baghdad had again forgotten us.  I sat at the door of my tent with a telescope each evening awaiting the ration convoy and loud cheers greeted my pronouncement upon the rations on the carts!  We were on quarter rations but we made up for it by shooting anything which was edible in the district.  Geese were shot by some, pigs by others and I ventured to suggest that the cost of one goose in rounds fired  would have supplied 1000 for a week to the shooter! 

 

We "swapped" also our razors, clothes, knives, etc., to the Indian troops for some of their "chapattis" (dry pancakes) or for tins of condensed milk.  They did not appear to be short of flour and I, several times, bought milk from them at a cost of from three to five rupees a tin!  How is it that these Indians can be able to sell some of their rations when we are hungry?  Does our beneficent Government buy their loyal services with extra rations?  Here in Paitak we are doing the same thing.  We are half the time starved when the food convoys get stuck but we can always buy food from the native "dhrabio" or drivers!

 

Towards Christmas we [6] at Merjana made a big effort at the local game - and the festive day passed happily enough in a real "gorge" at roast pig!  We had ten big pigs, over fifty geese and grouse.  The major, a middle aged man, was a real sport and his men were his first consideration.  He must have caused quite a stir at Headquarters with the amount of .303 ammunition "expensed against hostile aircraft".  No doubt a goose is "aircraft" but -- can pigs fly at last?  Long life and a D.S.O. to Major Ham anyhow!  He deserves it.  The 31st of December saw us on the move again.  We had just "fallen in" on parade when a drone over us signalled the approach of a plane.  Looking up we saw two diving out of a cloud and then with the familiar "express train coming out of a tunnel" roar down came a bomb.  I, holding temporarily a mule, was one of the first to go down.  I dived into a little hollow before the rest had realised that it was a bomb coming!  It struck about 20 yards away from me.  I arose rather sheepishly but another was on the way down so I ducked again!

 

The second bomb blew up the guard tent of the Sapper and Miners and killed one or two of them.  After a busy half hour of chasing mules and picking up scattered loads we headed out on to the Khanikin road. 

 

The day was dull -- we passed through Qizil Robat after an hour - I was on rear guard.  The country was very bare and desolate looking and the track we were following, rough and stony in places.  Swarms of beggars followed us from Qizil Robat;  just outside the village we of the rear guard were hailed in piteous tones by a bundle of rags sitting on the trackside.  An old woman, in the last stages of starvation, hardly recognisable as a human being - her face was a shapeless mask of bloodstained rags hiding some awful disease.  I looked at her with some pity - I have seen too many like her to be easily stirred, but the young officer in charge - new from Blighty was obviously upset.

 

"Let her be Sir" said a Sergt. "we cannot do her any good.  She won't live through the day".

 

The sightless sockets followed our movements.  The Subaltern looked around, then he said "Go ahead Sergt., I'll see what I can do".

 

We marched on for ten minutes before I heard a revolver shot.  Some time after the young officer came up behind.  It was noticeable that he had little to say the rest of the day. 

 

At dark, after a hard march over deserted country, broken across the line of march by interminable ridges we come upon the main camp at Khanikin nestling in a bowl in the hills.  Very thankfully we dropped our equipment.  The last few miles had been a strain.  Each ridge we topped we had expected to see our destination and when we did see the camp we had settled down to a complaining trudge - without interest in the ending.

 

The next day we struck camp and the morning of the 2nd or 3rd of January [7] were off again.  All the camp had heard of our new stunt and the secret "Hush Hush" push into Persia.  we marched away at 6am.  In drizzling rain and cold wind along the stony track.  "Mathews Column was made up of the Tigers", some Punjabis, Sappers and miners, a Signal Corps detachment, and a mountain Battery, in all, about 1500 ranks.  The going was frightful, for the wheeled vehicles and being on rear guard again, it was 8pm before we struggled into camp at Qasr-i-Shirin over the Persian frontier.

 

It rained nearly all day; the road was alternately rocky and boggy, some of the hills were very steep and greasy.  The horses pulling the cookers had been pushed to the limit and we were constantly manhandling the heavy vehicles.

 

In the chill of the next dawn we were on the road and this day's march brought us to Seripul [8] .  Again it rained and blew.  The third day's march of about 14 miles was over a better road but the rain seemed more chilly than ever.  In the dusk we turned left into a big valley and the news came back that this was the end of the march.  I was too tired to do more than my share of pitching camp in the mud.  An hour afterwards I was asleep in my soaked blanket, having missed all duties; who detailed the men to the picquets I do not know! 

 

The morning dawned fairly clear and dry.  About 9 o'clock half the Battalion was detailed to go forward.  On the way I found out that this was the Paitak [9] Pass, a famous caravan route for pilgrims from Caucasia to Baghdad.  The road ran through Paitak, the usual type of mud walled, mud roofed hovels clustering on the flat, then headed away up the valley to the left side where it wound crazily along the sheer face of the frowning cliffs, gradually rising and at the top of its climbing, bearing away to the saddle on the right.   Above it, immense mountains, (looking higher to us by reason of our long sojourn on Mespot's flats), snow clad and on the lower reaches densely timber clad.  We climbed into the heights and after two hours we halted in the narrow valley over the saddle.  There we waited, the mountain guns facing up the gorge.  Some time passed then we saw some horsemen approaching.  When they came up, they were seen to be Anzacs, and their limbers carried a wireless set. 

 

Hardy and resolute they looked as they rode in - where they came from and the circumstances of their appearance right up here in the Persian hills is obscure.  I have heard that they were operating with some Russians up country, and had to "sneak" away.  We returned to the foot of the pass and the next day the whole column turned back.

 

That first days march will be remembered many years.  Bitterly cold, searching rain drenched us pitilessly.  None of us were fresh after the gruelling march up and the mules were staggering after the first two hours.  I was absolutely exhausted when we got up to the caravanserai at Seripai. 

 

As we waited outside, numbed with cold, sore from marching, most of us sat down in the mud, regardless of discipline or discomfort.  The warmth of the interior, smelling to high heavens of filth and pungent camel dung, of which the floor was composed, was like a breath of paradise to me.  I was helpless, my chums who had got inside early stripped me and punched me back into feeling.  I waited for nothing but subsided into the dark recess in the wall pointed out to me and closed my eyes instantly.

 

I was quite sprightly in the morning and took the road confidently.  It showered at intervals but we had had such a wetting the days before that none of us worried.  We even sang as we trudged through the slush.  At Qasr-i-Shirin we took up our old camp for a few days - then shifted to a new location on the other side of the hill on which the town stands.  The remains of an extensive city and the ruins of a large palace were visited by most of the troops and the tumbledown palace some way back hid some wonderful underground rooms.  Just above the camp was the ruins of a large rock wall or perhaps an aqueduct.

 

Sugar Cone hill, very steep, provided a good spot for a picket near the camp; from the top there was a wonderful view of the country around.  Not that we worried too much about scenery.  We were once again faced with the rationing question; one of the problems inseparable from working at long distances from the base.  Here we are dependent on the product of an American factory!  "Henry Ford" means life to us.  How those cars get through is marvellous.  The roads are atrocious in wet weather - but still they come.  I saw one Ford leave the road after an attempt to get through the bog ran crazily along a 45 degree slope - charge through a low stone wall and get safely back to the track.  A few things bent were looked at casually by the driver who then nonchalantly lit a "gasper", stepped on the "lowspeed" pedal and chugged away!

 

I hear the road to Khanikin is thick with the abandoned carcasses of Ford cars and trucks!  They are not the only kind of carcasses.  Hardly a mile is free of dead bodies; sometimes in groups of five or six; adults and children who have starved to death.  The poverty of this country - stripped and ravaged by raids is indescribable.  Thousands have died - thousands are dying - our march up to Paitak and back was rendered more trying by the constant supplications for food from the bands of starving people we met.  Some would follow us for miles on the chance of a casually thrown biscuit.  What British Tommy can resist the sight of a child eating, or trying to eat, roots or grass?  Our rations were not too plentiful - what we had to spare we gave, but it was heart breaking to see the kiddies watch us at our meal halts and scramble in deadly rivalry for the minute crumbs as they dropped.  Many times I saw one of the chaps eat, say, half his biscuit, then, unable to stand the pitiful longing on the thin faces - break it up and hand it round, to turn away and light his cigarette.  Many times a "Woodbine" was the Tommy's share of his day's ration.

 

After a stay at Qasr-i-Shirin, we once more headed for the mountains.  We dropped a Coy at Seripul [10] , one Coy [11] , stayed here at the foot of the pass and the remainder of the Battalion [12] is at Surkidjee [13]   at the top of the Paitak pass.  We are in tents and the snow is thick.  Four of us live in the Signal tent, a small erection about 7 feet by 4 feet and about 5 feet high at the ridge.  Here we live - half washed, lousy, sweatily content.  We have a telegraph instrument, (a field telephone) in one corner and the rest of the tent just holds the three men not on duty.  Everything is damp, if warmed somewhat by the brazier which we have rigged inside and in which we burn anything we are able to steal; packing cases, ammunition boxes and, chiefly, dung which we collect from the dryer spots in the hills around.  This burns fiercely but nearly chokes us with the fumes.  Our time is passed by gambling at "Kitty Nap" (sometimes with money, other times with paper promises!), and varied by shooting expeditions into the hills after anything which crosses our sights.  Pigeons are abundant but it requires expert shooting to hit a pigeon with a .303 and in such a way that the remains will furnish a meal.  Our rations are still spasmodic - but some kind gentleman down the line sends us fresh bread.  We take turns at volunteer unloading of the ration cars and we are becoming first class purloiners of the smaller items of the loads.  After the job is done we re-assemble in the tent to count our gains - sometimes a loaf of bread, or perhaps a tin of cheese.  Once we raided the S. & T. [14] camp at night - cautiously, because of the sentries who were given to challenging with a shot!  We "scrounged" a box of milk, a case of emergency chocolate rations and a jar of rum. 

 

What a feast for several days.  Once too, two of us climbed an adjacent hill and spotted a nomad camp some three miles away. We got cautiously up to within 300 yards and then lay down; after a few minutes we saw only a few men about and no sign of arms; so we zipped 5 "Rounds Rapid" each into the camp.  The black skin tents erupted the men, women and children like fries out of bottles - in two minutes they had reached the distant ridge - so after a few more rounds for luck we sauntered down into the camp and found some flour, sugar and cheese in a goat bladder and drove away two sheep from the flock.  Reaching camp with this booty was more difficult than it seemed.  The nomads plucked up courage seeing two men and we were soon in the centre of flying slugs.  These slugs, fired from a rifle of about .500 calibre are nasty things to meddle with - so we took cover and drove them back again.

 

We must have hit one or two.  We then slaughtered our two sheep, cut out the livers and chopped off the fat tails and lost no time in getting back to our camp; where we were very popular for the next few hours.  I hear that the raid was reported; but if so, our skipper took no action. 

 

Just alongside the camp runs a stream, and this provides us with good size fish.  Don't know exactly what they are but they seem to be some sort of salmon or trout.  We get them in the shallows with a rifle shot or drive them upstream into a pool and drop in a Mills Bomb.  One fish shot by the skipper was nearly three feet long!  Yet in places there is only a trickle of water.  The starving natives are now beginning to do some fishing; with very little luck however.

 

My real interest in life, though, lies in our phone; it is like being in another world when I operate.  I hear the calls stretching away down the line to Brigade Headquarters at Qasr-i-Shirin -- OSN to Seripul -- SRL -- to us PTK and to Surkidjee HAM.  The buzz of OSN is distinctly individual -- they have a "vibrator" there - a low deep hum; SRL has a squeaky note - we, possessing extra batteries, have a fine mellow note.  HAM has a peculiar tremble as though the instrument has a feather in its throat.

 

The phone is the doorway to a little world of strange entities; each station each operator assumes a definite personality; some of the men I know ell - but have never seen.  QSN perhaps will finish a message.

 

Tt u Bill ( is that you Bill? ) I send

Ya 'on RU, he replies, is tt JY?

Ya OK ere 'ad any more bombs? I send

 

Thus we chatter during quiet hours; especially at night when all is still.  Queer how we have learnt to know each other by the style of sending the dots and dashes and the queer jargon of the Morse operators.  One man (I know him only as Bill) at QSN makes his messages rhythmically, as though he is playing a musical instrument - drawls his dashes at times and clips his dots to preserve his metre.  Another stutters, yet another's cascades his "aitches".  Little competitive frays between us and the BDE at QSN enliven the proceedings.  I perhaps feel especially good or when I am offered a message I reply sarcastically.

 

OH, OH, OH, is a queer phrasing and spacing which imitates a chuckle perfectly.  Then instead of sending one "G" for "GO", I send three "G's" - GGG, which is a challenge to him that he can send as fast as he likes! That, to an operator from a "Battalion" operator is too good to be missed.  Off he goes at perhaps 25 to 28 words to the minute.  So far, due to an extra head piece which gives up two men to listen, we at P.T.K. have not had "our boots taken off" as the saying goes.  Should anyone challenge and have to get a repeat a chorus of OH's and CKO's (cuckoo) will break out all down the line at the unfortunate one; and the sender will finish his message at a correspondingly insolent rate of about 2 words a minute.  We have succeeded in several cases in tripping Q.S.N.  We chose an operator there who is a little shaky and we dodge skillfully their best operator, who could put an end to our record as the "smart" station.  Our line to Seripul is the unfortunate portion, at least twice a week it goes "Dis" by reason of the Senjabe tribesmen cutting out 100 yards or so to tie up their camel loads.

 

Since the line is our only link with Base, it has to be repaired and the last time I downed a rider of a big camel at over 400 yards - having grabbed the linesman's horse and galloped along the line the instant it went dead.  The escort came up just as I had put in a new piece of cable and we all climbed to the ridge where the raiders had vanished.  The man I'd hit was cursing us as we approached and had a big Mauser pistol aimed in our direction.  I don't know whether he was going to fire or not but someone took no chances of that and put a bullet neatly into his forehead.  This little incident we did not report.

 

Our room in this little tent is further circumscribed by the arrival of a little Persian lad of about 3 years old, whom we have adopted after I found him in the snow.  We fed him and after three baths we have reached his skin!  And reduced his odour!  Poor little wretch was a bag of skin when he came, with an incredible appetite too.  He is quite popular already with the troops.  I hear too, that the people at Binkidje are losing a lot of sleep and rifles at night.  How the thieves manage to get into the camp is marvellous as it is surrounded by barbed wire and has two sentries on each side.

 

The last affair was tragic.  The sentry of the Pass picquet looks one way only - towards the road.  The rest of the picquet were sitting around the fire when each man was pulled off his seat backwards and his rifle grabbed.  No one saw them come in the pitch darkness and they got away from the daring raid just as easily - with four rifles fully loaded and - special prize - complete with bolt and magazine.  Most of the other stolen rifles are incomplete; as the bolts and magazines are removed before the owner sleeps.  We down here although not covered with barbed wire have only lost one or two. 

 

The History of the Hampshire Territorial Force Association identifies  Mathew’s Column  as entering Persia on 2nd January 1918 where they were occupied until June 1918 in “guarding road, picketing pass etc for Dunsterville and his subsequent parties”.  Major-General Dunsterville [15] commanded “Dunsterforce” which was marched across Persia to Baku, a seaport on the Caspian Sea and capital of Azerbaijan, to forestall possession of its oil wells by German, Turkish or Bolshevist Forces.  In March 1918 the Hampshire history records K. Wetherall and 1 platoon as being in Kermanshaw at disposal of “Dunsterforce”.  

 

My father’s diary suggests that he was sent from Pai Tak to Bagdad in March 1918 and the next entry opens upon his return to Qasr-i-Shirin probably towards the end of March.

 

May 21st – Kermanshah [1918]

On my return from Baghdad I remained at Qasr-i-Shirin for two weeks, and went through a nasty bomb attach when Johnny unloaded thirty odd eggs on us.  From there I came by Ford car with 50 officers and sergeants of D.F. [16] to Sermil; some miles above Surkidhe.  We camped some days near the old ruins of a fort and then moved to Kerind.  Here I was attached to a 1/4 Hants platoon [17] .  In early April malaria put me into hospital for a few days and when I came out I found that the rest of the force had gone up.  However the middle of April saw me again on the road.  The force consisted of a platoon of the Tigers (1/4 Hants), some natives and a part of a mountain battery.  The first day we reached Khorsabad across very rocky, difficult country and again in the rain; next day we just managed to reach Harunabad a dirty little village lying on the slope of a hill.  The following day in worse weather than ever we trekked to Mahidast across what had been a fertile plain - it was now very desolate and had been stripped clean by successive marches of Turk and Russian, and the roadside was more than ordinarily thickly strewn with corpses.

 

We reached Kermanshah the next day after a long eighteen miles from Mahidast.  The last few miles were across a flat plain which was quite attractive under a warm sun; carpeted in the sheltered spots with flowers.  We passed hundreds of refugees from the famine areas north, who were making the long walk to the border to escape a slow death in Hamadan and Kasrin from starvation.  I am beginning to learn things now!  We of the Dunster Force are the nucleus of a force which is attempting to get through to the Caspian Sea and to Baku and to reach Tabriz in the north-west to organize local and Georgain forces to stop the spread of Turkish and German propagandists and troops across Caucasia into India and Afghanistan.  The scheme is not very clear to me, but I expect the Powers-that-be know all about it.

 

Meanwhile, we are camped on a hill about a mile from the city of Kermanshah.  It seems not much more attractive than most Persian towns in spite of its long history and undoubted prosperity in past times.  The streets are narrow and very winding; the houses have a squalid air and only the Feisabad quarter seems to possess a decent looking gardened home.  As I stand on our little hill the town seems pretty enough.  It lies on a flat basin in the hills.  To my left, as I face Kermanshah are the dreary miles towards Mahidast.  Before me, the path from the camp descends some 400 years to the river or rather brook, where the ford is shaded by an immense mulberry tree.  Ahead lies the town - surrounded by square plots of irrigated land and half hidden by palms and trees.  Behind it the plain runs into the foothills some ten miles away; the hills on the frontiers of Kurdistan.  In the middle distance crossing towards the right and about three miles off is the main road to Hamadan.  To the right in the distance are the frowning hills and mountains which bar our way to Hamadan.  The whole country is bare except the patches of green around the city.

 

Later

The cold weather of the winter is just taking it toll of the troops here.  Numbers are sick with minor chest diseases, but on top of that nearly a whole platoon of the Battalion is down with typhus fever.  They have been quartered in Turkish Barracks in the town and the lice took charge of them.  Several have died from this vermin disease and over forty are sick.  With the present shortage of medical stores their chances are slim.

 

New troops are arriving every day, some on foot, some in Ford cars.

 

July 1st.  Senna, Kurdistan [1918]

After our stay at Kermanshah, I was detailed to join this column.  In common with most of us, the spell of hot weather in June, found out my weak spots.  I have had dysentery for about six weeks now and the march from Kermanshah to Senna over 110 miles of some of the roughest roads in the world have shown me up as a whimpering schoolboy.  Seven days we trekked over country of which I cannot give a coherent description.  A good many rivers we forded and this alone hampered the troops;  wet boots play havoc with a man's feet.  Long days we trailed over black rocks through deep gullies worn by centuries of pack animal traffic.  Some miles we trudged over fair plains; then up precipitous slopes to slide down the other side.  Numbers of men in the same state as I was - compelled to fall out every two miles or so to relieve our tortured bodies - then hurry back to catch up with the column.  I thought I knew what sickness meant - but I feel much weaker now than at any time in Mesopotamia.  Dysentery is a dreadful thing.  I am booked for hospital as soon as a convoy of Ford cars gets through from Hamadan.

 

August 4th – Resht [1918]

I have thoroughly enjoyed the last few days.  I arrived here from Hamadan on the 18th [18] , after a week in hospital.  I left Senna on the 3rd as a patient on a Ford van.  We make our way through the town and within an hour we were climbing up to a pass to the East of the town over a wonderful metalled road.  This road, Russian built, was literally carved out of the face of the hills.  It wound up to the pass and we shot down about 10 miles on the reverse side without using the engine.  Wild country, but a wonderful road.  We left it about 30 miles from Senna; which by the way is a place of great historical interest and the capital of Kurdistan.  It lies amidst a great stretch of cultivated fields and the last days march into Senna was along the tree bordered roads.  Unluckily I saw very little of the town as I was so sick.

 

Leaving the Russian road, we struck out north-east across country.  There was a vestige of trail in places, but the great portion of the second day, we plunged straight ahead taking obstacles if we could - if not we were doomed.

 

The third evening - as the moon rose, we drove into Hamadan and found our way to the Hospital; this was a sizable building in the middle of the town.  The staff made us snug in beds under a lean-to in the courtyard.

 

I found the hospital much more crowded than was comfortable and deaths among the patients were frequent.  The staff worked hard, but the admissions were exceeding the discharges.  Sick could not be evacuated easily down-country because of the lack of transport available and the distance too, to better quarters.  The patients overflowed into tents and shelters.  As soon as a patient was able to get about, out he went to Rest Camp.  So Hamadan at this stage was thronged with sick and disabled.  Some of my regiment who were wounded in the ambush at Shian Rud Bridge were in the hospital.

 

I was discharged after some painful days on slops and a battery of needles and loaded me with emetine to counteract the dysentery.  I was not cured and I am no better now - I am more or less resigned to the discomfort of the complaint.  It is a disgusting thing to have to arise early so as to wash my blanket before anyone, even a batman, is about!!  Also I, whenever possible, for above reasons sleep outside.  From Hamadan to Kasrin, I motored over a good road; again Russian constructed, and reached Kasrin in two days.  After a night in the rest camp on the North side of the town we were off again through rather wild looking country - mountainous and heavily wooded.  The road followed the natural gorges until we passed the big bridge at Manjil which had been the scene of Dunsterville's fight with the Janjalis under Kuchik Khan.  On the hill above the bridge I spotted the crosses erected over some of the killed on that occasion.

 

From the motor driver, I ascertained that these Janjalis had blocked the road to Dunsterville and to the Russians who had passed us when we were lying at Paitak.  Under Turk and German leadership they had been entrenched here, but were cleared out by a determined charge of infantry and armoured cars:  Later back at Shian Rud they ambushed our Battalion as they passed on a horseshoe turn and were beaten off again after a stiff fight.  We lost two very popular officers on this occasion.  One had been in my own training Battalion at the start of the War.

 

In June 1919 a Motor Mobile Column commanded by Colonel Mathews reached Resht.  The object of this column was to clear the road from Kasvin to the Caspian, so that Dunsterforce might proceed to Baku, the way being blocked by some 2,000 Persian outlaws known as Jungalis because they had withdrawn to the Jungle!   The Column included 2 companies (C & D) from the 1/4 Hants, 2 companies from the 1/2 Goorkhas, four armoured cars and a Section of a Mountain Battery (probably two artillery pieces and noted in the Hampshire History as useless in the thick jungle around Resht).  On 20 July the Jungalis attacked Resht at dawn and a fierce battle raged all day until the Jungalis withdrew at nightfall

 

At Resht, I rejoined my own Battalion; they were about 300 strong [19] and furnishing guards and pickets around the town.  Most of them were quartered in a silk factory in the south-west corner.  When I arrived, spies had reported that the Janjalis were contemplating an attack and the troops were sleeping prepared for an alarm.  Or should have been.  As it turned out, the lack of accurate information given to the rank and file (as usual) had made them regard the rumours as nothing to worry about.  That was the attitude when I arrived.  Actually, Mr. Kuchik Khan (Or Khooshican as the troops call him) had thought this a good chance of tackling the English when there were no Russians about to help.  I expect 300 of us looked "easy meat" to his 3000 followers.

 

So at dawn on the 20th [20] we were aroused by a burst of shots- and the first intimation the troops had was when a machine gun played on the walls of their quarters.

 

The sides of the "Tigers" billet were open (to allow the air through to the drying silk) but although they had to scramble out under fire in hastily donned garments, some in white sleeping shorts and shoes with belt and ammunition, there were very few casualties.  They were in high good humour and by the time I got out they were all over the landscape in small bunches, looking for the enemy.  In a short time, the well-known "Enfield cra-acks" were sounding as they got to work.  I laughed quietly as the Colonel came up; he said

 

"I don't know where the devil they've got to but they're doing well".

 

I was detailed to a small party comprising a subaltern, two sergeant and fifteen men. We headed for a big house which seemed to be the source of some trouble to a party which was making a low way knee-deep in a rice "paddy".  That the Janjalis were not marksmen was evident; some of the bullets aimed at us, pitched fifty yards away!  Working up to the house we kept the windows clear of Janjalis while one of the men got close enough to let two bombs at long range.  The first hit the wall and exploded - the second burned out its 5 second fuse just as it entered a window.  How those Janjalis ran as we swarmed up to the house, now about 30 strong.  I spotted a small out-house with the door still trembling - I put a couple of 303's through it on principle and then as I walked up quietly to it, the door flung open and out rushed a big Janjali!  He ran straight in to my bayonet as he fired a pistol at me.

 

From this time until about 2pm we were engaged in this sort of warfare - attacking small and large parties of Janjali as they crossed our path.  We were working North East and gradually getting into the town proper.  The fighting was getting more desperate and severe and all ranks were joining in the scrap.

 

Two in the afternoon found me in a corner house on the main street some two hundred yards from the Hotel Europe.  An armoured car was down the street at the next corner playing its guns up two streets.  These cars were hampered by trenches dug in the roads, but they proved their value.  In one place where a twenty foot hole faced them the crews tore down doors and ramped the car into it at one end and out at the other.  Behind them we moved from street to street, shooting at every movement.  Many women and children were shot, inadvertently, in this way, but we could not afford to take chances in identifying people.  A plane took a hand in the game - a daring pilot this, with his bombs and machine guns.  He, I heard afterwards, on trying to drop a single bomb on an Hotel which was obstructing the troops, found that his bomb catch was stuck - so as he came back he dropped the lot at once; six I think, with disastrous effects to the Hotel and the surrounding buildings and the enemy within.

 

Our immediate objective was the Bank, where our guard was supposed to be still holding out.  After a hot fight, at short range we gained it.  The Bank was in a dreadful state.  The panelled walls were bullet scored and the plate glass windows smashed. 

 

We got out the back way in an endeavour to work round the rear of some Janjalis who were clustered in a small house some fifty yards away.  Emerging into an open space cut in two by a low bank and ditch we were nearly across when the opposite building was seen to be strongly occupied.  As we stopped they spotted us and we did the only thing possible, that is, turned back to the shelter of the Bank.  A storm of bullets followed us, but we were on the Bank before anyone was hit.  In shelter, I found that one of the "Tiger" sergeants was dead with half his breast bone torn away from the impact of a heavy slug, and another at his last gasp with an awful body wound which exposed his lungs and entrails.  He died a few minutes later, smoking a last cigarette.  Two more men were hit as we crouched there, so we decided on a bold dash at the house in front with bombs.  At the word, the ten of us rushed wildly at the house and, at ten yards range we lobbed three Mill's bombs at the window.  Our luck was good, and aim straight.  There was no resistance as we scrambled into the house.  What devastating effects bombs have in an enclosed space!  There was hardly an inch of floor, ceiling or walls in those two rooms, which had not received a piece of metal.  There were nine Janjalis in one room and fourteen or fifteen in the other, in varying states of disrepair.  Truly a Mills is a fine weapon at close quarters.

 

That night saw us in possession of the best part of the town.  Ghurkas, Tigers, Motor Transportmen, details, were all mixed up in the line.

 

Eventually after three days spasmodic fighting Kuchik Khan gave up his attempt.  The fighting ability of the young Britishers ("the devils with angel faces" as they were dubbed) had upset his plans and he was glad to sue for peace.  It is curious to relate that the spic and span "Tigers" were not regarded as soldiers at all!  They were too clean and too young!  The oily clothed motor mechanics approached more nearly the Persian idea of a soldier!  The "2 Kian Soldiers", so called because 2 Kians (10d.) was the smallest coin the soldiers spent, had a different reception after the Resht affair!  I had to smile at some of the spoils of the fight.  Sugar cones were very popular, and the odd loot ranged from coin to grand piano! 

 

The Hampshire History records that on the 3rd August 1918 Lieut Fisher was detailed to command a detachment of 40 rifles to proceed as body guard to Colonel Stokes, Chief of the Intelligence Department in Persia.  They went from Enzeli to Baku and were the first British troops to enter Baku.

 

August 7th Baku [1918]

So this is Baku!  Were it not for the sound of the guns over the hills, Baku might be some cosmopolitan town in Europe.  It lies on the slope of a hill stretching round a wide bay which goes west to a long split which are situated where the oil wells and tanks are.  The streets are wide and paved mostly with cobbles reminiscent of some of the French town.  The buildings are well built, some are palatial, and one or two first class theatres are still in operation.  We are in some cavalry barracks, just off Molotanustraya Street and within a short distance of the centre of the town.  The Opera House is an immense building and quite close are some spacious parks.  The quays are broad and well built; the port seems to be quite busy and the streets of the town are thronged at night.  The military side of the affair is clouded.  There is apparently, a new Government formed every day and Dunsterville does not have much change of getting the various factions together long enough to do any real good.  I seem to be a "spare file;" so I am going to have a shot at getting up to the line with the Armoured cards.  The Turk is only a few miles away, but that does not stop the local troops from coming into town every night to the theatre or to their women!  No amount of talk will ever suffice to instil ardour into their heads.  A few shootings when they are caught leaving their trenches might cure them.

 

10th August [1918]

Yesterday, British troops were put into the line to stiffen it up.  For days we have been "standing to" in fear of attack from local Bolsheviks.  Yesterday a British Battalion was split up and placed between sections of the Amenian line.  I succeeded in getting a trip out to a place called "Sabrat" to clean up a party of Turks operating there.  It was stiflingly hot inside the Armoured car as we climbed out of the town past a large cemetery.  We were fifteen miles to the north of Baku when we saw hostile troops - then we spied some cavalry on the right.  A minute later we opened fire with both guns at close range on about 200 Turks who had been resting behind a low bank and hedge.  Their expressions were ludicrous as they awoke to the fact that the car was on them.  We routed those that got away, then returned leisurely to the town again - or at least I did.  I left the car at the Armenian lines and came back on a staff car.  The situation looks brighter, but even "Stalky's" inexhaustible energy is insufficient to bring order out of chaos here.  There are too many conflicting parties, too much profiteering for rationing to be easily managed; lastly the material he has to mould into soldiery is too poor.  He is a fine character, loved by everyone and positively adored by his personal staff.  Al his tact and diplomacy is needed there, but I fear that the only solution of this problem lies in bringing a British division up - and to that, short-sighted Baghdad will never agree.  Meanwhile, already the British troops in the line are getting knocked about and wounded are coming in.

 

This war is getting to be one series after another of quick dashes.  I left Baku on the 13th as escort for a staff Colonel, and we made a rapid trip back from Enzeli through Resht.  I was ordered to join a column [21] for this place which is about 100 miles north west of Kasrin on the main Tabriz road.  Great things are doing towards Tabriz and we covered the 100 miles in six days.  The infantry in the column, (about 100 ranks) are dog-tired, but we are off again tomorrow to some place farther up; where a small force is operating.  We go the next stage in cars I understand.

 

Tikmandash 3rd September [1918]

This seems to be the limit of our advance in the direction of Tabriz; which is still about fifty miles away.  I arrived at this place last night after a strenuous march from Zinjan.  We are exhausted after a 200 mile trek over rough, hilly ground, the last few days, over broken country in which we climbed two very difficult passes before we reached Mianeh.  They are a negligible quantity by all accounts.  We are in a small caravanserai, a short distance from the village; the Bouches are quite near the village, but judging from what I hear of the strength of the Turks we shall have small hopes of holding them up should they attack in force; which seems likely.

 

September 30th [1918]

Things are not very promising now.  Baku has been evacuated and we are back to a camp several miles from Zinjan.  I am in hospital with a crack in my scalp [22] from a piece of shrapnel and another in my stern sheets which emerged on the inside of my leg.  Luckily my dysentery seems to have cleared up, possibly the result of my own desperate attempts at a cure.  Once I ate 20 hard-boiled eggs - drank half a bottle of chlorodyne and finally a cup of flour and water.  I was quite reckless of the result of my home remedies!

 

The go-slow policy down the line has resulted in our little force being sadly depleted - indeed it is a wonder that any of us got away at all.

 

The Turks hit us in the early morning of the 5th [23] .  We were wakened by a heavy fire from a machine gun which had been secretly brought to the village and mounted on a roof.  Only the treachery of the local levies made it possible and we quickly saw that any help from them was not to be expected.  The troops took up their position in the trenches, but the first shell sent the levies scampering.  In vain we drove them back; they dropped everything and ran.  They were soon followed by the muleteers who cut the harness of their animals and made off with them.  Some were shot down by our troops and volunteers were employed as quickly as possible, to collect enough animals to carry the sick and wounded.  Meanwhile the Turk was keeping up a heavy fire and working at the same time around our flanks.  As they numbered at least 1500 it was foolish to try to hold on.  We managed to withdraw - in fair order covered by the Hussar squadron with a machine gun; which did great execution.  We streamed out on the Karauracham road leaving everything behind.  The troops were in drill order with water bottles - few had haversacks.  I had not unstrapped mine, so was lucky.  The Turks kept close on our heels all day - men were hit at intervals and numbers dropped from exhaustion.  We waited not as the order of our going.  Weary men we were when we trudged into Karamachan that night.  The enemy cavalry were at times only 500 yards behind us but for some reason did not push home an attack.  We could not hold Karamachan - so away we went again - along weary miles to Turkmanchai.  The Column was a column no longer by this time; we just straggled along in batches.  At Turkmanchai the road shoots up a steep hill and through a narrow pass.  We took up position there.  We had two guns up during the day from Mianeh; they were unloaded and assembled covering the village.  The Turks cavalry appeared and the mountain guns put several shells right into them.  They did not know we possessed artillery and as soon as we opened fire away they rode.  Being held up in front they threw out two parties at each side to go round us.  These, we had no means of checking so that night we started again on our retirement.  The Turks made no attempt to attack until daylight - we had left at 2am.  After a sharp fight with the rearguard and a show of resistance from the main body, they drew off and we saw little more of them for the rest of the dusty march to Mianeh.

 

Four days of marching had taken some of the steam of the Turks as well as us, so we halted for a rest a few miles away.  On Sunday the 8th three days after we had been pushed out of Tikmadash, sixty miles away, we destroyed all stores in Mianeh and withdrew methodically across the Karangu Bridge to the Kuflan Kuh Pass, five miles away; the villagers who were now hostile watching sullenly but making no attempt to interfere.

 

We were ordered from Headquarters to hold the Pass at all costs - how we were expected to do this I do not know.  Our ranks were reduced to about 250 bayonets and 40 sabres - later 50 of the "Sauceboys" (Worcester Regt.) arrived to help, also one howitzer and two 19pr field guns.  The guns were over the Pass in a good position to place indirect fire into the approaches.  The "Tigers" Colonel took over on the 9th and we could see the Turks pushing troops into positions in the fields on the riverbank.  From the cover of the boundary ditches they kept up a steady fire on our right flank posts.  The 10th and 11th they spent in preparing the attack.  I doubted rather whether they would push a direct attack on the Pass.  Properly held there was no stronger position.  Evidently they knew exactly our strength.  About 7am on the 12th three lines of infantry in extended order-behaving as though they were on a drill ground with a complete disregard of our heavy fire from artillery and rifles which nevertheless did a deal of damage, rose from their positions successively crossed the river beds and attacked the trenches which were on a series of knolls below the main pass road and astride it.  The levies on the right bolted and left the wing exposed.  The Turks came over the trenches in solid mobs - perfectly cool.  Crack troops, these.  The left had no option but to fall back, after a stubborn resistance.  As they withdrew the enemy followed and in less than an hour after a bloody hand-to-hand fight in the narrow road at the top of the Pass.  They forced us over the crest.  I was hit quite early but recovered enough to get away over the Pass before the Turk took the trenches.  I lingered so long to watch the fight that when the Tigers and Gurkhas were finally pushed over the ridge I was in the middle of it.  For a moment it looked as though the remnants were going to be captured but the "Sauceboys" from reserve doubled up and with a steady fire held up Johnny while the others withdrew.

 

I came straight through to hospital.  I believe the Turks followed over the Baleshkent Pass to Jamalabad, where the armoured car met them and held them up again.  Two of the Tigers, captured at the Kiflan Kun arrived in the camp after a week's trek through the blazing sun, clad in nothing!  They were beaten with shovels and sticks.  One of them named "Stump" was black and blue with bruises on his back and sides.  My old CSM was killed too, just before the final assault.  He was a splendid shot and while sniping the advancing Turks, after being warned to be careful, he was hit in the forehead.  My steel helmet saved me from decapitation.  I had about three inches square of bone exposed at the back of my head; which was slightly depressed; I went quite blind for four days.  Then the quacks made the "Trephining" operation to lift the depression of bone [24] .

 

January 1919 Baku

I came back to Baku after the Armistice.  My wound healed fairly well and I was soon about; although my recovery was hampered by a fall while being taken to the regular Hospital.  The mule I was on (sitting in a basket on one side) took a fancy for tobogganing, rolled several times down a steep cliff and left me with a smashed shoulder blade, collar bone and a dislocated ankle.  This, with my two wounds, a little malaria and the weakness from dysentery, nearly had me down; I am quite strong now, if inclined to walk straddle -legged!

 

Here I am having a splendid time.  The town is gay and we of the Army of Occupation are doing what we can to forger the War just over.  Duties are nominal, mine mostly office work and we fill in the evenings in revels of different kinds.  "Every-one is doing it now" that is the spirit of Baku to-day.  To hell with the Army, say we after 4 o'clock.  Oceans of liquor; and women are as thick as flies at the price of a can of Bully Beef; of which now that the War is over there seems to be unlimited supplies.  The cash problem is easy.  For 1 pound we are given 80 "Nicolai" roubles which we can exchange in the bazaar for 140 to 160 "Baku" roubles which are changeable at the canteens and YMCA at 80 to the 1 pound.  That sounds absurd but it is perfectly true.  We take full advantage of it, you can bet!  Such is the stupidity of the Army paymasters.  An army overcoat will fetch 10 pounds - a pair of boots 5 pounds - a tin of bully 1 pound in Baku roubles!  The Tommies have their permanent women if they feel like it for the cost of their new clothes and part of their rations.  When we arrived the Turks had not cleared away all the locals whom they had massacred - the bay was thick with corpses.

 

We have the city running like clockwork with the Military controlling the Police, the Docks and shipping and the traffic in the streets.

 

Lord knows when we are going home.  Troops are arriving via Batum from Salenika.

 

April 1st – Mirr [1919]

I have been on this side of the Caspian Sea for nearly a month now; having left Baku in March to hold different posts along this railway line.  We had apparently a small force here fighting the Bolsheviks during the time we were in Baku.  Now the country having been laid bare by them, it has devolved on our shoulders to feed the starving population.  In one place, I was part of a party of 30 who had to issue rations and administer the whole district.  We used to keep the food line in order by posting our burly Sergeant and two men with whips to keep the queues quiet!  Hunger does reduce mankind to the level of the beasts.  I was often reminded of the time of the days when I retrieved mouldy cheese from the Mess rubbish-tin, scraped off the dirt and wolfed it with relish.  A force is concentrating at the end of the [word undecipherable] which reaches south from here into Afghanistan.  It is rumoured that the Afghans are up.  If so, it will mean some months in this hole, and I am heartily sick of the sight of dirty Russians.  Mirr is quite a town but incredibly dirty and straggling.  The houses are made of all sorts of materials from rubble and mud to raw timber.  The country around is fairly flat but surrounded except to the north-west with mountains.  It lies partly on a river which I believe runs down to the border of Afghanistan.  Part of the town is in much better condition than the rest and might almost be deemed a modern city.  The bazaars are really rich and from what I hear the town was very prosperous until the War.  The heat is terrific and the surrounding country seems dried up although some efforts are being made to bring it into cultivation again.  It used to bear heavy crops of cotton but not much is planted now.  Fruit is in abundance.  Some of the educated inhabitants are full of its history.  What we are doing here is veiled in secrecy; I suppose we are breaking some more neutrality laws.  I am only interested in getting home and the troops are restless too.

 

Bagdad- August 1st 1919

 

Although it is not clear to me how this happened, the diaries record involvement in the 1919 Afghan rebellion.   I am not sure whether he was involved because he was in India at the time, or because he was part of a force sent from the  Mesopotamia/Persia/South Russia theatre.   I reproduce below the diary extract dealing specifically with the rebellion.

 

 My experiences there were short but thrilling.  The main fighting around Kandi Ketal in the Kyber Pass was over but I took part in a raid on some Afredis who were massing about 30 miles east in a little plateau in the hills.  We got in touch with them after a day and a night's scramble through the mountain ranges.  Planes bombed them, we opened up with Lewis guns at their sangers although until the plane came I could see nothing of them.  I went out as part of a Lewis gun team along a big span and had capital sport at them as they scattered from the bombs.  Till they spotted us and made it so warm that I was under the urgent necessity of finding a way out.  This we could not do without getting wiped out from their new position which covered our old approach.  The only thing we could see was to go forward into one of their abandoned sangars and trust to luck, and the plane to stop them rushing us.  This we did - and held on until the main body came up the valley.  That ended the fight, the enemy vanished.  . 

 

This entry is concluded with a reference to his status as a veteran.

 

Most of us seem inflicted with an urgent desire to see how many bottles we can empty.  And don't we veterans lord it over the newer men who are coming out now!  I am having my turn at "coming the old soldier" over some of the new men and very flattering they are too.

 

Baku September 2nd [1919]

The diary entry for 2nd September 1919, a month before his 20th birthday, indicates that he was under orders to return to England.   Other references indicate that he either left on 29 September or arrived back in England at that time.  The diary indicated worries about the future but in fact he continued serving in the Hampshire Regiment for another two years.

 

This diary entry also contains a very personal reflection on the effects of the war upon him and his friends.  I think that this was “added” some years after the end of the war but on reflection feel that the thoughts are worth reproducing and I will end the excerpts with them.

 

I look at my photo taken in camp.  It seems hardly credible that that round-faced boy can be me; my mirror shows me a long thin face, brown and lined like a middle aged man.  Years of poor living, hardship, wounds [25] and sickness have undoubtedly made a man of me.  And I know of at least a hundred of my old Battalion who have served the same.  Numbers of us are "on service" at sixteen.  Some are living still, more are dead.  How easy was death on some of them.  An instant's paid then a huddle of still clay.

 

I am filled with a great disgust - disgust at the man's knowledge which has crept insidiously upon me; disgust at the mature wisdom forced on me by circumstances before, as I know now, my mind was ready to use it - disgust at my vanished youth.  Much have I acquired - more especially comprehension of the basic emotions - much have I lost.  How the balance will stand in years to come I cannot easily picture.  I have absorbed so much of cruelty, lawlessness, disregard for human life and other people's property; recklessness bred of the trenches that it stands to reason some portions of these things are going to remain as part of men?  Particularly my (regard) outlook on life.  Intimacy with death has taught me to value life more than cheaply.  I will never forget the burying parties (at Kasrin (when we had time to bury)).  The wagon would arrive at the cemetery with perhaps twenty corpses piled in it.  Stiffened objects in blankets tied roughly at neck, chest, hips, knees, and ankles, with string.  A slip of paper on the chest marked with the man's name, number and regiment.  Swiftly they were hauled out and into the holes dug ready for them.  A few words of the Service would be perfunctorily read, a hand full of earth would be dropped into each grave, then we filled in the holes.  In ten minutes we would be on the way back to Camp on the same wagon which fetched the bodies.  So is that wonderful machine which is man disposed of when his motive power is taken away.  Why worry over Death?  Yet if when I go home and in a temper I kill someone I shall be hung.  Why?  I have been expertly trained in dealing out Death. The whole strata of humanity seems to have a core of rottenness I believe, though, that the stress of War has uncovered streaks which normally would lie dominant.  I can imagine some of us living a placid life in peace, honest respected Church goers.  Good men all, yet what is goodness?  How many of us are good? [26]

EPILOGUE

 

COMPLICATIONS

For reasons that are not clear to, my father went to some lengths towards the end of the 1920’s to leave England, change his identity and thus to lose touch with his family.  He never returned to England but did manage to make contact with his surviving siblings in the 1960’s.

 

To change his identity he took the simple of effective steps of adding a surname, using his second name and changing his place (but not date) of birth.   “Arthur James Foster” became “Arthur James Carfax-Foster” more commonly known as “Jim Foster”.   Thus by the start of the Second World War Arthur Foster, the carpenter and ex-Hampshire Regiment Corporal born in Portsmouth  metamorphosed into Jim Carfax-Foster, a radio mechanic and Australian Militia Captain who had been born in Gibraltar (his father’s birthplace}. 

 

The events of the intervening years are reconstructed from reminisces, his memorabilia and the scripts of radio talks that my father gave in Australia over regional ABC radio (2BL) in the mid 1930s..

CONTINUED SERVICE WITH THE HAMPSHIRE REGIMENT

My father’s diary entry for September 1919 indicated that he was to be demobilised.  However he remained serving in the Army as a soldier in the Hampshire Regiment probably until December 1921.

 

Using his service numbers as the reference, it was possible from the Hampshire Regimental Journal, and other references, to build the following chronology:

 

·        Private Foster appointing acting unpaid Lance-Corporal in January 1920 (in the UK).

·        Lcpl Foster appointed acting paid Lance-Corporal in February 1920 (in the UK).

·        In March 1920 the 1st Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment leaves Gosport in the UK to join the Army of the Black Sea in Turkey.

·        In November 1920 the Hampshire Regiment was ordered not to give rations to White Russian soldiers who had fled from the Crimea to Constantinople.

·        In March 1921, still in Turkey, Corporal Foster was awarded the Army Certificate of Education 1st Class.  Around the same time he is recorded as winning a boxing match.

·        In December 1921 the Hampshire Regiment left Turkey for Cairo. 

 

Greek Army Service

In 1921 apparently the UK Cabinet decided to permit the service of ex-servicemen with the Greek Army fighting in Turkey.  It thus appears that my father, who by now had a credible grasp of Turkish, left the British Army in Cairo and joined the Greek Army presumably as an instructor in signalling and machine guns.  My reconstruction of events is as follows:

 

December 1921                  Joins Greek Army.

February - April 1922         Part of a clandestine operation behind Turkish lines to locate and rescue Allied officers held hostage by brigands.

September 1922                 Unit retreats to Smyrna as Greek Army falls away in front of a major Turkish offensive.

14 September 1922            Turkish Army takes Smyrna.

16 September 1922            My father swims out to and is rescued by an American warship in Smyrna harbour.

Turkey to Australia

September 1922 to

September 1923                 Sets up a business venture in Constantinople.  A business card in his scrapbook identifies:  A.J. Foster, Contractor and Merchant Incorporating the British Steam and Motor Boat Company,”

                                          

                                           Rejected by the Turkish authorities when his service with the Greek Army becomes know, he returns to England in September 1923 [27] .

 

The next record that I can find of my father is a driving licence issued in September 1924 in Bournemouth, England. 

 

                                           Between the time of his arrival back in England and the date of his driving licence a year later, his anecdotes suggest that he worked both as a stoker and deck-hand on ships crossing the Atlantic.

 

Between 1924 and 1936 he left England travelling to New Zealand via South Africa and Australia.  After some years living in New Zealand and the Cook Islands he moved to Australia around 1935.

The Australian Army

My father’s military history formally [28] revives in 1936 when he was a car-salesman in Queanbeyan, New South Wales in Australia.  Now 37 years old he joined the Australian militia (citizen forces) which at that time were being expanded.  Immediately commissioned he served in the Australian Army between January 1937 and April 1941.  The key features of this service are:

 

January 1937                      Appointed Captain and posted to 53/3 Battalion.

1939 (date unknown)          Injured while at Camp

December 1939                  Full time duty as GSO3 HQ 1 Div (Sydney, New South Wales) [29]

May 1940                           Captain Carfax-Foster demobilised and subsequently retired on medical grounds

June 1940                           Mr A, J, Foster enlisted as Private Foster in Brisbane, Queensland.

June 1940                           Appointed acting Sergeant on strength of 2/26 Battalion, AIF.

March 1941                        Recognised, “denounced” and marched out of unit.  A farewell gift in the form of a cigarette case is endorsed from “Foster’s Tigers (coincidently a symbol of the Hampshire Regiment?)

April 1941                          Discharged medically unfit once previous medical record examined.

                                          

                                           As an aside my father always said that it had been lucky for him that he was discharged then as the 2/26 were forced to surrender to the Japanese Army in Malaya.  My researches suggest that what happened was probably inevitable.  The 2/26, before going overseas, moved to New South Wales where it was brigaded with units containing officers and soldiers who knew my father from his commissioned service.  It would have been inevitable that he would have been found out then with probably the same “fate”.

 

A Civilian Employee of the US Army

In 1942 the US Army Transportation Corps sought qualified civilians to crew civilian vessels for cargo and troop transportation along the coast line of New Guinea.  My father had lived in Polynesia for some years gaining some practical sea going experience with inter-island sailing vessels.  He, with the assistance of a French speaking friend, forged Tahitian sailing qualifications and used these to join the Small Ships Section of the US Army Transportation Corps.

 

Although unqualified and inexperienced he successfully served in New Guinea on various vessels from January until September 1943, first as Mate then as Master.  The ships he was on carried cargo to forward areas, returning with casualties.  Because of the dangers of air and sea attack they carried out these missions through uncharted waters primarily at night time. 

 

His 1945 citation for award of the “Medal of Freedom” [30] included reference to:

 

·        Bravery as during a Japanese air attack on a harbour he took his vessel through burning oil in an attempt to tow another from alongside a wharf where explosives were burning. 

·        Meritorious conduct in rescuing a stranded vessel abandoned after all other attempts had failed.

 

When he first arrived in New Guinea the civilian crews wore no uniform.  Worried about the reaction they would receive if captured, they made their own.  Eventually the US Army issued them with uniforms (Mercantile Marine I think).

 

My father was eventually sidelined by malaria at the end of 1943.  The Transportation Corps then transferred him to their Purchasing Branch where he quickly was promoted to the level of Administrative Executive.  He became responsible for all procurement by the Transportation Corps on the Australian mainland which “involved the spending and authorising of millions of pounds” according to a Reference given to him by the US Army in 1945. 

 

He always joked that his last major task for the US Army was to arrange the transportation of war brides to America.   He left the US Army service in January 1946, probably when they completed their post-war pullout from Australia. That was the end of my father’s military after-life!

 

Endnote

In 1947 we moved from Australia to Fiji, the lure and warmth of the Pacific being too strong for my father to resist.  In January 1962 my father was awarded the MBE in the New Year’s Honours List.  Later that year he received the MBE from Queen Elizabeth during her visit to Fiji.  Although very honoured and thrilled by the ceremony and the chance to meet the Queen, he was slightly annoyed that he was not allowed to also wear his service medals.  His theory was that these would have attracted the attention of Prince Phillip and the two of them could have had a nice natter!  That was his last parade.  He died in 1973.

 

Feedback and comments

I welcome any feedback from readers, especially feedback on historical events covered in this work. 

 

These may sent to me through my email address: carfaxfr@bigpond.com

                                                                                                                       

 



[1]           A device that used mirrors to flash reflections of the sun in the direction of the receiving station,

[2]           Hampshire Regiment

[3]            Undated in the original, but would be March or April

[4]            May be "Chahriz, it is difficult to tell in the original text.

[5]            As written - perhaps he meant "combined".

[6]           B and C Companies of the Hampshire Regiment (from the History of the Hampshire Territorial Force Association)

[7]           2nd of January according to the History of the Hampshire Territorial Force Association.

[8]            Spelt "Sari-i-Pul" in the History of the Hampshire Territorial Force Association.

[9]            It should be spelt "Pai Tak" or "Pai-Tak", but I have preserved his spelling throughout.

[10]           D Company according to the History of the Hampshire Territorial Force Association.

[11]           C Company according to the History of the Hampshire Territorial Force Association.

[12]           A Coy, B Coy and HQ according to the History of the Hampshire Territorial Force Association.

[13]           The name was actually  "Surkhad-iza-Khan" according to the History of the Hampshire Territorial Force Association.

[14]          Probably stands for “Stores and Transport”.

[15]          A contemporary and school friend of Rudyard Kipling who immortalised him as “Stalky” in a series of stories based on their school days.  Dunsterville referred to himself as “Stalky” in two of his own autobiographical works (ie “Stalky’s Reminiscences” & “Stalky Settles Down”).

[16]          Stands for “Dunster Force” - I have retained his spelling of “Dunster force” in the diary.

[17]          This is consistent with his role as a regimental signaller.  He would have been allocated to companies on a “needs basis”.

[18]          18th July 1918

[19]          A figure of “300 odd” is consistent with two companies as detailed in the History of the Hampshire Territorial Force Association.

[20]          20th July 1918.

[21]          Probably made up of soldiers from A and B Companies.

[22]          As you will see later, this is an understatement.

[23]          5th September 1918.

[24]          The scar was clearly visible when I knew him.

[25]          As well as the wounds already described, he had at sometime sustained a serious injury to his left knee.  His resultant party trick was to wiggle the top of the tibia backwards and forwards - something you cannot do with a normal knee joint.  There was also so much nerve damage that he would not feel pain if we stuck  pins into his leg below the knee.

[26]          The tone of this - perhaps even a self-indulgent tone - suggests that this was probably written in the late 20’s early 30’s - a time when anecdotal accounts suggest evidence of post-traumatic stress including periodic bouts of depression.

[27]          On the Orient Express, the ticket is still in his scrapbook.

[28]          There is anecdotal evidence that he served in the New Zealand citizen forces but I could never find evidence of this.

[29]          One of my civilian instructors at the Royal Military College was then a subaltern in a 1 Div unit and remembered him well from that time because of his age, bearing and rows of ribbons.

[30]          The award was blocked by the Australian Government but I think that in later years he wore it anyhow!