Valour in the Trenches

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VALOUR IN THE TRENCHES! ‘BOMBO’ POLLARD VC MC* DCM HAC

IN

THE GREAT WAR

NS Nash In memory of 9332G A/Sergeant Ernest Simmons HAC 1898-1963 For turning a boy into a man

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Contents

List of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x Chapter 1

The End and the Beginning 1914–1960 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 2

France September–November 1914 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Chapter 3

Action! November 1914–May 1915 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Chapter 4

The Salient June 1915. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Chapter 5

The Distinguished Conduct Medal

Chapter 6

Home Service – The King’s Commission November 1915–May 1916 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Chapter 7

Return to the Fray – the ‘Rum Jar’ Incident June–November 1916 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Chapter 8

A Battle Missed, but a Coward?

October 1916–January 1917. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

Chapter 9

The Military Cross

July–October 1915 . . . 66

January–March 1917. . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Chapter 10 The Victoria Cross and a Bar to the Military Cross March–April 1917 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Chapter 11 The Second Victoria Cross and a Lady’s Hand April 1917 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Chapter 12 London and Marriage

July 1917–June 1918 . . . . . . . . . . 171

Chapter 13 The American Experience

June–July 1918. . . . . . . . . . . . 182

Chapter 14 Reinforcement Camp – the Rhine and Peace July 1918–February 1919. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 Chapter 15 A Divorce – RAF – Re-marriage

1919–1931 . . . . . . . . . 197

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Chapter 16 Authorship and Fire-Eater Chapter 17

1931–1960. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203

Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220

Appendix 1: The Published Works of AO Pollard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Appendix 2: The Inventor of the Baton Round . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229 Appendix 3: On Decorations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

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Preface The First World War involved the active participation of many millions of young men of many nations and several million of these young men died.

The British Army had expanded very rapidly from 257,000 men in 1914 to over three million by 1918. The expansion was so rapid that the training given to the influx of enthusiastic volunteers was cursory and, in the early days of the war, the brunt of the fighting fell upon the relatively small regular army. It was the civilians, volunteers and conscripts of the Territorial Forces that reinforced and eventually provided the overwhelming majority of Britain’s manpower. This book tells the story of just one of those territorial, volunteer soldiers. The 21-year-old civilian who is the subject of this book became one of the most decorated soldiers of the war and is still a legend today.

He was a remarkable man and in his early life he had an unusual and compassionless attitude, but that was offset by his extraordinary devotion to a young lady who did not return his affections. His bravery and unalloyed patriotism are beyond question and both were of such unflagging consistency that Alfred Oliver Pollard has been the subject of several studies by academics, seeking to uncover the secret of his valour.

I have quoted from his autobiography at some length, and this is because it is better that he be judged on the basis of his words, not mine.

Any judgements that are passed are mine, unless attributed elsewhere.

This book seeks to provide a record of Alfred Pollard’s exploits, putting his courage into the wider context of his life and the times in which he lived.

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Chapter 1

The End and the Beginning ‘The setting up of soldiers.’

1914–1960 It was 0830hrs on Sunday, December 1960, and Bournemouth was gearing itself up for Christmas but, in the meantime, the town was being assailed by a violent storm. Heavy rain was falling, being driven by a strong wind with gale force gusts.

At 18 Queen’s Park Gardens, Alfred Pollard, one of Bournemouth’s most distinguished residents, could hear the wind howling outside. Although never a gregarious person, he too was looking forward to the festivities, despite the continuing worry he had over the health of Violet, his dear wife of thirty-five years.

Violet fussed around him in their modest home on that Sunday morning, but she was clearly very unwell and in the care of the doctors. On the table beside his chair was a copy of Wrong Verdict, the most recent of the sixty-one books he had written and had published over the previous thirty years. His sixty-second book – Forged Evidence – he had completed only three months earlier and he looked forward to seeing a copy of that joining the row of his other published work that filled a small bookcase in the lounge, early in the New Year.

Alfred Pollard had not always been an author; he was once a soldier and a very good one. That was all years ago but now, as old age beckoned, there was time to speculate upon the many men he had killed with bullet, bomb and bayonet, time to recall laughing comrades whose lives were snuffed out in an instant or who died, slowly, in shrieking agony. He had survived the horrors of the First World War and had been decorated four times for acts of extraordinary bravery. He still carried in his body splinters from German grenades and shells.

He recalled vividly the horror of contact with that first corpse – the rotting remains of a French soldier that he had inadvertently come to grips with in his

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early days in the trenches and of the unutterably awful stench that erupted when his pickaxe pierced the body of another soldier, long since buried but unmarked.

How could he forget the crack of the bullet that missed its target and the spray of blood, bone and brain when it did not? He remembered vividly the scream of one of the Huns as he shot him in the stomach – but then he had had no choice. Engraved on his mind were the cheerful faces of the living and also the grey, waxy faces of the dead, the prayers of the Padre, the shrill call of the whistles, the crump of artillery shells and the lethal shower of white-hot steel fragments that followed. He recalled the impact and pain of shell and grenade splinters, lying in hospital beds, pretty nursing sisters – one in particular. What had happened to her? What of his brother Frank, his idol – long dead but not forgotten. Ernest Boyle, ‘Ossy’, Sherry Bryan, ‘Billiken’, Marrs, Percy Lewis, Hughesdon, Freter, George Thorpe and Hoblyn – dear old Harry.

He could smell the putrefaction of a thousand corpses, the stink of the latrines and the discomfort of being lousy. He remembered the rats, the cold food, the driving rain, the unremitting heat, the dust and the bone-aching cold.

He recalled the pleasure of clean water to drink and hot water in which to bathe. But, above all else, his abiding and most treasured memory was the comradeship and bravery of the men who had served beside him in his trench and their shared pride in the Regiment. A young queen was on the throne now.

He had served her grandfather, met him several times, good chap; he too was proud of their regiment.

He recalled the thrill of seeing and holding his first book, Pirdale Island. It was as good as a medal … but that was thirty years ago. Ruefully, Alfred concluded that even after sixty-two books authorship was a difficult and badly rewarded way to make a living. However, he was fortunate. Plots came to him relatively easily and he did not find that writing was arduous. He had never suffered from ‘writer’s block’ and his output had been described by others as ‘prolific’. On that basis, he could go on for ages yet, turning out two books a year and looking forward to his royalties, such as they were.

He was fit, well perhaps a bit overweight, but at sixty-seven, he certainly had no intention of making an appointment with his maker just yet. When that time did come he would have no regrets and he would face the prospect of death with equanimity – he had been at the very door many times before. Indeed, he had knocked, several times, but had been denied admittance. He had done his duty, found favour with his comrades and when his time was up, then so be it.

He had killed German soldiers, many of them, but he had not kept score.

Back then in the trenches he had felt and felt now, ‘neither pity nor fear’. That was his view then and he had no cause to change it.

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The storm raged outside and as the Dorset coast was being battered, Alfred recalled winter nights like this in the trenches. He remembered the impossibility of keeping warm and dry, icy water draining down one’s neck, cold wet fingers grasping a greasy weapon. Then there was the thick, clinging mud underfoot and the smell, always the smell of putrefaction, ordure and unwashed bodies.

Even on awful days like this, Bournemouth certainly beat the hell out of trench life.

Then he heard a clatter from the garden. He muttered under his breath and rising from his chair made for the window. He could see that the wind had blown down a panel of the garden fence. Decisive as he had ever been, he muttered under his breath and made his way to the door … * * * The consensus seems to be that an appropriate place to start a biography is at the beginning and, on that traditional and sound basis it must be recorded that Alfred Oliver Pollard (AOP) had been born into a safe and secure middle-class family on 4 May 1893. At the time the family home was a house called ‘Rycroft’ in Melbourne Road, Wallington, Surrey. Soon after his birth the family moved to ‘Tilbury’, 2 Belmont Road, in February 1894, and it was here that James Pollard, his father, had died in 1933, having seen one of his sons achieve international fame.

Alfred was the second son, and fifth child, of Yorkshireman, 34-year-old James Alfred Pollard, who hailed from Heckmondwike and was married to Ada Jane Pollard (née Payne). She had been born two years after her husband, in Ryde, on the Isle of Wight.

James Frank, who was the first-born of James and Ada, was now a lively three- nearly four-year-old. He had been born on 23 June 1889 and welcomed the birth of a baby brother, to whom he would soon be very close. They had three sisters. These were Lily Ada, born in 1885, Eva Kate, 1887, and Amy Grace, who arrived in 1891.

James Alfred Pollard was well able to care for his young family as he had a secure job with the Alliance Assurance Company in their offices in the St. James’s Street branch. He was professionally qualified and a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute (FII).

The family home was and is a substantial building; it was certainly sufficiently so to house a family of seven and a live-in maid. ‘Tilbury’ today is a sad sight. The house has been split into eight flats, and the garden in which the Pollard children once played has long gone and is now an unattractive car park, approached past the ‘wheelie bins’ of the flat dwellers.

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Alfred Oliver Pollard and his siblings grew up in Wallington, then an attractive village on the outskirts of London, but now a rather dreary suburb.

Victorian England was a country with no doubts as to its place in the world. The Royal Navy ruled the waves and the Army, supported by locally enlisted troops, ensured that, in all those parts of the map coloured pink, the Queen’s peace held sway. The ever-reclusive Queen Victoria still had nine years of her illustrious reign to run. However, the British century was running to a close and rebellion was afoot in South Africa.

When war broke out against the Boers any number of myths were destroyed. It was discovered that the Army that had been so devastatingly effective against African and Arab tribesmen was a deal less capable of dealing with the fast moving, guerrilla type of opposition provided by the determined and skilled Boers.

The two small boys almost certainly stood in the streets and cheered as British troops marched off to war to die at Colenso, Nooitgedacht, Sanna’s Post and Spion Kop.

Descendants of James A Pollard James A Pollard 1834 -

Catherine 1833 -

James Alfred Ada Jane Elizabeth Ann George Arthur Beatrice Adelaide Payne Pollard Pollard Pollard Pollard 1861 1859 - 1933 1858 1863 1874 Mary Alfred Oliver Violet Irene Lily Ada Eva Kate Amy Grace Ainsley Pollard Swarbrick Pollard Pollard Pollard 1892 1893 - 1960 1900 - 1961 1885 - 1887 - 1917 1891 –

James Frank Pollard 1889 – 1916

The Boer War was still raging when, in January 1901, Queen Victoria died and the world changed forever. The two small boys grew into young men.

Alfred’s education is not well recorded other than that he attended Merchant Taylors’ School from 1906 to 1908. During this period the school was located in a complex of medieval buildings behind Smithfield Market and was readily accessible for a boy living in Wallington. The school later relocated to its present campus at Northwood. Alfred advanced from thirteen to fifteen, but that was clearly not the sum of his education, although assiduous research has found no other educational record.

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In 1909 James Frank Pollard (always called ‘Frank’), by now aged eighteen, joined the HAC. We can safely presume that he had been ‘invited’ to join because the Honourable Artillery Company did not offer an open door to any Tom, Dick or James.

As a new member he had first to ‘take the King’s shilling’ and enlist as a soldier and then, suitably proposed and seconded, he appeared before the Court of Assistants and was admitted to membership of the Civil Company.

He had, in effect, joined a club, and an exclusive one at that. He signed his name in the Great Vellum Roll, a document that already held the signatures of the Great and the Good over the previous 350 years.

The function, the aim, of the HAC then, and still today, was ‘the setting up of soldiers’ and Frank probably regaled his younger brother with tales of what went on, on drill nights and at ‘camp’. He undoubtedly explained that on parade the HAC was ‘strict particular’ but off parade very relaxed and informal. Members had social relationships that transcended rank although, as in any society, members tended to relate to their peer group. Informality did not extend as far as either the Regimental Sergeant-Major (RSM) or the Commanding Officer (CO) – and nor should they.

Frank explained to his younger brother that the HAC was organized like a battalion of the Foot Guards and that some of the key staff were regular soldiers – not least the RSM. Where the Foot Guards wore gold (well, brass, in effect) the HAC wore silver. Similarly, lance corporals of the HAC wore two stripes (not the normal one stripe) and that was by the explicit command of the old Queen. These and other snippets all added to the message that was loud and clear – it was a privilege to be a member of the HAC. The hard lessons learned on the dusty plains of South Africa between 1899 and 1902 had generated significant change in the Army and in the manner that it operated. Not the least was that the need for enhanced skill-at-arms was recognized and acted upon.

The year 1906 had seen the start of major reforms to the structure of the Army and these were driven by the Secretary of State for War, Richard Haldane. His were the first significant alterations to the organization of the Army since the Childers Reforms of the early 1880s, and they were somewhat belatedly put in place to recognize deficiencies identified during the Boer War, which had ended in 1902.

Haldane formed the Expeditionary Force, which was designed for overseas service in the event of major war, and at the same time, made arrangements that the Force would be provided with the logistic and supporting elements that modern war demanded.

Cognizant that sending the bulk of the regular army overseas would make

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the UK base vulnerable, he created the Territorial Force by grouping the disparate Volunteers, Militia, and Yeomanry units together in the Territorial and Reserve Forces Act of 1907 – and this was just before Frank Pollard joined the HAC. Haldane had the foresight to institute the Officer Training Corps in universities and what were then called ‘public schools’ (but are now described as the more politically correct ‘independent schools’). World War I would underscore Haldane’s wisdom in this regard.

It was suggested, by a tidy-minded jobsworth of the day, that the Honourable Artillery Company would be re-designated ‘26th Battalion, The London Regiment’, Similarly, the Inns of Court Regiment was to be awarded the appellation the 27th Battalion. Both of these ancient organizations treated the unattractive and impertinent suggestion with the contempt it deserved – they ignored it and, like a bad smell, it went away.

However, the political reforms had an immediate effect on the HAC and, as a result of the transfer of the Company to this new Territorial Force, there was a considerable influx of recruits, 533 new members being admitted in 1908, whereas the yearly average had hitherto been about seventy. In 1909 Frank Pollard became one of 1,066 active, that is to say, serving members.

Frank Pollard was at ‘camp’ at Bulford, Wiltshire, when King Edward VII died in May 1910. Camp was abandoned and the Company journeyed back to London for the funeral of its Captain-General.

In 1911 Frank Pollard was almost certainly involved in the celebrations for the Coronation of King George V because the HAC was always at the centre of public events in London and there would have been guards to find, routes to line and much social activity to enjoy at Armoury House, the home of the HAC in City Road. Alfred Pollard learned about the HAC and its doings at his brother’s feet and it left a very strong impression.

The Territorial Force settled down during the next three years, but by then, dark clouds were forming over Europe and in June 1914 the awful progress to war was initiated in Sarajevo. The British public was not averse to war – indeed, a significant proportion looked forward to it as a means of asserting national pride and putting all those foreigners in their place.

They got their way when HMG declared war on Germany on 4 August 1914. AOP remarked that: At that date, August bank holiday, I was twenty-one years and three months, a clerk in the St. James’s Street Branch of the Alliance Assurance Company and utterly irresponsible. My chief interests in life were rugger in the winter, tennis in the summer and dancing all the year round.

Girls? Of course!