WW1 Pair and WW2 Defence Medal to 16855 Pte C W Mat[t]hews served 11th & 5th Battalions, the Suffolk Regiment - believed wounded 1 July 1916, La Boisselle, Somme

WW1 Pair and WW2 Defence Medal to 16855 Pte C W Mat[t]hews served 11th & 5th Battalions, the Suffolk Regiment - believed wounded 1 July 1916, La Boisselle, Somme 

Charles William Mathews or Matthews of Teversham served with the 11th (Cambridgeshire) Battalion, the Suffolk Regiment. The 11th was very much a rural battalion, formed at Cambridge by the Isle of Ely Territorial Force Association, with companies formed of men drawn from the outlying villages. 

This man, 16855 Pte Charles Mathews, is probably one and the same with Charles William Matthews who was born on 25 November 1896, (name given as  "Charlie" on the 1901 Census) and features as Charley Matthews, born in Little Wilbraham, in the 1911 census. In the latter census he is recorded as a 14 year-old farm labourer living with his family in Teversham (both Teversham and Little Wilbraham being parishes in the Chesterton registration district, outside Cambridge).

His father, Alfred Matthews of Great Wilbraham, was a shepherd on a farm and by 1911 was employed as a cement digger.  

Probably, like 16851 Moses Robert Baker (who was wounded on 1 July 1916 and features on the same casualty list as C W Matthews), Charles enlisted on or around Monday 23 November 1914 at Cambridge, most probably at the Corn Exchange. The two men are shown together on The Cambridge Independent Press' 27 November 1914 'Roll of Honour', with C W Matthews being one of two Teversham men shown as having enlisted that week. The other was (16688) Thomas Careless, also a farm labourer. Very possibly the two were friends and joined up together, as many of the Cambridge Suffolks apparently did. By this time the battalion was well on the way to being 1,150 strong - another paper, the "Cambridge Chronicle", reported that no less than 114 men had enlisted at Cambridge into the Cambridgeshire Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment in that week alone. If the original plan for the establishment of the battalion's companies was followed, he was most probably placed in 'A' Company, based around Cambridge itself, and the communities of Trumpington, Grantchester, Ditton, Horningsea and Shelford - the 'carrying company' on 1 July 1916.

Charles Mathews' age is given in the paper as 19; however, if the above inferences as to to identity are correct, he would actually have not quite reached the age of 18.

The 11th Battalion remained quartered in the Cambridgeshire area until May 1915, subsequently moving to Whitburn in Yorkshire and then Ripon to train with the 34th Division before moving south to Salisbury Plain in August 1915. After an abortive mobilisation at Sutton Veny in December 1915 to go to Egypt, Pte Mathews would have gone overseas from Folkestone to France with the battalion in January 1916 as part of 101st Brigade, 34th Division. 

Upon joining III Corps, the battalion served in the line in very wet 'breastwork' trenches one mile south-east of Bois Grenier in the Armentieres area for its familiarisation with trench warfare,  going in as a battalion for the first time on 21 February. At this time the front line trenches were often filled with water to the men's knees and when the wet conditions caused the sandbags in the breastworks to sink it became hazardous due to the operations of snipers. Shelling ('strafes' in the trench argot of the time), machine gunners sweeping the parapets, wiring parties, manning listening posts, night patrols and patrolling for sniper posts kept the men busy and accustomed them to trench conditions in what was, even so, a quiet front. The battalion clearly did well in its first three stints in the line, being congratulated by the brigadier on its snipers and 'most excellent' general work in the trenches. 

Later, after training out of the line at St. Omer, they moved south to the Somme in May 1916, to get ready for the forthcoming offensive. Although this was, of course, designed to help France by relieving the pressure on them at Verdun, it appears that some of the men thought they were going to Verdun itself, to help the French there in a more direct way! 

The 101st Brigade went into the line at Albert on 22 May, preceded by the 11th Suffolks on the 20th (marching, as some of its veterans remembered, up the Bapaume road to the Front, beneath the famous 'leaning virgin' of the Basilica). They did a number of stints thereafter, with a similar routine of trench digging, making good and patrolling to that at Bois Grenier, but with a sense already that the Somme was a more active, 'rougher' sector. 

Where the 11th Suffolks were, the La Boiselle sector, was described aptly as 'A region of mine craters of all sizes, a chalky waste, a perfect maze of trenches, and in a constant state of flux. The German front overlooked the British and each successive line of their defences  [of which there were several] had a better view.' It was also, in common with the whole German Somme front, well-wired and presented a formidable defensive position.

Meanwhile, the preparations for the great offensive continued.The 11th Suffolks would have been well aware of these, not least of the digging and priming with explosives of the great Lochnagar mine - to be blown to great effect at 7.28am on 1 July - the entrance to which was right where they were. This was in addition to their own dangerous job of digging new assembly trenches for the great advance, in the frequently-shelled Becourt Wood.

Pte Mathews was wounded in July 1916, being shown on the War Office Daily Casualty List for 8 August 1916. His entry on this list was under his correct regimental number 16855 but with his surname spelt 'Matthews'; the list also showed his place of residence, enlistment or next of kin as being of Teversham, near Cambridge. 

Given the roughly one month gap between the event and a casualty being published on the list, Pte Mathews is very likely to have been a 1 July 1916 Somme casualty. This would have made him one of over 500 casualties suffered that day, when the battalion attacked, as the 101st Brigade's reserve battalion, following the Grimsby Pals (10th Lincolnshires) up Sausage Valley between La Boiselle and Fricourt towards the German intermediate line between Bailiff Wood and Contalmaison. 

The following is an extract (with commentary and expansions from other sources - mainly from AJ Peacock's excellent 'A Rendezvous With Death'),  from the battalion war diary for the day:

"BECOURT 1/7 16

5 am.  B[attalio]n commenced to leave BECOURT WOOD and proceeded to jumping off places in DUNDEE AVENUE and NEW CUT 'B' [the latter being one of the new assembly trenches for the attack, dug the preceding week; the battalion had received praise from the GOC 34th Division and Commandant, Royal Engineers for good work done] and in MONIKIE STREET.

['From 6.25 A.M. onwards there was an incessant roar of gun-fire, with the screaming, whistling and bursting of shells rising above it.'] 

7am. B[attalio]n all in position with B[attalio]n HQ in a dugout near junction of DUNDEE AVENUE with ARBROATH STREET & NEW CUT 'B'. The B[attalio]n was considerably delayed in getting into position owing to the right of the 102nd Brigade extending too far to the right.

7.28am. The mine opposite left of 101st Brigade [Lochnagar mine] was exploded.

[Cecil Day, flying a Morane Saulnier Parasol monoplane over the vicinity, describes the explosion of the Lochnagar and neighbouring Y-Sap mines and first phase of the ensuing attack as follows:

"We were over Thiepval and turned south to watch the mines. As we sailed down above all, came the final moment. Zero! At Boisselle the earth heaved and flashed, a tremendous and magnificent column rose up into the sky. There was an ear-splitting roar, drowning all the guns, flinging the machine sideways in the repercussing air. The earthly column rose, higher and higher to almost four thousand feet. There it hung, or seemed to hang, for a moment in the air, like a silhouette of some great cypress tree, then fell away in a widening cone of dust and debris. A moment later came the second mine. Again the roar, the upflung machine, the strange gaunt silhouette invading the sky. Then the dust cleared and we saw the two white eyes of the craters. The barrage had lifted to the second-line trenches, the infantry were over the top, the attack had begun."]

7.30am. The infantry assault was launched. The B[attalio]n followed the 10th Lincolns from our assembly trenches down into SAUSAGE VALLEY and across to the German lines. Owing to the failure of the 102nd

Brigade on the left to capture LA BOISSELLE, our advance from the moment it left our assembly trenches was subjected to a very heavy fire from machine guns from LA BOISSELLE. [The 11th were also caught by a German counter-barrage on the British front-line trench and, if the experience of the 10th Lincolns was anything to go by, were probably enfiladed by machine gun fire from both La Boiselle to their left and Heligoland/Sausage redoubt to their right.] In spite of the fact that wave after wave were mown down by machine gun fire, all pushed on without hesitation though very few reached the German lines."

The brigade diary adds:

"...only very small parties of these battalions [10th Lincolns and 11th Suffolks] ever got across into the German trench system. These parties pushed on and joined the 15th and 16th Royal Scots and subsequently assisted in the defence of WOOD ALLEY" [This position was to the right of the battalion's advance, beyond Heligoland redoubt: others assisted in the holding of Lochnagar Crater to the left].

Accounts of the day by the men concerned supplement the bald statements in the war diaries. They speak of laughing and talking quietly as they moved up, starting the advance at 7.33 to the sound of the whistles, each wave dressed out to six feet between each man as they advanced the 800 or so yards through the waving grass towards the British front line and across no-man's land, losing companions on either side as the machine guns opened up, pressing on until wounded, the advance petering out as the lines went down (the agricultural metaphor of being mown down by a reaper coming naturally to many of them), being trapped in no-man's land under shelling, machine gun fire and snipers under the hot sun and then crawling back for medical aid.

Private Senescall's account can stand for many:

"The long line of men came forward, rifles at the port as ordered. Now Gerry started and his machine guns let fly. Down they all went. I could see them dropping one after the other as the gun swept along them. The officer went down at exactly the same time as the man behind him. Another minute or so and another wave came forward. Gerry was ready this time and this lot did not get as far as the others.

“During the afternoon Jerry started shelling no mans land in a zig-zag fashion to kill the rest of us off. As each shell landed they gave a burst of machine gun fire over where it fell, to catch anyone who should jump up. As they worked towards me I knew when my shell was coming. Sure enough it came and landed a few yards behind me. Over came the bullets as well but I kept perfectly still. A very large shell fell some yards to my left. With all the bits and pieces flying up was a body. The legs had been blown off right to the crutch. I have never seen a body lifted so high. It sailed up and towards me. I can still see the deadpan look on his face under the tin hat, which was still held on by the chin strap. He kept coming and landed with a bonk behind me.

"At long last evening came and the light began to fade. I ventured a look forward and there was Jerry out of his trench moving among the fallen. Now, I thought, I am going to Berlin too soon. That decided me, I jumped up and ran as best I could, for I was stiff. I kept treading on wounded and they called out to me for help. Jerry let me have a few more shots as I ran, but the light had now gone. Anyway he couldn't hit me that day in daylight, could he?"

For the unwounded men, after spending the following two days rescuing the wounded and then clearing the battlefield, the 11th Battalion along with other units of the 101st Brigade was withdrawn on 4/5 July via Becourt Wood and Long Valley to Henencourt wood.  There it refitted, trained and worked on assimilating a replacement draft of 13 officers and 530 men prior to going back into the line again at Bazentin-le-Petit on the 31st. No casualties are recorded in the battalion war diary for this period.

The 34th Division suffered 6,000 casualties in the attack up Sausage Valley, the greatest concentration of casualties of any division on the First of July. 

What happened to Pte Mathews  after his wounding is unrecorded. The nature of his wound, whether he got back the British lines by his own power or was rescued, and how he was given medical attention is unknown. However, treatment at the regimental aid post on the Chapes Spur, transport on foot - or via stretcher and then light railway - to Albert, evacuation home to the UK and hospitalisation, followed by a transfer to another battalion of the regiment seems a strong possibility.

Certainly, his second regimental number, of 242564, is correct for a man serving with the 5th Battalion (a Territorial Force unit) after 1 March 1917, the battalion's range beginning 240,001. It is not clear whether he went overseas again; if with the 5th this would have put him in line to serve with the 1/5th in the Palestine theatre. He is shown on the 1919 Absent Voters List as resident at High Street, Teversham. 

After the war it seems likely that he returned home and settled in the area. Certainly, a marriage between a Charles W Matthews and Elsie F Taylor was registered in the Chesterton registration district in the third quarter of 1922.  The Defence Medal associated with his British War Medal and Victory Medal pair suggests that he may have served on home defence duties during WW2, possibly in the Home Guard or as an Air Raid Warden. Finally, a Charles William Matthews of Cambridge, presumably the same man, died in June 1976.