Sco - Sma

Unit/Regiment	419th Field Coy, Corps of Royal Engineers
Date of Death	13/04/1918		Age at Death		23
Burial/Memorial & Reference	Pernes British Cemetery I B 40
CWGC Family Details (if shown)	Son of Henry and Mary Scott, of Rushy Park, Haresfinch, St. Helens, Lancs.
Census Details
Birth/Marriage/Death Registrations
SDGW – Where Born	Prescot, Lancs	Enlisted		St Helens, Lancs	Resided
How Died	Died of Wounds			Theatre of War	France & Flanders
Notes	(419th Field Coy. RE)
Research Ref. No.	P252

Corporal Scott’s award of the Military Medal was announced in issue 30340 of the London Gazette dated 16^th October 1917.

Unit/Regiment	13th Bn., King's (Liverpool Regiment)
Date of Death	31/08/1918		Age at Death		33
Burial/Memorial & Reference	Ecoust-St Mein British Cemetery D 10
CWGC Family Details (if shown)	Husband of Susannah Scott, of Church Rd., Knowsley, Prescot, Lancs.
Census Details
Birth/Marriage/Death Registrations	Marriage to Susannah Thomas registered Q1/1914, Prescot, Vol 8b, Page 887
SDGW – Where Born	Prescot, Lancs	Enlisted		Liverpool	Resided	Knowsley, Prescot
How Died	Killed In Action			Theatre of War	France & Flanders
Notes
Research Ref. No.	P253

Service Details

The battalion was formed at Seaforth, Liverpool in October 1914 as part of Kitchener’s New Armies. After initial training, the battalion moved to France in February 1915.

Joseph Scott joined the battalion as part of a draft of reinforcements in November 1915.

Early in January 1916, the battalion was informed that they were to be retrained and re-designated as a Pioneer Battalion. As such, they would have been taken out of front line service and employed in trench and road construction, often consolidating captured trenches immediately behind the front line assault troops. On 5^th January, they relieved the 4^th Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment, as Pioneer Battalion to the 4^th Division and for the remainder of the month they stayed in Voormezeele in Flanders.

On 4^th March, they moved to Poperinghe, but the conditions were dreadful, with men often having to be pulled from trenches by rope, communications trenches disappeared under water, dug-outs constantly flooded, etc. These trenches had been recaptured from the Germans, and dead bodies of both British and German soldiers were intermingled all over. Tons of discarded equipment and ammunition was collected in over the next few days.

The battalion then spent some three or four months of relatively uneventful duty in and around the front-line trenches in the area of Kemmel, Locre and Meteren before moving to the Somme in support of the forthcoming battle.

To cover the remainder of 1916 briefly, the battalion was involved in the Battle of Bazentin Ridge from 14^th to 17^th July, then moved on to Delville Wood as part of the action there from mid-July to 3^rd September, then involvement in the battles of Guillemont and Ancre before the Somme campaign died out in November 1916.

As 1917 wore on, the battalion were involved in actions around the Hindenberg Line, being withdrawn from the front line on the night of 11^th/12^th May. Their duties now were to provide working parties for the troops in the line. They marched to rest billets in Simencourt, then on the 18^th to fresh billets at Beaufort. Here they underwent training until the 31^st May when they moved to Lattre St. Quentin. After just a few days, however, they once again moved on 2^nd June to the reserve line (known as the Brown Line) then onwards to the front line in order to carry out a relief.

P253-1

Joseph Scott’s Medal Index Card. Arriving in France on 7^th November 1915, he was entitled to the 1914-1915 Star, British War Medal and Victory Medal.

Unit/Regiment

HMS "Virginian", Mercantile Marine Reserve

Date of Death

23/03/1918

Age at Death

Burial/Memorial & Reference

New York City (Brooklyn) Holy Cross cemetery

Range 32, St Josephs Sec. G 88

CWGC Family Details

(if shown)

Husband of Mary Sharkey, of 2, Moss St., Prescot, Lancashire, England

Census Details

1901 Census -

Living at 34, Church Street, Widnes was 45 year old widowed Mary Jane Starkey and her children Frederick (18, an undertaker), Eliza (16, a domestic servant), John (14), a Soap Packer, Minnie (12), Henry (10), Florence (8), Thomas (4) and George (1). On the 1891 census, the father of the family was noted as Frederick, aged 41, a Joiner & Coffin Maker

Birth/Marriage/Death Registrations

Birth registered Q3/1886, Prescot, Vol 8b, Page 707

Marriage to Mary Walsh registered at Prescot, Q4/1908, Vol 8b, Page 1074

Notes

Research Ref. No.

P254

Unit/Regiment	5th Bn, South Lancashire Regiment
Date of Death	08/05/1915		Age at Death		19
Burial/Memorial & Reference	Hazebrouck Communal Cemetery II D 32
Census Details	1901 Census - Living at 48 Houghton Street, Prescot, were Ralph Sherwood, a 33 year old watch case maker, who was widowed, and his children Ellen (9), Thomas (8), and Alfred (5).
Birth/Marriage/Death Registrations	Birth Registered Q4/1895, Prescot, 8b, 678
SDGW – Where Born	Prescot, Lancs	Enlisted		Prescot	Resided
How Died	Died of Wounds			Theatre of War	France & Flanders
Research Ref. No.	P255

Service Details

The 5^th Battalion, South Lancashire Regiment, had just started its annual training in camp when war broke out in August 1914. It was sent to Edinburgh until October, then moved to Tunbridge Wells until February 1915. It was then ordered to France, sailing on the 13^th aboard s.s. King Edward. Arriving at Le Havre the same day.

The Battalion was moved around regularly without seeing action, until 28^th April when it was moved to Vlamertinghe, Belgium in readiness to take part in the 1^st Battle of Ypres, which had started on the 22^nd.

On 2^nd May, the Germans launched a violent attack, accompanied by a cloud of chlorine gas, and the battalion was moved into the line for the first time. On 3^rd May, it was moved to the new line in front of Wieltje, and then on the 4^th it was again moved to Shell Trap Farm. At dawn, they engaged the Germans but by 4pm the enemy was within 400 yards of the British lines, from where they began a heavy bombardment of the British lines.

More shell fire continued through the next day, culminating in heavy concentrated fire about 5 p.m. which resulted in a considerable number of men being buried, many of them killed and wounded. The enemy fire continued til midnight and four attempts were made by the Germans to take the farm, but all were repulsed.

At 2 a.m. on the 6^th, the Battalion was relieved and moved to La Brique, having incurred considerable casualties.

Rifleman Sherwood was one of these. He is known to have died of wounds and is buried at Hazebrouck Communal Cemetery, south of Calais. This was home to several casualty clearing stations, and so it seems highly likely that he was severely wounded in the fighting detailed above, and later he succumbed to his wounds.

P255-2

Private Sherwood’s Medal Index Card

Unit/Regiment

8th Bn., Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers

Date of Death

16/08/1917

Age at Death

Burial/Memorial & Reference

Tyne Cot Memorial

Panel 70 to 72

Census Details

1901 Census:-

The Smaje family lived at 2, Chester Street. The family comprised parents David, 38, an Electrical Cable Capper and Mary, aged 37, along with their children David (17) and Thomas (16), both General Labourers, Simon (12), Louis (9), Ethel (5), Arthur (3) and Herbert (2 months).

Birth/Marriage/Death Registrations

Birth registered Q1/1891, Toxteth Park, 8b, 167

Marriage to May Whittle registered Q1/1913, Prescot, 8b, 1036

Children Frank (1913) and Harold (1915) both born in Prescot.

SDGW – Where Born

Liverpool

Enlisted

St Helens, Lancs

Resided

Prescot

How Died

Killed In Action

Theatre of War

France & Flanders

Notes

Formerly 5417, Royal Field Artillery

Remembered on the memorial at St Luke’s Church, St. Helens

Research Ref. No.

P312

Louis Smaje’s Medal Index Card (see below) records that his first Theatre of War was the Balkans, where he arrived on 22^nd September 1915. The 8^th Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers did not serve in the Balkans, and so it is safe to assume that Louis served there with the Royal Field Artillery. It is not clear from the surviving service information exactly when Louis transferred from the artillery to the infantry.

The 8^th Battalion had been formed in 1914 at Omagh before moving to Tipperary. After training, they finally moved to

England

in September 1915 then onwards to join the British Expeditionary Force in

France

in February 1916.

In Flanders in the summer and autumn of 1917, a series of battles took place which collectively became known as the Third Battle of Ypres. The action in which the 8^th Battalion of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers were involved in mid-August was the Battle of Langemarck.

Third Ypres was supposed to have as its strategic aim the liberation of the Belgian Channel ports and their denial to U-boat operation. One imperative that did exist was the need to attack the Germans and take the pressure of the French Army, which was beset by mutiny; another was Haig's need to secure a victory before the Americans arrived. The immediate tactical aim of the offensive was the recapture of higher ground from which the German artillery could observe and accurately bombard any target in the vicinity of the last Belgian town in Allied hands, Ypres. In the end its most significant result was its sucking in and pulverisation of the majority of the divisions of the German Army, in relentless and bloody attrition that fatally weakened its ability to wage grand war.

The British attacks in the summer and autumn of 1917 took place in the wettest weather in seventy-five years. The vital drainage channels of this low-lying area of

Belgium

were pounded out of existence by the British and German artillery. The water table of the Ypres salient turned into the sea of mud and blood that became known as Passchendaele, after the village that crowns the horseshoe of ridges that lie to the east of Ypres. The village is only 6 miles from the offensive's start line near Ypres but it took the Allied forces four and a half months to reach that goal, at a cost of over three hundred thousand casualties, including Private Louis Smaje.

The Battle of Langemarck began on the morning of 16th August 1917 at 4.45, with a tremendous artillery barrage. Not only were the many German strongpoints bombarded, but a creeping barrage was laid to keep the defenders' heads down as the British infantry advanced. The speed of the barrage advance would have been calculated to be the same as the infantry's pace. An enemy counter-barrage fell behind the British front line and was not a problem for the 8th Inniskillings, but a furious storm of machine-gun fire and snipers' bullets met them shortly after they had begun their attack.

The fortification in front of the 8th battalion was Borry Farm . This was a strongpoint consisting of three concrete dugouts linked by a breastwork. It was garrisoned by at least 100 men and five machine-guns. Both Beck House and Borry Farm were covered from Hills 35 and 37, and from the Potsdam and Bremen redoubts near Zonnebeke.

A and B companies of the 8th Battalion outflanked Borry Farm and managed to advance about 800 yards, keeping in contact with the 7th Inniskillings on their left. A German counter-attack inflicted heavy casualties on these companies, killing, wounding, or capturing all but 30 men.

C company launched frontal and flank attacks on Borry Farm and were reduced to a remnant that took cover in shell holes 50 yards to the west. Increasing German pressure led to the withdrawal of all survivors of the Battalion to their original positions. The battalion had suffered over 60% casualties. At the end of the day, the 16th Division was back where it had started.

In his report of the operation the battalion commander attributed the failure of the attack partly to poor communications. German snipers appear to have particularly targeted messengers.

P312-2

Louis Smaje’s Medal Index Card shows his entry to the Balkans Theatre of War (Gallipoli) on 22^nd September 1915, entitling him to the 1914-1915 Star in addition to his British War Medal and Victory Medal.

The Parish Magazine of 25^th March 1918 reported that in addition to the already long list of men of the parish who had fallen, six additional names were to be added. Included in them was “Pte. Louis Henry Smaje, 25, Enniskillen Fusiliers, killed 16^th August 1917, of 36 Scotch Barn Lane, leaves a widow and two children, now living in St Helens.”

Probably as a result of his widow and children moving to St Helens, Louis Smaje is also commemorated on the memorial at St Luke’s church in St. Helens.

P312-3

Louis Smaje’s inscription on the Tyne Cot Memorial