Boy Soldiers
By Richard van Emden
On 10 March 1916, a small notice appeared in the personal columns of The Times. It read: 'Cecil CW – will not apply for discharge if you give full address, past forgiven, Father.'
Arthur Withers was confirming, in an act of good faith, that he would not remove his under-age son from the British Army. The 17-year-old Cecil had enlisted under the name 'Sydney Harrison' and had 'gained' two years on his actual age in order to join up. He was one of thousands of boys who had done the same, all willing to do their bit for Britain in the Great War.
Now that he was about to go to France, Cecil realised that, if he were killed, no one, least of all his parents, would know what had happened to him. In light of his father's assurances, he decided to own up. Eighty-eight years later, Cecil, now aged 106, recalled the day the truth came out. 'I was standing in a parade and the sergeant said, "Private Withers, two paces forward. Harrison yesterday, Withers today, when was the bloody wedding?"'
Cecil is one of only 26 surviving British veterans of the Great War. In 1914, when war broke out, he was just 16, but he was soon under pressure to enlist – local people began to question why this apparently fit man was not in khaki. Unable to take much more, he enlisted and served two years in the trenches of France and Flanders.
During the Great War, at least 250,000 underage boys enlisted in the British Army, of whom perhaps half were killed or wounded.
Recruiting sergeants besieged
An unknown boy in the Royal Fusiliers.
In the first days of the war, Lord Kitchener made his famous appeal for 100,000 volunteers to form a New Army. The minimum age for volunteers was 18, and soldiers had to be 19 before they could serve overseas. Men from across the United Kingdom soon swamped the recruiting offices, hoping to enlist.
As news came from Belgium and France that the regular British Army was retreating under an enormous German onslaught, the nation's patriotic men besieged recruiting sergeants, offering themselves in the service of their country. Such were the numbers that, on one day in early September 1914, the army enlisted over 30,000 men, as many recruits as it normally took in a year.
Sunday suits and a bowler hat
Among those hoping to join up were thousands of boys, some as young as 13 and 14. Recruiting sergeants, who were paid for every man who signed up, were more than willing to turn a blind eye to lads who were keen to enlist but who were palpably underage. Too often a boy, in his innocence, would admit to being 16 only to be told, 'Go walk round the building, and see if you are not 19 when you get back.' Most took the hint.
Not all boys looked underage. Many had worked for perhaps two years before the war and had filled out. Others wore their best Sunday suits to look older, while one lad, George Peachment, reputedly wore his father's bowler hat when he enlisted. The following year, aged just 18, he won the Victoria Cross, the highest decoration for valour, for attempting to rescue an officer while under intense fire.
Distraught mothers
The boys who joined up were full of enthusiasm, and thought little of the horror of war. They had been brought up on popular stories of adventure and heroic deeds. In 1914, these lads were more worried about the reactions of distraught mothers than about any German soldier.
Tommy Gay, then aged 16, remembered: 'I went home and told my mother I'd joined up. Well, she gave me such a beating, she hit me and slapped me, and all the time I was bouncing off the wall. I had no right to enlist, she told me, no right at all.' It was often the fathers who came to the rescue, saying, 'If he wants to go, let him' or, more alarmingly, 'Well, you've made your bed, son, now you must lie in it.'
Over the top
A group of boys in the Royal Army Medical Corps.
Fifteen-year-old Dick Trafford, a miner from Liverpool, had enlisted with all his work mates. After training for six months in England, he went to France. By the age of 16, he was at the front and well and truly lying in his bed, waiting to go over the top for the first time at the battle of Loos:
You feel like in a race, a sprint or a long-distance race, and you're waiting for the signal. Then the sergeant would shout, 'Right, lads,' and you're over the top. You got over the best way you could and you ran like hell to get to the Germans' trenches. I thought, 'If my time comes, I hope it's a bullet and let's hope it's sudden.'
These bits of shrapnel were dropping round and bullets flying past. You could feel the whistle of the bullets. If a man dropped, that was it, whether they were killed or not. If he was wounded, a stretcher bearer would come along and pick him up. Some men had their arms hanging half off, some with their legs badly wounded. You saw it all.
'Mis-statement as to age'
Such was the number of underage boys who had enlisted that questions were soon raised in Parliament and assurances given that boys under 17 would be released on production of a birth certificate. As news of spiralling casualty numbers in France reached Britain, worried parents began to besiege their MPs asking for sons to be brought back home.
Often their demands were granted – thousands of boys were discharged because they had made 'a mis-statement as to age' on their enlistment forms. Thousands of others stayed at the front and, keen to stay with their mates, resented any attempts to bring them home.
'Better grub'
William Swift, a lad from Liverpool, had been in trouble with the law and had been sent to Borstal for three years for shop-breaking. On release, he was taken down to the recruiting office and enlisted into the army, despite the fact that he was only 17. His parents wrote to the authorities agreeing that he could serve but emphasising that their son was 'too young for the front'. However, William was soon sent to France.
From his letters home, it is evident that he thoroughly enjoyed his new profession: 'It's all right down here. We get better grub than we got in England,' he wrote happily. He ran for the regiment, winning several races, and proved to be such a good soldier that he was quickly promoted. Only then was it discovered that he was too young to serve in the trenches and would have to be removed from the firing line until his next birthday. He wrote bitterly that he would rather have remained in the line as he was an acting sergeant and platoon commander. 'I can't expect promotion where I am,' he complained.
Shortly after his birthday, William Swift returned to his battalion, where he continued to serve with distinction. He was killed in action the following May, aged 19.
Horrified
The boy soldiers of the Great War willingly lied about their ages to join what they believed would be a holiday away from home. They joined to be with their friends and mates, and they frequently enlisted to escape boring and routine jobs at home.
Most were horrified by what they experienced, and many were marred for life. Dick Trafford was gassed and wounded. Tommy Gay was captured, spending nearly three years in captivity. Cecil Withers was also wounded. Yet, perhaps surprisingly, none of them would have missed the war. All were glad they had served. However, they said that they could never have gone through again what they had had to endure nearly 90 years before.
Richard van Emden is a writer and television producer specialising in the First World War. He has worked on several historically based television series, including the acclaimed Channel 4 documentaries Roses of No Man's Land, Prisoners of the Kaiser and Britain's Boy Soldiers. He has written seven books on the war including The Trench, Veterans and, most recently, All Quiet on the Home Front.
Find out more
Websites
The First World War
www.channel4.com/history/microsites/F/
firstworldwar/index.html
An exploration of some of the most controversial features of World War I.
The First World War: Sources for history
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/firstworldwar
An excellent section of the Public Record Office/National Archive website. It not only has a good historical rundown on the war, but also has guidance on how to research service records and other documentation from the conflict.
Books
Death's Men: Soldiers of the Great War
by Denis Winter
(Penguin Books, 1988)
The story of the First World War, told by the soldiers themselves.
Get this book
The First Day of the Somme: 1 July 1916 by Martin Middlebrook (Penguin Books, 1994)
Not merely an hour-by-hour account of 1 July 1916 but also a comprehensive account of Kitchener's army.
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Leeds Pals: History of the 15th (Service) Battalion (1st Leeds) the Prince of Wales' Own (West Yorkshire Regiment), 1914-18 by Laurie Milner (Wharncliffe Books, 1991)
Get this book
Barnsley Pals: The 13th and 14th Battalions York and Lancaster Regiment by Jon Cooksey (Pen & Sword Books/Leo Cooper, 1986)
Get this book
The ‘Pals’ battalions were a phenomenon of World War I. In response to Kitchener’s call for a million volunteers, local communities raised entire battalions for service on the Western Front. Their fate was often tragic: men who had known each other all their lives, had worked, volunteered, and trained together, and had shipped to France together, encountered the first full fury of modern battle on the Somme in July 1916. Many of the Pals battalions did not long survive that first brutal baptism.
To the Last Man: Spring 1918 by Lyn Macdonald (Penguin, 1999)
An account of the battle, retreat and stand at Amiens, which saved the city, secured the line and caused German commander Ludendorff to call off his offensive in spring 1918. But mostly this is the story of the men who took part – the commandos, the weary but resolute Tommies, the exultant Germans, the French and the American 'doughboys'.
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Veterans: The last survivors of the Great War by Richard van Emden and Steve Humphries (Pen & Sword Books/Leo Cooper, 1998)
The authors searched – and raced against time – to find the few remaining World War I veterans and capture their thoughts and memories, and these form the basis of this book. Highly illustrated with photographs, many of them never before published.
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With a Machine Gun to Cambrai by George Coppard (Cassell Military, 1999)
In August 1914, after lying about his age, 16-year-old George Coppard enlisted in Kitchener's army. Serving with the Machine Gun Corps, he fought in the battles of Loos, Somme and Arras, and at Cambrai, where he was badly wounded and won the Military Medal for Bravery. This book is based on diaries that Coppard kept, against military regulation, during his service in France. One of the few accounts of the war to be written by a private soldier rather than an officer – a vivid and horrifying picture of life in the trenches by someone at the very bottom of the military hierarchy.
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Out of print
The following books, both highly recommended, may be available from libraries or second-hand bookshops.
Barnsley Pals: The 13th and 14th Battalions York and Lancaster Regiment by Jon Cooksey (Pen & Sword Books/Leo Cooper, 1996).
Somme 1916 by Norman Gladden (William Kimber, 1974).
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National Army Museum
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E-mail: info@national-army-museum.ac.uk
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