Rosslyn Park Memorial Project

Our Family Members in 1914-18

My great great uncle was Captain Frank Stockdale of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers died on 19th September 1918 mere months before the end of the war in Salonika (modern day Greece) even though he shouldn’t even have been there. He was only there because he swapped places with his best friend so that his best friend could go back to England to get married. Captain Stockdale was the 25 years old son of John and Lizzie Stockdale of Tipton Staffordshire. He is buried in Sarigol military cemetery Kriston. He died of blood loss in Hospital.

On the same side of my family although not related at the time was Private Frank Lewis Hart who was a conscientious objector who became a stretcher bearer in the Royal Army Medical Corps. He died at the age of 25 in Salonika too on 7th August 1917 and his service number was 512234. He was the son of the Wesleyan minister William Henry Hart and Adelaide Alice Hart of Camberwell, London, although he was born in Calcutta. He is buried in Mikra British Cemetery, Kalamaria.

                                                                                                           Oliver, Front Row forward

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My great-grandfather was Martin Leyser, he was born in 1896 in Chemnitz in Saxony. He was German-Jewish and conscripted as soldier at the beginning of the war. He fought in France in the trenches on the Somme and other places for almost four years and was very lucky to survive. He was then sent to fight on the Russian front towards the end of the war.

My grandmother has told me the story of this journey. He had to march from Germany to Russia in deep winter. He was starving and suffering from exhaustion and was almost at the point of collapsing while passing through Poland. Amazingly he came across a little house with a Jewish sign on the door. He went and knocked on the door, which was opened by a family who were terrified to see a German with a rifle. He could not speak any Polish so instead, to reassure them, he recited a Jewish prayer. They embraced him and took him in and gave him food and a bed for the night. In the morning he set off to try and find his regiment and walked several miles before he realised he had forgotten his rifle. He ran back as quickly as he could because losing your gun was a court martial offence for which he could have been killed. Luckily the Jewish family had kept it safe for him and returned it to him. None of his comrades ever knew his mistake.

When he got back to Germany he was suffering with frostbite from which he never fully recovered. He was awarded the Iron Cross when he left the army.

By 1939 it no longer mattered to the Germans that he had been a war hero. Because he was Jewish, he was put in a concentration camp. Unusually he was temporarily released because they needed him to keep his factory going for the war effort. He used this opportunity to flee with his wife via Holland to Britain. When he arrived the first thing he did was throw his Iron Cross off the White Cliffs of Dover into the sea.

                                                                                                                     Lucas, Winger

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Ernest Meunier, a Sub Lieutenant in the Artillery became a French Air Force pilot in the War at the age of 18, and commanded his Squadron at the tender age of 19. He was commended several times in Army Orders:

Monsieur Meunier Ernest, Pierre, Joseph, Sous Lieutenant au 106e Régiment d’Artillerie Lourde. Au cours de toutes les batailles ou l’Escadrille a été engagée, a toujours pris pour lui les missions les plus délicates et les plus périlleuses et les a presque infailliblement menées a bien, même au milieu des circonstances atmosphériques les plus défavorables, sans jamais se laisser arrêter par aucun obstacle dans la voie que lui traçait sa magnifique conception du devoir. Quatre citations antérieures.

Le Général E Debeney -1916, Le Général Commandant la 1e  Armée cite a l’ordre de l’Armée
Army Order citation by General Debeney commanding 1st French Army Group:
M. Ernest PIerre Joseph Meunier, Sub Lieutenant 106th Heavy Artillery Regt
In the course of all the battles in which the Squadron was engaged, he always took upon himself the most dangerous and precarious missions and almost infallibly led them to success, even in the most adverse flying conditions, without ever allowing any obstacle to obstruct him on the path directed by his magificent devotion to duty. Four prior citations.
                                                               Guillaume, scrum-half and Raphael, No 8

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My Great Grandfather John was born in Glasgow in 1900. When he was 17 he tried to join the Highland Light Infantry – but he was working in telecommunications and the Government classed that as a “reserved occupation” – he was of more value to the country carrying on with his civilian job rather than serving as a soldier, so he wasn’t allowed to go. He was bitterly disappointed – but it probably saved his life.

 He was a trained first-aider, and worked with the Ambulance Service unloading hospital trains. Casualties from France were brought by hospital ship to the Channel ports, and then sent by train all over the country. Quite a few came to Glasgow, and he had to help unload the trains, and transfer the patients to ambulances which took them to various hospitals. This usually happened through the night, the authorities not wishing to spread alarm by letting commuters see what was going on.

My great grandfather on my mother’s side, Martyn Williams, came from Llanelli. He was one of a family of 11(9 boys and two girls), most of whom worked in the steelworks or on the railway and in 1914 he was working for a coal firm in the docks in Swansea. We know that one of his brothers, Huw, did join up and was taken prisoner, returning at the end of the war, but have no other details.                                      Bryn, Full back

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CAPTAIN ROBERT FORMAN GUTHRIE, 10th (Scottish) Battalion The King's Liverpool Regt., was born in August 1891, and was at Loretto 1905 to 1910. Head of School, Captain XV. and XI., and first Company Sergeant-Major of the School O. T .C. After leaving school he went up to Cambridge (King's Coll.) and took his degree. After the outbreak of the war Capt. Guthrie obtained a commission in the Liverpool Scottish, and went out to France. On August 9, 1916, when the great British offensive from Guillemont to the Somme was in progress, he was killed, leading his men to the attack, by machine-gun fire, almost on the German wire.

                                                                                                                     George, Full back
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Brigadier-General Eric Pearce-Serocold CMG GOC Infantry Brigade (1870-1926) 
Eton College & RMC Sandhurst, King's Royal Rifle Corps

Eric Pearce-Serocold was the second son of Charles Pearce-Serocold of Taplow, Buckinghamshire. He was commissioned in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps on 9 October 1889. Active service in the South African War (1899-1902) was followed by periods of staff employment (he passed Staff College in 1902): SC Musketry North West District (1903-5); OIC Musketry Duties Welsh and Midland Command (1905) and BM Irish Command (1908). In August 1912 he took command of 2nd Battalion King’s Royal Rifle Corps. He was 42, on the young side for a pre-war battalion commander. Pearce-Serocold took his battalion to war in August 1914 as part of 2nd Brigade, 1st Division, in the original BEF. He was severely wounded by shell fire on 21 October at the Herenthage Chateau. It seems probable that his health never fully recovered.

On being passed fit for general service Pearce-Serocold was promoted brigadier-general and given command of 68th Brigade, 23rd Division, on 3 June 1915. He remained in command until February 1916, when he succumbed to ill health. The Commander-in-Chief, Sir Douglas Haig, wrote to the War Office on 1 February that ‘Brigadier-General Pearce-Serocold has commanded his Brigade very efficiently, and I consider that he is a most able officer.’ He was recommended for a return to active service as soon as possible. This was not until seventeen months later, as GOC 123rd Brigade, 41st Division. He spent the intervening period as Deputy Commander of the Machine Gun Corps Training Centre at Grantham.

On 18 June 1918 Brigadier-General Pearce-Serocold asked to be relieved of his command, following the heavy fighting earlier in the spring. ‘I beg to report that, owing to the continuous strain on my physical energy, I feel that I am at present unable to do justice to those under my command, and that I ought not to continue in command of my Brigade. It is with great regret and disappointment that I am therefore compelled to request that I may be considered for six months exchange at home, or for an appointment where the work is less strenuous either in France or at home.’ He held no more commands and retired from the army in April 1920. He died of pneumonia, occasioned by an abscess on his lung, in 1926. He was only 56. He had been wounded five times during the war. (John Bourne Centre for First World War Studies)

                                                                                                                  Will, fly-half 
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My great grandfather, Daniel was not allowed to join the fighting because he was in a reserved occupation – he was a shipwright, closely involved with the development and building of the secret weapon the landship or tank, which was introduced on the Western Front in 1917.
                                                                                                               Ben, fly-half
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My great grandfather, William Shenton ran away from home and joined the Army in 1914 before the war, after arguing with his father. He lied about his age to get in and was still only 15 when the War broke out. He was a Private in the Royal Warwickshire Regt and went to France in June 1915, fighting at Mons. He was only 5 feet 2 inches tall and was a fast runner, so he became a despatch runner in the communications trenches, taking orders from HQ to the front line. It was important to be small as he would be below the parapet and would not be shot by snipers.
At some point he was wounded and evacuated to Wimereux on the Channel coast to recuperate. He was with the Worcestershire Regt at the Battle of the Somme. He learned Latin in the trenches, but would not talk to his grandson, my Dad, about the war, although he had brass shell cases by the fireplace in which he kept the poker and fire irons. The noise of the artillery made him deaf, and he was never able to hear well after the war. He survived the War, stayed in the Army and went to India.
                                                                                                               Ben, hooker
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My great great grandfather was Major General Sir John (Edward) Capper, KCB, KCVO 1861 - 1955. He was educated at Wellington College and the RMA Woolwich 1878 - 79. Commissioned in the Royal Engineers he fought in India 1897 and the Boer war 1899 -1902. He was promoted Lieutenant Colonel received the CB and was twice mentioned in despatches. Thereafter he devoted his energies to aeronautics at Farnborough and under his guidance the Air Battalion was formed (later the Royal Flying Corps and later still amalgamating with the RNAS and becoming the Royal Air Force in 1918). He was given command of the 24th Division in France. This Division had been terribly mangled in its first engagement, the Battle of Loos. General Capper had the difficult task of rebuilding its shattered morale and fighting ability. This he achieved and commanded it during the Battle of the Somme 1916 and the recapture of Lens 1917, in the latter of which it achieved complete success with very few casualties on the site where it had practically been destroyed as a fighting force only 18 months before. He was promoted KCB, was mentioned twice in despatches and was awarded the French Legion of Honour. In 1917 he returned to England to organise the Royal Tank Corps. In 1921 when this became the Royal Tank Regiment he was appointed its first Colonel Commandant. Retired in 1920, commissioned Governor of Guernsey and created KCVO in 1921. During WWII at the age of 78 he served in the Home Guard.

My great great grand fathers’ younger brother was Sir Thompson Capper KCMG CBDSO (20 October 1863 - 27 September 1915). He was a highly decorated and senior British Army officer who served with distinction in the Second Boer War and was a divisional commander during the First World War. At the battle of Loos in 1915, Capper was shot by a sniper as he reconnoitered the front line during an assault by his division on German positions. He died the next day in a casualty clearing station from wounds to both lungs; his grave is in the nearby Lillers Communal Cemetery. He was an active and vigorous soldier who had been wounded just six months before his death in an accidental grenade detonation. Shortly before this wound he had been knighted by King George V for his service in command of his division during the first battle of Ypres. Field Marshal Sir John French commented upon his death that "he was a most distinguished and capable leader and his death will be severely felt”. He was also a keen military historian and his collected papers are currently stored at the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives at King's College London.

 

My great great uncle and the son of Major General Sir John Capper was Lieutenant John Beausire Copeland Capper, MC 1896 - 1916. Born 1st August 1886, he was educated at Wellington College and the RMA Woolwich 1914. Commissioned in the Royal Field Artillery he went straight to France. At Loos in 1916 when acting as Forward Observation Officer, all telephonic communications with his battery broke down at a critical moment: he stood on the parapet of a trench, despite heavy enemy fire, in order to direct his guns by means of hand signalling - and was mortally wounded, he was aged 20. A posthumous Military Cross was awarded to him for his conspicuous gallantry. He is buried at Flatiron Copse Cemetery, Mametz, Somme, France.

                                                                                                                                       Tom, Winger