The full century that has passed since the outbreak of the Great War has not been kind on the individual stories of the men and women who lived through the event.
Many of the service records of the men who enlisted were destroyed during the Second World War and the experiences they handed down to family members have slowly been forgotten or just mangled with time.
Likewise their medals have disappeared into museums or into private collections and have not always included their names.
All that is left are the letters, postcards and photographs which have survived in most cases more by sheer luck than design.
Often they have ended up at the bottom of a draw or at the back of the wardrobe and been discarded after an interval of perhaps fifty years, the identity of the young men and the names of the people they wrote to lost in time.
So I was quite excited when my old friend Joe showed me some pictures of his dad in uniform.
There were seven in all, some of Mr Callaghan on his own, others with friends and two of him on horseback.
That in itself is quite a find. I doubt that many families can after the space of a century offer up as many. I have only two of the six members of my immediate family who joined up and most people will have none.
So that makes them special over and above the fact of course of their importance to Joe and his family.
He had enlisted at Ardwick and was posted to the 8th Manchester’s and at present that is all I know.
But it is possible to get some idea of what he experienced, not only from official records and the testimony of other soldiers but also from the war diaries which each unit kept and which are now beginning to be published on line.
Those for the Canadian Expeditionary Force are already available and are a rich source of information, covering where units were, what they did on a daily basis and detailed descriptions of the fighting.
These more than anything in the absence of an individual set of records provide a link to a relative and allow you to track them across the years they served.
So in the case of one of my great uncles who served with the Canadian Expeditionary Force I know that on September 3rd 1917 his unit was at Bois-De Alleux and that the “weather was fine. Battalion allotted Brigade Rifle Range as follows, D Company from 8.00am to 12.00 hours and C Coy from 1.00pm to 5.00pm.
The remainder of the Battalion carried on with ‘Practice of attack’ ‘Bayonet fighting.’
Orders received at 5.00pm that the battalion will move to Newville St Vasst on the 4th.”*
And of course the accounts include not only the mundane and routine but those periods under fire listing casualties, ground gained or lost and the details of the fighting itself.
All of which are important as my generation wrestles with trying to know more about what our parents and grandparents endured.
So in the fullness of time I shall return to Mr Callaghan and the 8th Manchester’s and try and piece together something more of what their war was like.
Pictures; of James Callaghan circa 1918, courtesy of Joe Callaghan, and postcard of the 20th Manchester Regiment from the collection of David Harrop
*War Diaries of the First World War, Library and Archives Canada, http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/archivianet/020152_e.html
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| Mr Callaghan "at a very young age" circa 1918 |
Likewise their medals have disappeared into museums or into private collections and have not always included their names.
All that is left are the letters, postcards and photographs which have survived in most cases more by sheer luck than design.
Often they have ended up at the bottom of a draw or at the back of the wardrobe and been discarded after an interval of perhaps fifty years, the identity of the young men and the names of the people they wrote to lost in time.
So I was quite excited when my old friend Joe showed me some pictures of his dad in uniform.
There were seven in all, some of Mr Callaghan on his own, others with friends and two of him on horseback.
So that makes them special over and above the fact of course of their importance to Joe and his family.
 |
| Mr Callaghan front row, far left circa 1918 |
But it is possible to get some idea of what he experienced, not only from official records and the testimony of other soldiers but also from the war diaries which each unit kept and which are now beginning to be published on line.
Those for the Canadian Expeditionary Force are already available and are a rich source of information, covering where units were, what they did on a daily basis and detailed descriptions of the fighting.
These more than anything in the absence of an individual set of records provide a link to a relative and allow you to track them across the years they served.
 |
| Postcard of the 20th Manchester's, 1917 |
The remainder of the Battalion carried on with ‘Practice of attack’ ‘Bayonet fighting.’
Orders received at 5.00pm that the battalion will move to Newville St Vasst on the 4th.”*
And of course the accounts include not only the mundane and routine but those periods under fire listing casualties, ground gained or lost and the details of the fighting itself.
All of which are important as my generation wrestles with trying to know more about what our parents and grandparents endured.
So in the fullness of time I shall return to Mr Callaghan and the 8th Manchester’s and try and piece together something more of what their war was like.
Pictures; of James Callaghan circa 1918, courtesy of Joe Callaghan, and postcard of the 20th Manchester Regiment from the collection of David Harrop
*War Diaries of the First World War, Library and Archives Canada, http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/archivianet/020152_e.html
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