Stories of the Manchester Pals ..........

Now I am rereading Manchester Pals by Michael Steadman, which is a detailed account of the formation of the Manchester Pals battalions.*

James Callahan of the 8th City Battalion

In just a short few months from August into November 1914, the city raised eight Pals battalions.

The idea was rooted in the belief that men would more readily join up if they could remain with their work companions or the friends they had grown up with.

As a recruitment plan it worked, but in the carnage that followed the great battles of 1916 and 1917 on the Western Front it proved a disaster for small tight knit communities, which experienced the loss of so many young men in the space of a few months.

But in the euphoria following the declaration of war that grim outcome was unforeseen by those who flocked to “join the colours”.

Men like William Eric Lunt from Chorlton who enlisted in the September of 1914 aged 19 and was posted to the 8th Battalion and my friend Joe’s dad who served in the same unit, as well Private Sidney Bone of Withington who was badly wounded on the first day of the Somme, and died aged just 24 in 1920.**

Bit by bit their stories are coming out of the shadows, and Mr. Stedman’s book offers up a context to their service.

An embroidered silk postcard, circa 1914-18

Along with a detailed description of the experiences of each of the battalions, he describes the city on the eve of this great conflict, along with how those who enlisted and survived made their way in the years of peace that followed the end of the war.

Now a full century and a bit after the outbreak of the Great War when all the combatants have died, it is easy to treat them as just a piece of history.  And leafing through the books and photographs they appear as either eager young men in ill fitting uniforms or frail individuals relying on walking sticks or wheelchairs.

But that is to forget that for most of those who came back, they had a full life ahead, and those war time experiences were but a short interruption to a life of gainful employment and raising a family.

It is sobering to think that when I was born my grandfather who served on the Western Front was just 53, his brothers were only a tad older, and my two uncles who were both in the Black Watch, were even younger.

I remember all of them as vital, energetic, and amusing men, who had long lives ahead of them but never spoke of their war service.

All of which makes Mr. Stedman’s book such an important contribution to our understanding of what those members of my family and thousands of others went through.

 Pictures; cover from Manchester Pals, embroidered postcard of the Manchester Regiment from the collection of David Harrop, and Mr. Callaghan courtesy of Joe Callaghan

*Manchester Pals, 16th, 17th, 18th,30th, 21st, 22nd & 23rd Battalions of the Manchester Regiment A History of the Two Manchester Brigades, Michael Stedman, 2004

**James Callaghan, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/James%20Callaghan, William Eric Lunt, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Private%20William%20Eric%20Lunt  Private Sidney Bone of the Great War, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Private%20Sidney%20Bone%20of%20the%20Great%20War

Why Should Britain Tremble? ...... James Callaghan a soldier of the Great War

This is young James Callaghan of the 8th Manchester’s.

Mr Callaghan was the father of my friend Joe who kindly allowed me to use a series of pictures of his father in uniform from the Great War.

Now many of us will have a picture of a relative from that conflict but what is remarkable is that Joe has seven of his father, and all of them appear to have been taken in the field,

So having featured two I shall over the next few weeks display the rest.

Like so many young men   who fought little of the stories behind Mr Callaghan’s army service have survived but we do have the pictures which are an important contribution to the record.

Picture; “Why Should Britain Tremble?” James Callaghan, date unknown, courtesy of Joe Callaghan

A soldier of the Great War, James Callaghan of the 8th Manchester's

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.

Mr Callaghan "at a very young age" circa 1918

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.

Mr Callaghan front row, far left circa 1918

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.

Postcard of the 20th Manchester's, 1917

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