Nonnie Lysons Pritchard and Noah Lysons

Cousins from the Cannock Chase Colliery
who went to war but never came home

Researched and written by Malcolm Lysons and Chris Graddon

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 Part 1 - Nonnie's Story

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 Nonnie Lysons Pritchard
21 December 1894 – 12 April 1918

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Nonnie Lysons Pritchard and Noah Lysons were cousins who grew up in the mining area around Chasetown. Nonnie’s mother, Margaret Ellen Lysons, was a younger sister of Noah’s father Job Lysons. Over the years, the cousins’ lives followed similar paths, with both working for the Cannock Chase Colliery Company once they left school, so it was perhaps inevitable that Noah would follow the example of his older cousin Nonnie and join the army. Sadly, neither of the cousins came home from the Western Front, both sacrificing their lives in service of their country in the Great War.

This is Nonnie’s story.

Nonnie Lysons Pritchard was the second son of Margaret Ellen Lysons and her husband John William Pritchard. He was born in January 1895 and attended Miss Grieve’s private school in Queen Street, Chasetown, before going on to Chasetown Council School. After he left school, Nonnie worked as a miner at the Cannock Chase Colliery Co. No.8 Pit at Heath Hayes. His cousin Noah, five years Nonnie’s junior, left school to work as a miner at the Cannock Chase Colliery Co. No.9 Pit at Cross Keys, Hednesford, close to the present-day site of the Hednesford Town football ground.

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Nonnie Lysons Pritchard enlisted at Walsall on 19 February 1917 and joined the 5th South Staffordshire Regiment (Territorial Force) with regimental number 203135. He stayed with this Infantry Base Depot until 6 June 1917 when he went to the Western Front in France.

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On 2 July 1917, Nonnie was transferred to the 1st (Reserve) Battalion Monmouthshire Regiment and posted to the 11th (Service) Battalion (2nd Gwent) South Wales Borderers with new regimental number 260045. At the time, the 10th and 11th Battalions South Wales Borderers were part of the 115th Infantry Brigade, 38th (Welsh) Division, which had moved to France almost two years before, between 21 November and 6 December 1915. The 38th (Welsh) Division remained in action in France and Flanders throughout the war.

In the summer of 1916, on the Somme, the 38th (Welsh) Division took part in the Battle of Albert. They were charged with the task of assaulting and clearing Mametz Wood in an attack that began on 7 July 1916. The generals thought the wood would be taken from the Germans in a matter of hours but the battle raged on for 5 days. There was furious hand to hand combat as men battled for every inch of ground. The Germans resisted fiercely as Mametz Wood was devastated by artillery shell fire. Altogether, the 38th (Welsh) Division lost 46 officers and 556 other ranks killed in that assault; indeed, it suffered such severe casualties that it did not return to major action until over a year later.

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The War Diary shows that the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers received a draft of one NCO and fifteen privates on 4 July 1917 and it is probable that Nonnie was amongst them. The Battalion was then in the Westrehem area, about 8 miles west of Lillers, and it was not to be long before Nonnie was plunged into the action at Pilckem Ridge in the opening attack of the 3rd Battle of Ypres.

Nonnie stayed with the 11th Battalion until it was disbanded in the re-organisation of Brigades that took place in France in February 1918. According to “The History of the South Wales Borderers 1914-1918” by C. T. Atkinson, "Its disbandment took place in February, seven officers and 150 men being transferred to the 10th Battalion South Wales Borderers on 16 February; however, the bulk of the battalion {including Nonnie} was kept together for some little time longer under the title of the 2nd Entrenching Battalion and was not finally dispersed till early in April.”

Following the arrival of the new contingent on 4 July 1917, the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers spent the next 10 days of July training intensively for the big push, each brigade rehearsing over and again the parts they were to play in the action. On 16 July, the 11th Battalion began the 5-day march that would take them 46 miles to the forward area in the Saint-Sixtus area where the officers and most of the NCOs were able to observe the sand model that had been made of the German trenches that were to be the focal point of their attack. At 2 p.m. on 27 July, orders were received from 115th Brigade Headquarters that the 11th Battalion should be prepared to move at an hour’s notice, an order that was repeated at 11.30 p.m., but it was not until 9.30 p.m. that they marched from Dublin Camp to their assembly point for the attack, which they reached at 2.30 a.m. on 31 July. Zero hour for the attack was set for 3.50 a.m.

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A Company and C Company started from the Canal Bank, B Company and D Company from Hull’s Farm, the 11th Battalion Headquarters from Gray’s Inn. The 11th Battalion was scheduled to move off at 5.30 a.m. and the leading companies rapidly crossed the canal at that time. Ten men from the ranks were wounded on bridge 6A but no further casualties were incurred crossing the canal. The 115th Infantry Brigade, which included the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers, had orders to advance in the rear of the 113th and 114th Infantry Brigades, with the 115th moving beyond them once they had captured their objectives on the Green Line. The 113th and 114th encountered little opposition, except in Candle Trench, so were able to keep to their scheduled advance. As the advance neared the Green Line, the men came under fire from concrete dugouts and machine gun emplacements and suffered several casualties, including the two officers commanding C Company and D Company. However, for the 114th Infantry Brigade, the 14th Battalion of the Welsh Regiment (the Swansea Pals) succeeded in forcing a break in the Green Line on the right, and the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers – now in attack formation – pushed on through them towards the Steenbeck, a narrow stream running north to south along the western edge of the Messines Ridge. They met considerable opposition from machine gun and rifle fire but overcame that resistance and then mopped up the area, clearing the enemy from the Steenbeck itself.

A Company and C Company then pushed across the Steenbeck and established a bridgehead consisting of three strong points at Au Bon Gite. They then consolidated that position despite being machine gunned from the German-held area around Langemark as well as coming under some sniper fire.

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The destruction of their cable head by shell fire meant that communication between the lead companies and the men at the rear was difficult, and this was not helped as the Germans heavily shelled the area behind the 11th Battalion’s forward positions. The 11th had only just reached those positions when German aeroplanes from the Langemark area flew over their lines, dropping bombs and strafing the men with machine gun fire.

About 3 o’clock in the afternoon, two large groups of German soldiers were seen marching through Langemark as the enemy began a counter-attack. The 11th Battalion asked the British artillery for support but there was no response to their S.O.S. and they managed to repulse the German attack with rifle and Lewis machine gun fire. However, on their left, the 17th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers withdrew their line to the Steenbeck leaving the 11th Battalion’s forward companies exposed.

The Germans then began another, more vigorous attack and they succeeded in taking some concrete buildings from where they were able to fire unhindered. This made the positions of the 11th Battalion’s forward companies on the other side of the river untenable and those men were forced to withdraw to the river bank. The Germans then tried but failed to secure their bridgehead. At 4.30 p.m. both sides called their artillery into action and the enemy’s accurate fire on the battalion’s trenches on the banks of the Steenbeck resulted in a number of casualties. There were further casualties at the same time back at Battalion Headquarters, and Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Hutton Radice, who had commanded the 11th Battalion since 20 February 1917, was badly wounded. At 8.30 p.m. the Germans were seen massing in shell holes in front of Langemark; they then attacked the river banks under the cover of heavy artillery. This time the 11th Battalion’s S.O.S. brought a swift response from the British artillery, and the barrage of fire that rained down on the wave of attacking Germans caused a number of casualties. The Vickers machine gunners were particularly effective in ensuring that this German attack also failed. That night the area was pounded heavily by both allied and enemy artillery. In the assault that day the 11th Battalion lost 2 officers killed in action and 7 others wounded, one of whom – 2nd Lieutenant Llewelyn Lloyd – died of his wounds the following day.

At 2 a.m. the next morning, 1 August 1917, rain set in and it lasted all day, not only hindering the 11th Battalion’s progress but also making observation a challenge. That morning the situation on the banks of the Steenbeck was far from clear as heavy sniping and machine gun fire made it difficult to communicate with the men in that area. At 11 a.m. orders were received from 115th Infantry Brigade Headquarters that the 11th Battalion was to cross the Steenbeck again and then to push forward to once more establish the bridgehead at Au Bon Gite. A messenger managed to relay the command to the front line, establishing at the same time the number of men in the Battalion’s forward area. Although details were sketchy – at best – regarding the situation on their flanks, provisional arrangements were made to launch an assault at 1.30 p.m. with support from the artillery and the 115th Machine Gun Corps. However, at 12.10 p.m. Captain Benjamin Evan Stedman Davies – who had taken command of the 11th Battalion when Lieutenant Colonel Radice was seriously wounded the day before – was killed by a sniper as he and the Brigade Major moved forward from Battalion Headquarters towards the right flank to try to locate the position of A Company and determine whether the projected attack had a realistic chance of succeeding. Re-assessing the situation, the Brigade Major decided at 1 p.m. to cancel the attack. 

At 3 o’clock in the afternoon of 1 August the Germans began very heavy artillery fire on the Battalion’s positions on the Steenbeck, on Battalion Headquarters and on all the possible lines of approach from Brigade Headquarters to Battalion HQ and the Steenbeck. By 6 o’clock this firepower had become so heavy that the men in the front line were forced to withdraw about 250 yards to take up new positions in shell holes, losing one officer wounded in the process; however, by 9 o’clock that night their original position had been re-occupied. The severe shelling did not slacken throughout the night, and at times became intense. As a result, it was impossible to maintain reliable telephone links so using runners provided the only real communication link between Brigade Headquarters and the front line. However, the runners and signallers suffered heavily in the shelling.

Just after midnight, in the very early hours of 2 August, orders were received from the 115th Brigade Headquarters that the 11th Battalion was to be relieved by the 13th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers, the 11th moving to the support area to relieve the 10th Battalion Welsh Regiment. With their headquarters located at Mauser Cot, the 11th Battalion was to reinforce the Black Line by holding Chemin Drive and occupying the strong points at Gallwitz Farm and Chemin Drive. However, this relief was carried out amid some confusion and was not completed until the late afternoon. The men of the 11th Battalion who were on and beyond the Steenbeck were not relieved, but they did receive support from men of the 13th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers who were ordered to occupy and consolidate a line 250 yards south of the Steenbeck.

A party was sent for rations from Chemin Drive to Pilckem Cross Roads at 6 o’clock in the evening of 2 August; sadly, the group suffered seven casualties, including 2 men killed. Heavy rain had been falling all day, however, during that night the men of A Company and B Company were relieved on the Steenbeck and made their way to the dugouts and trenches in the area on the eastern bank of the canal north of Zwaanhof Farm. They were joined there, from 11 a.m. the next morning, by the majority of the surviving men of their Battalion, the relief being completed by half past one in the afternoon. The 11th Battalion rested during the remainder of 3 August, regrouping in case they were needed urgently, then at 10 p.m. they were ordered to stand to. That night the men of C Company were finally relieved from their positions on the Steenbeck and made their way to join their comrades on the Canal Bank at Zwaanhof Farm at 6 a.m. the next morning.

After a day spent re-organising, the remaining men of the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers were relieved at midday on 5 August by a battalion from the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry and marched about 4 miles west to the Grounds of Elverdinghe Chateau. There they were served hot food, had their feet tended and were provided with clean socks; in addition, twelve of the men were evacuated to a Field Ambulance nearby.  

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At 5.30 p.m. they marched to Elverdinghe Station where they were taken by train to International Corner, near the Trappist Monastery of Saint-Sixtus, about 5 miles north of Poperinghe. From there they marched to Staines Camp where they stayed in bivouacs until 18 August, resting, training and re-equipping. Altogether, the fighting in and around the Steenbeck had cost the 11th Battalion some 330 men killed, wounded or missing in action. 

On 6 August, James Robert Angus, formerly of the Welsh Regiment, took command of the 11th Battalion with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. The next day, a draft of 102 other ranks arrived to bolster the Battalion’s strength; a further draft of 34 other ranks arrived later on 12 August. The 38th (Welsh) Division Commander, Major-General Charles Guinand Blackader, and the XIV Army Corps Commander Lieutenant-General Frederick Rudolph Lambart, the 10th Earl of Cavan, visited the 11th Battalion in the afternoon of 7 August and praised the men for the part they had played in the action at the Steenbeck.

The next few days were spent re-organising and re-equipping the companies, the men training and being inspected. They also attended church parades. There was practice with the Lewis guns on a range that two of the companies had constructed but there was also time for football, cross-country running and bathing at the nearby Château Couthove in Proven. Then, on 17 August, orders were received that the 11th Battalion was to move back to Canal Bank the next day. That night a number of casualties were inflicted when German aeroplanes flew over the district dropping bombs on the hospital and the lines held by the 10th Battalion South Wales Borderers.   

Next morning the Battalion marched to International Corner from where they were taken by train to Everdinghe, arriving back at Canal Bank at 4.15 p.m. After relieving the 14th Battalion Welsh Regiment later in the evening, D Company was sent to occupy shell holes near Glimpse Cot. The Germans shelled the Canal Bank area intermittently throughout that night. 

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Next day, 19 August 1917, a party of 2 platoons worked on the tramways all day. Then at 7.15 in the evening, a carrying party of 100 other ranks sustained 20 casualties at Chien Farm. Among them was Private Nonnie Lysons Pritchard who sprained his ankle – through no fault of his own – when he fell into a shell hole while carrying ammunition to the front line. He was taken to the 88th Field Ambulance where it was judged that the injury was just a minor one and would not “interfere with his future efficiency as a soldier”, so he was discharged. The British artillery were busy all that night, unlike their German counterparts who were quiet.

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At 3 o’clock in the morning on 21 August the British artillery began an intense bombardment of the German lines to the right of the 11th Battalion’s position and continued to shell that area intermittently throughout the day. At about 9.30 p.m. the enemy responded, firing about fifteen 4.2-inch artillery shells at the Battalion area which, fortunately, sustained no serious damage. They followed this up with further shelling of Canal Bank at 2 a.m. the following morning, some of the shells containing poison gas. The British responded with a bombardment that lasted from 4 a.m. until 9 a.m. Later that morning several batches of German prisoners were seen crossing the canal over Bridge 6. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon enemy planes passed over the 11th Battalion area and dropped several bombs on both the east and west banks of the canal. They returned, at great height, later that evening. Then, at 10.15 p.m. the Battalion received orders that they were to relieve the 13th Battalion Welsh Regiment in the front line the following day.

At 7.30 p.m. on 23 August, the men of the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers began to leave Canal Bank in groups of 20 at 100 yard intervals. An hour later, the front group passed Candle Trench, south of Pilckem, and the relief was completed just before midnight. B Company and D Company went into the front line with the 17th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers on their left flank and the 6th Battalion Border Regiment on their right. A Company and C Company were in support, and Battalion Headquarters were located at Alouette Farm.

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As the men had made their way to those forward positions, lamps from Alouette Farm had signalled an S.O.S. Shortly afterwards, the British artillery had responded with an intense bombardment and the Battalion had been ordered to stop while it lasted. Although the Battalion had largely escaped the enemy counter-barrage, one officer had been injured going up to the front.

That night the artilleries were active for several hours on both sides. At dawn, on 24 August, the two front line companies, B and D, withdrew about 400 yards to prepare for bombardment of the area by the British heavy artillery. Reports indicated that there were no German patrols or working parties in the area but that there was a gun outpost close by. At 7 o’clock in the evening low flying enemy aeroplanes were driven off by anti-aircraft and Lewis gun fire. That night the artilleries were busy again on both sides as the Germans sent up numerous Very lights to illuminate the area. 

{Very Lights, named after their American inventor Edward Very, were brilliant white flares that illuminated night-time trench warfare. They were used to spot when the enemy were out in No Man's Land, working (wiring, digging etc.), patrolling or raiding. Very lights did not burn for very long so men were told that, if they were caught out in the open, they should stand still until the flares went out as any movement would be spotted easily and would immediately draw enemy rifle or machine-gun fire.}

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In the evening of 24 August, a Battalion patrol found Eagle Trench severely damaged by the British shelling, with several German soldiers dead in the trench and its dugouts. An enemy patrol was spotted, fired on and dispersed. Two German planes flew over the 11th Battalion’s lines at half past five and half past six the next morning, followed by eight more about 8 a.m. However, both artilleries were quiet that day. In the evening a German balloon remained in the air for an hour over the Division’s right front as enemy planes flew again over the Allied lines. That night the German infantry was very quiet but the British artillery was active. Very lights were sent up from Eagle Trench and identification papers and shoulder straps were brought back from the German dead in that trench. 

{Military observation balloons were deployed extensively by both sides in World War I. Commonly known as kite balloons, they could be flown and operated in more extreme weather conditions. The intelligence provided by the observers enabled the artillery to target strategic points beyond the visual range of men on the ground. The observer in the basket hanging underneath the balloon transmitted the information to units on the ground by telephone.

World War I observation crews used a primitive form of parachute. The observer in the basket wore a simple body harness around his waist with lines that attached the harness to the main parachute stowed in a bag suspended from the balloon. When the balloonist jumped, the main part of the parachute was pulled from the bag, with the shroud lines first, followed by the main canopy.

Because of the tactical advantage they gave, observation balloons were defended using machine guns at low altitude, and by anti-aircraft guns and patrolling fighter aircraft at their operational height. Attacking and attempting to shoot down an observation balloon was a risky venture but some pilots – known as balloon busters – enjoyed considerable notoriety through their successes, the most successful being Willy Coppens who was credited with destroying 34 German observation balloons and three enemy airplanes.}

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Picture 20:  World War I observation balloon, Ypres, Belgium, 1917.
Picture 21:  Royal Flying Corps kite balloon with the observer standing in the balloon’s anchored basket just prior to lift off.
Picture 22:  Kite balloon observers preparing to descend by parachute.

At 6 o’clock on the morning of 26 August enemy planes flew over the Battalion lines firing machine guns at a height of around 200 feet, however two of these were brought down by anti-aircraft fire. Just before 3 o’clock that afternoon the British heavy artillery began a bombardment although, at first, their shells were falling short and landing in the vicinity of the allied lines. That night the 16th Battalion Welsh Regiment moved up behind the 11th Battalion’s lines in preparation for the attack planned for the next day. The British, meanwhile, carried out intermittent shelling of the enemy lines but with little reply until 3 a.m. the next morning when the Germans began a heavy barrage that lasted until dawn. 

At 1.55 p.m. on 27 August, five minutes before zero hour for the attack, the British artillery began a heavy bombardment that brought an almost instantaneous enemy response, one that increased steadily in intensity and reached a maximum over the next 25 minutes. As scheduled, at zero hour the 16th Battalion Welsh Regiment moved through the 11th Battalion’s front lines but their attack was met by very heavy machine gun and sniper fire and they were unable to take their objectives.

One platoon from the 11th Battalion then acted as liaison between the 16th Battalion Welsh Regiment on the left and the 6th Battalion Duke of Wellington Regiment on the right. After the Wellington’s took White House, two sections from the 11th Battalion’s platoon were positioned there and remained at White House until 10 o’clock that night. At 5 p.m. the enemy’s artillery barrage died down and the British bombardment ceased shortly thereafter, only to resume for a further hour at 7 p.m. This provoked an extraordinarily heavy enemy response that lasted until 10 p.m. That night the 16th Battalion Welsh Regiment were withdrawn and replaced by a company from the 10th Battalion South Wales Borderers. Next day, 28 August, the enemy artillery was unusually quiet. However, the British guns were active and in the afternoon the 11th Battalion suffered casualties on its right flank as the British heavy artillery again fell short.

After a quiet night, the enemy shelled the 11th Battalion’s support lines from the very early hours of 29 August until dawn. At 3 a.m. a 3-man enemy bombing patrol was spotted approaching the Battalion’s lines. The Germans were fired on, one was killed, one wounded and the third taken prisoner, his papers sent through to Brigade Headquarters.

Just before noon, the Germans targeted poison gas shells at the area around Langemark and, shortly thereafter, reports came in indicating that they had once again occupied Eagle Trench in large numbers. In the evening the enemy sent up golden flares as a prelude to a short but heavy bombardment of the Battalion’s support lines. Just before midnight the Battalion was relieved by the 16th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers but the cloying mud made the conditions so difficult that the men were exhausted by the time the first stage of the relief was completed at half past two in the morning of 30 August. The men were then allowed some time to rest and clean their rifles before the majority of the Battalion made their way back over the canal to Leipzig Farm, just north of Brielen. However, a party of 200 men from the ranks was selected to work on the tramways east of the Steenbeck and it was not until the early hours of 31 August that this group joined their comrades, two of them having suffered injuries during the work detail. The men spent the last day of August resting, taking baths in the afternoon at Elverdinghe Chateau which was about 2 miles to the north west of Leipzig Farm. However, there was no forgetting the front line they’d recently left as, that evening, 11 enemy aeroplanes flew over the Battalion’s position.

For the first two days of September, some men worked on the tramway tracks near Elverdinghe, the remainder of the 11th Battalion forming a working party from 9.30 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Malakoff Farm Area which was about one third of the way from Leipzig Farm to Elverdinghe. Throughout the daylight hours of 2 September, the enemy targeted eight shells at the area of the Battalion’s camp, the last two landing very close. In the evening there was a lot of aerial activity on both sides.

A series of daytime marches over the next 3 days took the men about 35 miles south from Proven, via Eecke and Morbecque, to Sailly-sur-la-Lys where they billeted for the night of 14 September. The following evening, they replaced the 2/5th Battalion Loyal North Lancashire Regiment in the reserve area of the Armentières sector, the relief being completed in the very early hours of 16 September. Two companies of the 11th Battalion went into the Subsidiary Line, under the command of the 10th Battalion South Wales Borderers who were holding the front line, while the two remaining companies and Battalion Headquarters found billets in The Laundries.

The Battalion held a church parade during the morning of Sunday 16 September 1917 and this was followed by reconnaissance of the forward area, with further training in the afternoon. Tragedy struck the Battalion at a quarter past eight the following morning when the Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel James Robert Angus, drowned accidentally whilst taking an early morning swim behind the front line in the River Lys. He swam to the far bank of the river but on returning he got into difficulties, the current preventing him from landing. Two soldiers dived into the water to try to rescue their commanding officer but they could not hold him. All the available officers and senior NCOs attended the committal when Lieutenant-Colonel Angus was buried at three o’clock that afternoon in the extension to the Erquinghem-Lys Churchyard. 

{Lieutenant-Colonel James Robert Angus was a Police Inspector at Barry and Abercynon when war broke out; he had previously served with the Grenadier Guards in the Boer War. Before receiving his commission into the Cardiff City Battalion, he was the first Drill Instructor for the Volunteer Training Corps at Barry. On 6 August 1917, at the age of 45, he was transferred from the 16th Battalion Welsh Regiment to take command of the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers. Lieutenant-Colonel Angus, who was awarded both the Queen’s Police Medal and the King’s Police Medal, was the most senior police officer from Barry to die during the Great War.}

The next five days were spent in platoon and company training. Working parties were deployed to bury cable and further reconnaissance was made of the front line area and the British defences in the L’Épinette subsector of the Armentières area. On 19 September, Major Joseph Edward Crawshay Partridge arrived from the Welsh Regiment to take temporary command of the 11th Battalion until 28 October 1917.

At 5.30 a.m. on 23 September 1917, the 11th Battalion’s Lewis Gun teams relieved those of the 10th Battalion South Wales Borderers in the front line. The following evening, the remainder of the Battalion moved forward to the front line, A Company on the right, B Company in the centre, C Company on the left and D Company in the Reserve Trench. The sector they occupied was fairly quiet but their section of the front line was a long one and was in need of a lot of improvement work. On 26 September a Battalion reconnaissance patrol set out from the front line but was forced to return when it encountered a larger enemy patrol. The following day there was some enemy trench mortar fire but it did no real damage. On 28 September an enemy aeroplane flew over at a very low altitude, firing into the Battalion trenches, but it was driven off by Lewis Gun and rifle fire and there were no casualties. Next day, the Germans shelled the front line with trench mortar gas bombs in the early morning, and again in the evening, but these offensives were quickly silenced by British artillery retaliation. As the month ended, the German artillery targeted B Company in the centre of the Battalion line, suggesting that an enemy raid was imminent, but this proved to be unfounded. The enemy firepower was more intense on 1 October than during the last few days of September but caused no damage or casualties, and the following day the 10th Battalion South Wales Borderers relieved the 11th Battalion in the front line, the Lewis gunners during the daytime and the remainder of the men after dusk. With the exception of A Company and C Company, which remained in the Subsidiary Line, the Battalion returned to billets in The Laundries.

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On 3 October all the men were allotted time to bathe using the 38th Division baths at The Laundries, B Company and D Company swapping places with A Company and C Company in the Subsidiary Line to give them the same opportunity once they had cleaned up. On 5 October, the 4th Battalion C. E. P (Corpo Expedicionário Português) was attached to the 11th Battalion for instruction, the Portuguese men being billeted at the Jute Factories on the western outskirts of Armentieres. That night a large party worked on burying cable as directed by the 115th Infantry Brigade Signal Officer; the party consisted of two groups, the first comprising 1 officer and 60 other ranks from the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers, the second made up of 1 officer from the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers plus 2 officers and 100 other ranks from the 4th Battalion C. E. P. This work continued over the next two nights.

{Portugal had declared itself neutral at the outbreak of the Great War and their neutrality remained in place until 1916 despite occasional skirmishes between Portuguese and German troops in the Africa colonies. Then, in March 1916, the Portuguese Government seized a number of German merchant ships that were anchored off Lisbon. The German government considered this a hostile act and declared war. The Portuguese Government responded by raising units that joined the Allies on the Western Front from July 1916. The C. E. P. (Corpo Expedicionário Português, the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps) was an infantry force of about 55,000 men and operated under the control of the British First Army. The C. A. P. I. (Corpo de Artilharia Pesada Independente, the Independent Heavy Artillery Corps) comprised nine batteries of heavy railway guns that were manned by Portuguese gunners operating under the control of the French Army; the Portuguese artillery was provided by France and the United Kingdom.}

On 7 October, a hostile aeroplane flew over the 11th Battalion’s billets, dropping bombs and wounding one man. The next day it was all change again as the 11th Battalion returned to the front line to relieve the 10th Battalion South Wales Borderers. Their first full day there was a quiet one and that night the Battalion sent three patrols out into No Man’s Land; one of these was fired on by enemy machine gunners but sustained no casualties. Another patrol went out the following night but encountered no hostile action. 11 October saw considerable aerial activity during the daytime with about 30 enemy aeroplanes flying over the Battalion’s front line. Three more patrols went out into No Man’s Land that night; one attempted to reach the German front line, and managed to break through the enemy’s outer belt of barbed wire, but they were unable to make a breach in their inner cordon. The next two days were quiet, the enemy’s artillery and trench mortars less intense than normal; one again night patrols went out into No Man’s Land but without incident. There was some increase in the German artillery barrage on 14 October. This was accompanied by an upsurge in enemy aerial activity as two companies from the 10th Battalion South Wales Borderers relieved the 11th Battalion’s C Company and D Company, who were withdrawn to the Subsidiary Line, the remainder of the 11th South Wales Borderers remaining in the front line. The pattern of night-time patrols continued and, after a marked daytime increase in enemy trench mortar fire, one of the Battalion’s patrols attempted to breach a German held crater during the night of 17 October. When they got to the enemy barbed wire they managed to cut a hole in it, however they were detected and fired on as the men were making their way through the gap; the patrol then moved north and made a second attempt but had the same result.

Next day, 18 October, 11th Battalion Headquarters returned to The Laundries, relieved by their counterparts from the 10th South Wales Borderers; meanwhile, the four companies of the 11th Battalion remained at the front, taking their orders from the 10th Battalion Commanding Officer. Over the next few days, platoons from C Company and D Company returned to The Laundries for a bath and a 24-hour rest period before returning to the Subsidiary Line. A Company and B Company were relieved by the 10th South Wales Borderers on 21 October and returned to The Laundries for training with the 115th Infantry Brigade School. Meanwhile, men from the Portuguese C. E. P. continued the night-time cable burying supervised by the 115th Infantry Brigade Signal Officer. On 27 October roles were reversed as the 11th Battalion Headquarters returned to the front line to take command of the companies of the 10th South Wales Borderers. Two patrols went out into No Man’s Land that night. One was surprised by a large enemy patrol hiding in a derelict trench and was forced to retreat, with their lead officer wounded, after an exchange of gunfire. Next night another patrol encountered enemy machine gun fire while they were reconnoitring the enemy’s barbed wire but they returned unscathed. This pattern continued to the end of the month and on into November. On 29 October, the enemy artillery level increased. A patrol of more than 30 Germans tried to break through that night but they were fought off; some of the Germans were wounded in the attempt but the remainder of their patrol helped the injured back to their own lines as they retreated.

November began fine and sunny on the first morning. The enemy artillery was active and the British responded with 18 pounders and trench mortar fire. During the night of 2 November, an enemy patrol attempted to waylay a party taking rations to the outposts at the front line but they were driven off and suffered casualties. On 4th November, 11th Battalion Headquarters were relieved in the afternoon by their counterparts from the 10th South Wales Borderers. Later that night the enemy shelled their sub-sector heavily with gas canisters but inflicted only minor casualties, three men being gassed but not severely.

On 5 November, the 11th Battalion’s A Company relieved C Company in the front line and, next day, B Company was relieved by D Company 10th South Wales Borderers. At 1.24 a.m. on 7 November, a raiding group consisting of 10 officers and 270 other ranks from the 10th South Wales Borderers set off to assault the enemy front line and support trench. The British artillery opened up as the raid began, firstly targeting the German front line and then their support line. They then laid down a box barrage around the raiders who reached the enemy barbed wire and managed to make a sizeable gap in it. Once through, the raiders entered the enemy’s front line trench and support line. Two dugouts were blown up by men from the Royal Engineers, 14 Germans were taken prisoner and at least 50 more were killed.

Later in the day, ten men from each of the 11th Battalion’s four companies returned to The Laundries to clean up and take a 24-hour rest period before returning to the front line. On 10 November, the 11th Battalion were relieved in the front line by the 10th South Wales Borderers. They returned to The Laundries where C Company and D Company underwent training with the 115th Infantry Brigade School. The Battalion spent the next day re-equipping and cleaning up; they also welcomed a draft from Britain of 120 other ranks from the 3rd (Reserve) Battalion South Wales Borderers.

Training continued over the next four days, with the weather fine and sunny, some of the men being assigned to daytime working parties and night-time shifts carrying concrete and burying cable. There was also some recreation time for football and boxing. The 11th Battalion War Diary makes proud mention of the presentation on 14 November of gallantry certificates for distinguished service to Corporal Rogers and Private Evans of D Company for their part in the capture of two German soldiers on 20 October 1917. Later in the day, Major Thomas Henry Morgan was given command of the 11th Battalion and the rank of acting Lieutenant-Colonel.

On 16 November – with the exception of the Lewis gunners who joined them the next morning – the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers relieved the 10th Battalion in the front line of the L’Épinette subsector of the Armentières area, the relief being completed late in the evening. The weather remained fine and cloudy during the afternoon of 17 November as the trench mortars and artillery coordinated a barrage of the enemy’s front line and barbed wire. Once again night patrols went out into No Man’s Land but they did not encounter the enemy. On 18 November, after their artillery had caused no real damage during the daytime, the Germans lit up the evening sky with a variety of coloured flares, suggesting that another enemy assault was imminent, but once again this proved to be unfounded. However, an enemy patrol was spotted at 5.30 a.m. the next morning; the Lewis gunners opened fire and wounded four of the Germans who were then captured. The 11th Battalion’s front line was shelled very heavily by German trench mortars and artillery throughout that day, and this continued intermittently into the night. The intense enemy shelling resumed on 20 November, resulting in the 11th Battalion losing 1 man killed and 3 more injured. A lull overnight preceded a further increase in the German bombardment the next day, but the Battalion reacted by moving some of its listening posts to the flanks, a manoeuvre that resulted in little damage and only one casualty. The enemy trench mortars were more active that night than previously. On 22 November, Nonnie Lysons Pritchard was attached to the 115th Trench Mortar Battery. At a quarter to five that afternoon, an incursion by a hostile patrol of 2 officers and 4 other ranks was dispersed by Lewis gun fire, one of the German officers being killed in the skirmish. After that, it was turn and turnabout again as 11th Battalion Headquarters moved back to billets at The Laundries; with the exception of the Lewis gunners, the remainder of the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers returned to the Subsidiary Line after being relieved in the front line by the 10th South Wales Borderers, the relief being completed at 9.30 in the evening.

At 5.45 a.m. next day, 23 November, another enemy patrol was spotted in the vicinity of one of the listening posts. One of the Germans tried to get closer but was killed when the Lewis guns opened fire; as the rest of the patrol dispersed, his body was brought back to the British line. At dawn the 11th Battalion’s Lewis gunners returned to their companies in the Subsidiary Line after being relieved by their counterparts from the 10th South Wales Borderers. The enemy began a very heavy artillery bombardment of the front and support lines in the L’Épinette subsector at 5 o’clock in the morning of 24 November, the offensive well supported by their machine guns and trench mortars. Later in the day, an enemy patrol tried to break through to the front line but they did not succeed in entering it. The South Wales Borderers suffered a number of casualties that day, including two men from the ranks killed and two officers wounded, one of whom died later from his wounds.

The next two days were stormy and quieter militarily, though a few heavy artillery shells did land in Armentières during 26 November. Next day, with the weather turning showery, an enemy aeroplane flew over the town but it was driven back by the British anti-aircraft artillery. With the exception of the Lewis gunners, it was turnabout again on 28 November as the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers returned to the front line, relieving the 10th South Wales Borderers. The relief was completed at 7.45 p.m. with D Company on the right, A Company in the centre, B Company on the left and C Company in the Reserve Trench. They were supported in the Subsidiary Line by men from the 7th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers. By noon the next day, the 11th Battalion Lewis Gunners had also returned to the front line, relieving their counterparts from the 10th Battalion. There was intense aerial and artillery activity throughout the day but the British anti-aircraft guns did bring down one German aircraft behind enemy lines. That night, Battalion patrols went out again into No Man’s Land but without incident. The last day of November brought further enemy shelling to the streets of Armentières in the morning, including the use of poison gas canisters; the German aircraft were also active.

{Press coverage of the Great War was controlled at home through strict censorship and the publication of official communiqués. However, in the occupied and war torn areas of the Western Front, local inhabitants had little, if any, access to information about either the fate of their loved ones or the progress of the war generally. German Military Intelligence saw there was an opportunity to undermine the Allies by influencing public opinion against them through the publication of a propaganda newspaper “La Gazette des Ardennes”. Initially it came out weekly, the first edition appearing in November 1914. It published translations of official German communiqués and, at first, had a limited circulation of only 4,000 copies. The people of Belgium and occupied France despised “La Gazette des Ardennes”, giving it the nickname "The Paper of Lies”, but it was the only printed source of information that they had. German Intelligence, appreciating the newspaper’s propaganda potential, decided that it should adopt a more peaceful tone and soften its anti-British rhetoric. They also appointed the French journalist René Prévot as editor. In April 1915 – at Prévot’s instigation – the newspaper began publishing the names of French soldiers that had recently been taken prisoner or had died in the prisoner of war camps. By the time the war ended it had printed details of more than 250,000 soldiers. By October 1917 the Germans were printing 175,000 copies of each edition of “La Gazette des Ardennes” which were distributed in the prison of war camps as well as the occupied territories of France and Belgium. The final edition came out on 2 November 1918.}

The men of 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers held a church parade before noon on Sunday 9 December after which it was back to their previous, familiar routines. Early the next morning, the Battalion’s Lewis gunners replaced their comrades from the 10th Battalion in the front line; they were joined there later the same evening by the remainder of the Battalion. The next three days were generally quiet, though 10 British aircraft were seen over the Battalion’s lines at 11 a.m. on 12 December; later in the day a German aircraft was brought down in flames east of Armentières near Frelinghien. In the very early hours of 14 December, a 3-man hostile patrol tried to ascertain whether the Battalion was still holding its front line trench; although they were quickly surrounded, only the corporal in charge was captured, the other two men managing to escape in the darkness.

At 5.30 a.m. the next morning, a larger enemy detachment of 1 officer and 20 other ranks raided one of the Battalion’s listening posts. Because the night was so dark, the patrol was not observed until they began their assault, whereupon the Battalion’s men at the front opened fire. Only five of the aggressors managed to make it into the listening post where they were “attacked with great dash” by 22452 Sergeant Francis Brice who “put them to flight”, all except one who was taken prisoner after being “knocked senseless” by Sergeant Brice. Thankfully, the Battalion suffered no casualties in that raid. 16 December saw another rotation as the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers were relieved in the front line by the 10th South Wales Borderers, all four companies moving to the Subsidiary Line. Next day it was cold and frosty as the Battalion was visited by reporters from two newspapers, the “South Wales Argus” and the “Western Mail”.

On 18 December, with the weather very cold but dry, personnel from 11th Battalion Headquarters practised on the divisional firing range. Later in the day the Battalion was relieved in the Subsidiary Line by the 33rd Infantry Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force. The men of the Battalion proceeded to billets, A Company and B Company in Bac Saint-Maur, C Company, D Company and Battalion Headquarters in Sailly-sur-la-Lys.

A rapid thaw set in on 9 January as the weather turned warmer. Next day, A Company and B Company began building a 30-yard long rifle range at Bac Saint-Maur, a task they completed the following day. On 13 January the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers marched to new billets west of La Gorgue in the south Estaires area. Over the next two days, officers reconnoitred the crossings of the La Lawe River. On 15 January the planned training was rendered impossible by extremely heavy rain. The bad weather continued over the next two days, the companies training as and when they could on a 30-yard range. On 16 January, Private Nonnie Lysons Pritchard received medical treatment for an abscess on his neck. The rain did relent on 18 January but by then the River Lys had burst its banks and flooded the roads and the surrounding countryside. The weather then turned warmer and drier. On Sunday 20 January, while B Company and 30 men from D Company built breastworks on the eastern outskirts of Estaires, A Company, C Company and the remainder of D Company held a Church Parade. The week that followed was generally very warm; training on the range continued but there was also time for some recreation. The runners from the 11th Battalion came fourth in the 115th Infantry Brigade Cross-Country Competition and the Battalion’s team defeated their opponents from the 17th Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers in the Brigade Boxing Competition. B Company also triumphed in the Battalion’s inter-company musketry competition. From 27 January to the end of the month, the whole battalion was employed digging and connecting strong points to improve the rear defences.

The War Diary for the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers ends with the entry for 31 January 1918. In February 1918, the British Army was restructured, with the number of battalions in an infantry brigade being reduced from four to three. This led to the disbanding of a number of – often under-manned – infantry battalions, amongst them the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers which was disbanded in France on 27 February 1918. The disbanding of these infantry battalions generated a large pool of men which was used, initially, to bring the remaining battalions up to strength. The men left over were allocated to 25 temporary Entrenching Battalions. These battalions were put to work improving the Allied defences in anticipation of a major German Spring offensive. When the need arose, they supplied drafts of replacements to build up the strengths of the surviving infantry battalions. They also provided a readily available reserve force whenever one was needed to meet the German offensive. With irregular drains on their manpower, the Entrenching Battalions tended not to last too long. They were disbanded in April 1918, their troops being sent as reinforcements to the infantry battalions to make good the losses suffered during the German Spring offensive. Some of the 1918 Entrenching Battalion War Diaries are housed in the National Archives at Kew, but those for the 1st, 6th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 15th and 17th Entrenching Battalions have not survived.

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“The History of the South Wales Borderers 1914-1918”, by C. T. Atkinson, records that the middle of January 1918 saw the whole of the 38th Division out of the line for almost a month, one of the longest rest periods the Division ever experienced. However, the bad weather played havoc with training, as did the demand for working parties to construct new defence lines on the far bank of the River Lys. To make matters worse, some of the farms where the troops were billeted were little more than islands in a sea of flood water. By the middle of February, the 38th Division had returned to the front, taking over the Wez Macquart sector. The 10th Battalion South Wales Borderers remained within the 38th Division but, by then, the order had been issued for the junior battalion, the 11th South Wales Borderers, to be disbanded. This began on 16 February 1918 with the transfer of 7 officers and 150 men to the 10th South Wales Borderers. A detachment of 15 Officers was then dispatched to join the 1st South Wales Borderers, 9 more being posted to the 2nd South Wales Borderers. The remaining men – the bulk of the battalion {including Nonnie Lysons Pritchard} – were kept together for some little time longer, as the 2nd Entrenching Battalion, until early April 1918 when the majority of the men from that Battalion were dispersed to other units. During the period of its existence, the men of the 2nd Entrenching Battalion were employed constructing rear lines of defence in the La Bassée – Armentières area, where their work earned warm congratulations from the General Officer Commanding the XV Army Corps. Of the 750 men still on the 11th Battalion’s strength at the end of February 1918, around 200 were posted to the 5th Battalion South Wales Borderers in early April. The majority of the remaining men were then distributed to units that were short of manpower. The remaining 60 or 70 unassigned men were thrown into the fighting on the Lys. The majority were from C Company and had apparently been overlooked, as had 2nd Lieutenant H. E. Griffiths, formerly second in command of C Company. This party remained at Steenwerck until 10 April when – with other detachments – they were dispatched to Merville, a town in considerable danger of falling into the hands of the Germans who were already close by. During the action at Merville on 11/12 April, they fought hard to stem the tide of the German advance; although outnumbered, they struggled on until the last eight men were taken prisoner. Battling against the odds, the men continued to fight in the name and for the honour of the disbanded 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers.

The October Revolution of 1917 brought the Bolsheviks to power; it also changed the dynamics of the first world war. Even though its army was dispirited and disintegrating after suffering a number of significant set-backs on the Eastern Front, Russia was still a major British ally. However, with much of their country starving, the Bolshevik’s urgent priority was to extract the country from the war, even though this course of action was strongly opposed by other factions within the provisional government. Lenin – who had been infiltrated back into Russia by the German government in order to undermine the Russian war effort – was, naturally, far more interested in strengthening his grip on power, and putting down internal opposition, than fighting the Germans.  

On 4 December 1917, a truce was hastily agreed between the Russians and the Germans. With it, Russian participation in the war effectively came to an end. This truce was extended to a full armistice between Russia and all of the Central Powers on 15 December 1917. It was signed at a peace conference in the town of Brest-Litovsk (then in Poland, now in Belarus), where the German army had its headquarters. Trotsky, the Bolshevik Foreign Minister, stalled for time at the peace conference, hoping that the Communist revolution in Russia would spark further revolutions across Europe, inside Germany and Austria in particular. When it became clear in February 1918 that this was not going to happen, Trotsky announced that “neither war nor peace” existed between Russia and the Central Powers. The implicit subtext of his statement was that the Russians would not pay reparations or surrender territory in exchange for not resuming the fighting. After 3 long years of warfare, Trotsky was banking on an assumption that the German army was as exhausted as the Allies, but he was wrong. Incensed, the Central Powers tore up the armistice and resumed their invasion, sweeping aside what was left of the Russian army and pushing further east during five days of February 1918 than they had in the previous three years. At the same time, a German fleet moved up the Baltic threatening an attack on Petrograd (the former St Petersburg). 

The Left Socialist Revolutionaries, who formed part of the provisional government and then commanded more popular support than the Bolsheviks, wanted the Russian people to fight a guerrilla war against the invaders. Fearing that his fledgling regime would be overthrown if the Germans continued their advance, Lenin persuaded the Central Committee to accept the enemy’s terms, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk being duly signed on 3 March 1918. This resulted in Russia giving up almost half of its European territory: Russian Poland, Lithuania and part of Latvia were ceded to Germany and Austria; the Ukraine, Finland, Estonia and the rest of Latvia became independent states under German protection; Bessarabia went to Romania and the Ottomans took the Armenian area in the Caucasus. Russia also lost huge areas of prime agricultural land, eighty per cent of her coal mines and half of her other industries. Later, in August 1918, Russia also agreed to pay six billion marks in reparations, though this was retracted following the Allied victory.  

The signing of the treaty caused turmoil back home, many Russians regarding it as an act of betrayal. The Left Socialist Revolutionaries withdrew from the government, leaving power entirely in the hands of the Bolsheviks, and civil war between the Reds and the Whites followed. But the peace treaty held firm despite all these upheavals, enabling the Germans to transfer large numbers of troops from the Eastern Front to the Western Front. 

By early 1918, the Allied troops on the Western Front were weary. They’d spent three long years fighting the Germans, in campaigns that too often ended in failure or stalemate. They were overstretched and short of manpower. By contrast, the German Army, was busy preparing for a Spring Offensive, the Kaiserschlacht, boosted by the arrival of substantial numbers of men from the Eastern Front. The first phase was scheduled to begin in March and the British knew it was coming.  

General Erich Ludendorff’s plan was for a series of four separate German offensives. He envisaged that the main assault, Operation Michael, would create such a decisive break in the Allied lines that the British forces holding the front line from the Somme to the English Channel would be outflanked and defeated, leaving the French to seek terms for an armistice. The subsidiary operations – Georgette {the Battle of the Lys}, Blücher-Yorck {the Third Battle of the Aisne} and Gneisenau {the Battle of the Matz} – were designed primarily to divert Allied troops to those areas and away from the main German offensive on the Somme. 

The Germans prepared meticulously for the assault which began with an enormous bombardment of the British lines in the dark, early hours of 21 March 1918. Shaken out of their sleep as the earth reverberated around them, the British did their best to respond to the attack, but their command centres and communication trenches, their reserve and forward lines, had been all but destroyed in the concentrated barrage which had also targeted the Allies heavy artillery positions. After around 5 hours, the devastating bombardment ended, leaving the British soldiers in a state of confusion. However, there was to be no respite, as highly trained German infantry then left their trenches to cross No Man’s Land, which was shrouded in mist and fog that morning. Still recovering from the intense shelling, and not expecting enemy troops to suddenly appear out of the mist right on top of them, the British troops in the forward positions were quickly overrun.  

The Germans then pressed on, the speed and power of their breakthrough causing despair amongst the British soldiers, many thinking the onslaught heralded the end of the war and a German victory. But, though it was severely weakened, the British line did not break. In many places British troops put up a stout defence. But their determined resistance could only delay, not check, the German advance, and, as orders were issued for the British troops to fall back, large parts of the front were given up in a hasty and confused retreat. 

The Germans made swift and significant gains in their initial onslaught. The British responded by hurriedly moving up reserve troops to reinforce the Allied line, including men from the Entrenching Battalions. Some men marched all day to get to the front, having been nearly 20 miles away when the bombardment started. The intense fighting continued through until the end of March as the Germans pushed the British further and further back. Lacking the organisation of their normal supply lines and daily routines, the retreating men had to resort to finding food, shelter and sleep as and when they could. The Allies suffered heavy casualties and had a large number of prisoners taken, some twenty-one thousand on the opening day of the Spring Offensive alone

Picture 32

By early April 1918, the Germans had advanced around 40 miles into Allied territory. Although the situation was dire, British morale remained high. Then, on 9 April, the Germans launched their second offensive, Operation Georgette, further to the north in Flanders. Like the main offensive, it opened with a massive bombardment of the British lines; this was followed in turn by intense fighting that brought further British losses. German gains continued over the next few days and once again the situation looked critical for the Allies, so much so that General Haig, the British commander in chief, issued a special order on 11 April urging his men to fight to the last.

But Operation Georgette ran out of momentum, despite its initial successes, and towards the end of April it was abandoned. A third phase of fighting began on 27 May, when the Germans attacked along the Chemin des Dames ridge, where the Allied line was held mainly by the French. This push towards the River Marne threatened both Paris and the Paris - Verdun rail link. Once again, the Germans made substantial gains initially, inflicting heavy casualties on the Allies who were forced to make yet another desperate defence in the face of the enemy onslaught. Then, in early June, with the Allies pushed back on a number of fronts, the German offensive began to falter. The German soldiers were exhausted by then and they had advanced so far and so fast that they had out-run their supplies of food, equipment and reinforcements.

The Ludendorff offensive had certainly delivered stunning successes in terms of territory gained but the salients that the German army now occupied were of limited strategic value. The speed and extent of the German advance had undoubtedly dented Allied morale but the British front line had only been pushed back, it had not been broken. Crucially, the supply line to the English Channel remained intact. The extended duration of the German offensive, and the sheer number of troops taking part, resulted in both sides suffering heavy losses, the British losing 236,000 men between 21 March and 29 April. Relatively few of these were killed; a significant number were taken prisoner, many others were missing in action. The Germans lost 348,000 men in the same period, and this heavy cost left them incapable of holding their new front line when the Allies began their counter-offensive in August 1918. The German Spring offensive had come very close indeed to turning the tide of the war in Germany’s favour but, when the fifth and final German offensive failed in July 1918, the Allies were able to mount a series of decisive counter-attacks that led, in due course, to the surrender of the German Army.

Picture 33

During the Great War, the British Army’s 1:20,000 maps of the Western Front used a grid system. First the area covered by the map was divided into a series of large rectangles, each identified by a capital letter of the alphabet. These rectangles were then subdivided into 36 squares, 6 rows each with 6 squares, and these were numbered from 1 (top left hand corner) to 36 (bottom right hand corner). Each square covered an area 1000 yards long and 1000 yards wide. The section here, from the 1915 British Trench Map 36A NE Edition 2, shows squares 21, 22, 23, 27, 28 and 29 from rectangle K, covering Merville and the area to the north and west of the town. 

Each of these numbered squares was divided into a two by two matrix of four squares, each representing an area 500 yards long and 500 yards wide. These were given the lower case letters a, b, c and d, as shown for square 21. For example, the village of le Sart is in squares K.27.c and K.27.d. However, the artillery required much greater accuracy, as did the Army for accurate troop deployment. To achieve this, each of the squares a, b, c and d was subdivided further, into a 10 by 10 matrix of 50 yard by 50 yard squares. A specific point could then be identified by counting along, from West to East, and up, from South to North, in 50 yard segments. On this scale, the Weaving Mill Chimney (Tissage Cheminée) is located at approximately K.23.c.4.8. For even greater accuracy, the 50 yard squares a, b, c and d could be divided instead into a 100 by 100 matrix, with each square measuring 5 yards by 5 yards. On this narrower scale – were it to be an artillery target – the centre of the Wind Pump could be given more accurately as K.22.d.73.36. 

The War Diary for the 2nd Entrenching Battalion is housed in the National Archives at Kew {reference WO 95-930-6} and covers the short period of the Battalion’s existence in 1918. It consists of individual documents, many recording the large number of movements of individual soldiers and groups of troops as they were assigned to other units from the 2nd Entrenching Battalion. Unlike the War Diary of the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers, there is no day-to-day detail of the activities the men undertook. However, it does include a list of casualties from the fighting at Merville on the 11th and 12th April 1918 and this shows that Nonnie Lysons Pritchard was not one of those who was transferred out, that he remained with the 2nd Entrenching Battalion until he was fatally wounded.

Nonnie became part of the Composite Battalion Corps that had been formed under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Duncan Scott, M.C., formerly of the 7th Battalion East Surrey Regiment. Organized into 2 Companies plus a Lewis Gun Detachment, the Composite Battalion was part of the XV Army Corps and was composed of 17 officers and 274 other ranks from the 2nd Entrenching Battalion, together with 13 officers and 150 other ranks from the XV Army Corps School. The description that follows is based on the report – lodged in the 2nd Entrenching Battalion War Diary – that Lieutenant Colonel Scott gave regarding the Composite Battalion’s part in the defence of Merville on 11th and 12th April 1918.

11th April 1918

On the morning of 11 April, the Composite Battalion was encamped at the XV Army Corps Salvage Dump at Caudescure Station (in K.14.a). At 9.10 a.m. Major King arrived at the camp with orders that the Composite Battalion was to pack up and move to the 59th Division Headquarters. Accompanied by Major King, Lieutenant Colonel Scott then went to Divisional Headquarters where he received orders direct from the Division Commander that the Composite Battalion was to move up as quickly as possible to the vicinity of the Merville Station Goods Yard (K.35.b), where it was to hold the Merville Bridgeheads against an enemy attack from the south. When the men of the Composite Battalion moved off, they were preceded by Major J B Waters {formerly of the 7th Battalion King’s Own Scottish Borderers} and a group of Company Officers who set out to reconnoitre the ground the Battalion had to hold.

Picture 34

The men of the Composite Battalion moved south east towards Merville, through squares K.21 and K.28, along the road from Caudescure Station (in K.14.a). They crossed the canal using the main railway bridge in K.35.a and then assembled behind the high railway embankment just south of this bridge at about 11.30 a.m. The earlier reconnaissance of this position had found that work was already underway on a line of defence in squares K.35 and K.36 thanks to the efforts of a Company from the 7th Durham Light Infantry Pioneers and a collection of men organised by the Assistant Provost Marshal of the 50th (Northumbrian) Division and the Town Major of Merville {an officer from the occupying British garrison}. One Company of men from the Composite Battalion was quickly despatched to bolster the troops already occupying this rough line of defence. The second Company was positioned, in Battalion Reserve, on the tow path on the south side of the canal from K.35.a.2.3 to K.35.b.2.6, and Battalion Headquarters was established under the bridge at K.35.a.4.2. Apart from some light shelling, these positions were occupied without incident until half past three in the afternoon.

At about 2 p.m., reconnaissance of the area to the left of the rough line of defence had ascertained that – contrary to the information the Composite Battalion had been given previously – the enemy was not advancing from the south. They were in fact moving due west, and on both banks of the canal. At 3.30 p.m. Lieutenant Colonel Scott received an order from the 50th Division giving him responsibility for securing the line from K.36.b.4.5 to K.35.a.2.5. He was also assigned the task of destroying the town’s bridges, should that become necessary.

Troops withdrawing from the direction of Beaupré (in L.32) were stopped at the light railway bridge in K.36.b. Under a Captain of the 8th Durham Light Infantry, these men were organized into a line of defence facing east astride the road heading east from Merville to La Gorgue (in L.34); their left flank was on the canal but they had no support to their right. When the enemy pressed forward, on both sides of the canal, the troops that were south of the canal in the area between the light railway bridge over the canal (K.35.a) and the railway – crossed over this bridge to the opposite side of the canal. The troops on the right of the railway were forced to withdraw to form a line of defence in front of the Goods Station (K.35.b) with two platoons from the Composite Battalion’s Reserve Company as support. By 4 p.m., these strategic withdrawals had extended the original defence line south of the canal round to the canal. This line was held securely until 11 p.m. when orders were received from the 151st Brigade for the troops to evacuate, all except for the position west of the Ancienne Lys {the Old River Lys} which was to be handed over to the 5th Battalion Gordon Highlanders; the last men left their positions at 1 a.m. on 12 April. While they were holding the positions south of the canal, the British troops identified several enemy targets and these were fired on by the Lewis Guns, inflicting a large number of casualties on the advancing German army. However, ammunition began to run very low during this defence and the shortage became acute as darkness fell, with men in the most advanced positions having just 5 rounds left; these they kept in case there were ordered to withdraw and had to fight their way back.

Picture 35

At 4.30 p.m. on 11 April, Scottish troops from the 51st Division were seen advancing in artillery formation on the right flank; they came from the direction of the hamlet of Le Cornet Malo about 6 miles to the south of Merville and formed a line of defence along the Ancienne Lys with their left at Le Grand Pacaut (K.35.d). On the left flank, the troops on the north of the canal had withdrawn in a north-westerly direction to a line facing east along the road running north and south in K.30.b and K.30.d. However, there was still a gap of about 500 yards immediately north of the canal but this was filled by sending the two remaining platoons from the Reserve Company over to the north side of the canal.

About this time, Lieutenant Colonel Scott received an order from the 50th Division to send the Company of 7th Durham Light Infantry Pioneers – together with any stragglers – to block the approaches to Merville from the east and north-east. As it was impossible to extricate the 7th Durham Light Infantry Pioneers from their position in the line of defence south of the canal, Lieutenant Colonel Scott instead ordered 120 men and 2 officers of the 51st Division to move through the town and take up positions at the road junctions; these men had joined forces with the Composite Battalion after becoming detached from their own units in all the confusion.

The enemy continued to press forward on the north side of the canal against the British defence line in K.30.b and K.30.d, forcing the men there to retreat in a north-westerly direction. By darkness, they had withdrawn to the north-eastern outskirts of Merville, leaving a gap due east of Merville. A small party of the 7th Durham Light Infantry Pioneers was sent with a machine gun to fill this hole and – with the support of a Lewis Gun at the crossroads at K.29.b.1.6 – they attempted to hold the area near the crossroads at K.29.d.9.8.

This remained the situation until about 10.15 p.m. when a verbal order was received from the 151st Brigade to withdraw north of the canal to a line along the west bank of the River Lys.  However, Lieutenant Colonel Scott had never seen the officer who brought this verbal message before, so he sent the messenger back to get a written order. About half an hour later, the 151st Brigade’s Brigade Major brought the written order confirming the verbal instruction to withdraw. He indicated the best route for the withdrawal and quickly departed, leaving Lieutenant Colonel Scott to organise the demolition of the bridges in the town, all except the small footbridge (K.35.a.6.8) over which the men of the Composite Battalion – and the other troops that had become attached to it – were to retreat.

After giving the Composite Battalion Company Commanders the order to withdraw, Lieutenant Colonel Scott ordered Captain Birkett to take some men from the railway embankment (in K.35.a) to defend the Pont du Pierre bridge at K.29.c.5.2. However, when they arrived at that point they found the enemy was already pouring over the Pont du Pierre in force. As there was no Lewis Gun that could fire on the Germans as they crossed over the bridge, the Composite Battalion troops withdrew back over the footbridge at K.35.a.6.8, which was then blown up by the Royal Engineers to prevent the enemy taking the south side of the canal; had they done so, they would have cut off the British troops that were still east of Merville Station.

Sentries were posted at the destroyed railway Bridge and a Lewis Gun covered the canal’s locks as these now provided the only points where the enemy could cross the canal to the south. The Composite Battalion was then withdrawn to Battalion Headquarters on the embankment at K.35.a.4.2, the last troops assembling there at about 1.30 a.m. on 12 April. The Royal Engineers then blew up the small railway bridge at K.36.b.1.2. Unfortunately, the enemy got wind of the Composite Battalion’s withdrawal and fired at them with rifles and machine guns from the opposite side of the canal; the casualties the Battalion suffered were, nonetheless, brought back eventually.

One section of the 5th Battalion Gordon Highlanders took over the ground on the railway embankment at K.35.a. As they were not strong enough to hold this position on their own, Lieutenant Colonel Scott left them an officer, 36 men and a Lewis Gun as support. The remaining Composite Battalion troops then marched westwards on the south side of the canal before crossing over the canal and assembling at Barque (the ferry berth at K.33.b) at about 2.39 a.m. Preceded by an advanced guard, they then advanced eastwards along the towpath on the north side of the canal to the new Battalion Headquarters at K.34.a.8.3. Meanwhile, Captain H E W Prest {formerly of the 2nd Royal Berkshire Regiment} had moved a Lewis Gun up the north side of the canal to the destroyed railway bridge, but sniping and machine gun fire eventually made the position there untenable.

Having been ordered to take up a line of defence in the vicinity of the Basse-Boulogne Station, the Composite Battalion now made for Merville on two fronts; one Company advanced up the main road in K.28.d from Le Sart, while the other moved on their right along the road running east from Battalion Headquarters. Despite the dark night, and frequently “bumping into” enemy machine guns, Major J B Waters – accompanying the northern party – managed to reconnoitre the whole area then selected the best position for a line of defence. However, it proved impossible to extend the line as far as the Basse-Boulogne Station so a Lewis Gun was deployed to cover the gap, which consisted of very open country that could not be occupied because of the murderous enemy gunfire that was directed against it. A reserve platoon was also placed at K.34.a.7.7 in readiness to defend the gap should that become necessary. The Composite Battalion held these various positions throughout the remainder of the night.

12 April 1918

By darkness on 11 April, the two platoons from the Reserve Company that had filled the gap between the canal and the road running north-south in K.30.d. had been forced to withdraw to the north-eastern outskirts of Merville as the enemy advanced. During the night these two platoons lost touch with the remainder of their Battalion and withdrew, through the north of Merville, to square K.22 where they remained until 11 a.m. on 12 April. Once the British troops on their right had passed safely back through their position, the two platoons withdrew further to a position in K.15.d, staying there until nightfall when they were relieved by the 1st Battalion Devon Regiment.

Meanwhile, for the main body of men from the Composite Battalion holding their positions in the vicinity of the Basse-Boulogne Station, all was quiet for about half an hour as dawn began to break the following morning. However, as soon as visibility improved, the German troops on the south-western outskirts of Merville began to enfilade the left flank of the Composite Battalion line with heavy machine gun fire. The Battalion held on to this line for over an hour, suffering heavy casualties throughout that time, far more than during the rest of the 2 days fighting. At about 6.30 a.m. the troops from the northern section of the line were withdrawn to a position in K.28.c. Other British troops, that were to the left of the Composite Battalion, withdrew at the same time in the direction of the Saw Mill.

The Composite Battalion troops held their line in front of Battalion Headquarters in K.34.a and K.34.b, and their position in K.28.c, until about 9 a.m. As large numbers of enemy troops were seen heading north from the Calonne-sur-la-Lys area, the British troops south of the canal began to change direction, towards the south, and by about 11 a.m. they had formed a line facing the advancing enemy along the south bank of the canal. However, they soon came under severe enfilading machine gun and rifle fire from the houses in K.34.c, forcing them to withdraw north-westwards over the canal at K.33.b. A large number of those men then retreated up the road into Le Sart where – as they came from several different units and included very few officers – a strenuous effort was made to organise them. They were then deployed in three parties to help man the defences north of the canal. The Composite Battalion combined with this mixed group, in size about three times its own original number, and, from that point in the fighting, the Battalion effectively ceased to exist as an entity in its own right. For the remainder of the day, the very small proportion of officers made organisation and command of this enlarged body of men extremely difficult

At about 1 a.m. on 13 April, the men of this augmented Composite Battalion were driven out of their line of defence behind Battalion Headquarters and had to be withdrawn behind Le Sart to a new line (the blue line) in K.26.b and K.26.d; this line was covered, to the south, by two small forward outposts. As they advanced, the Germans swept the roads in Le Sart with heavy enfilading machine gun fire. Eventually, the men in the forward posts were driven out of their positions by direct fire from light field guns at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The front line then fluctuated for the rest of the day between the blue line and positions further east.

The 15th Battalion (2nd Birmingham) Royal Warwickshire Regiment, of the 5th Division, had been recalled to the Western Front from Italy at the beginning of April 1918 to bolster the British forces that were resisting the German Spring Offensive. The 15th Battalion was the second of the three “Birmingham Pals” regiments. Between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. on 13 April, the 15th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment attacked from the direction of Le Corbie, 5 miles to the west of Merville, and established themselves to the east of the blue line. When the 15th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment passed through their positions, the majority of the men from the augmented Composite Battalion went forward to support the Warwickshire line. Those men were organised later and, before being relieved, dug a Support Line for the 15th Battalion in the neighbourhood of the le Vertbois Farm in K.26.a. The Composite Battalion then withdrew to La Motte, the first party moving off at 11 p.m. and the rest at 1 a.m. on 14 April.   

In concluding his report of 18th April 1918, Lieutenant Colonel Leslie Duncan Scott praised the Royal Engineers for the splendid work they carried out organising the demolition of the canal and railway bridges at Merville. He also singled out a number of officers from the 2nd Entrenching Battalion and the XV Army Corps School who, he said, were conspicuous throughout the whole of the action for their gallantry, cool-headedness and command of the men.

It was during the defence of Merville that Private Nonnie Lysons Pritchard lost his life. He was just 23 years of age. Nonnie was mortally wounded, most probably at some time during the fighting on Friday 12 April 1918, when he received a bullet wound through the neck which pierced his spine. He was removed to the 1st Australian Casualty Clearing Station and then placed on the 19th Ambulance Train where he succumbed to his wounds while being transported to the hospital at Étaples. He is buried at the Étaples Military Cemetery.

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The family of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard

The story of Nonnie and his family is, occasionally, strange, unclear and conflicting.

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Nonnie’s parents John William Pritchard and Margaret Ellen Lysons were married at Lichfield Register Office on 15 June 1890. Their witnesses – Job Lysons and Clara Sophia Davies – were the parents of Nonnie’s cousin, Noah Lysons, who were to marry a year later. John and Margaret had two sons, the elder being Nonnie’s brother Thomas Pritchard who was born in Chase Terrace on 16 February 1891.

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Nonnie’s mother was known in the family as Ellen. At the time of the 1891 census, Ellen and her husband John were living with their 2-month old son Thomas in Cannock Road, Chase Terrace. They were occupying two rooms in the house which Ellen’s parents, Job and Emma Lysons, shared with her younger brothers Edwin and Ernest Lysons.

The exact circumstances of Nonnie’s birth are far from clear. His birth certificate shows that he was born Stirtius Lysons on 21 December 1894 but the name of the father was not recorded when the birth was registered on 5 February 1895, though Nonnie’s mother, Ellen, describes herself as the wife of John William Pritchard. Whether John formally adopted Nonnie at some later date is also unclear. Whatever the circumstances, he was known for the rest of his life as Nonnie Lysons Pritchard and was recorded as such on his Army attestation papers and military records.

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The 1901 census shows Ellen and her two children living in Queen Street, Chasetown, in the home of her parents Job and Emma Lysons. Her younger brother Edwin is also living there at that time. On the 1901 census, Nonnie’s name is recorded, rather strangely, as Sam Pritchard.

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The 1901 census indicates that Nonnie’s mother Ellen was by then a widow, suggesting that her husband John William Pritchard had died, presumably at some time between Nonnie’s birth in 1894 and 1901. He is thought to have died in a mining accident but exactly when is not clear. Although no supportive evidence has been found, the report recording Nonnie’s death in the 18 May 1918 edition of the Walsall Observer & South Staffordshire Chronicle states that his father died in a mining accident in July 1912. The January 1919 Army Form W.5080 “Statement of the Names and Addresses of all the Relatives of the Deceased Soldier”, merely records Nonnie’s father as deceased.

By the time of the 1911 census, Ellen is living with her two children at Highfield House in Burntwood in the home of her younger brother Edwin George Lysons, known in the family as George, for whom she was housekeeper. Rather strangely, given that George completed the census data, Ellen’s status was recorded then as “married”.

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Nonnie’s mother, Margaret Ellen Lysons, was born in 1868 and was baptised at the Zion's Hill Primitive Methodist Chapel in Chase Terrace on 5 August 1868. She was the eldest daughter of Job Lysons and his wife Emma Sophia Hill who had married in Wolverhampton in the first quarter of 1855. Ellen had 5 brothers – Thomas, Job, Timothy John, Edwin George and Ernest Edward– and 2 sisters – Noah Eliza and May.

Many of the transcribers of the BMD indexes and censuses have wrongly taken the unusual first name Noah to be that of a boy, but Noah was indeed Ellen’s sister; she went on to marry Alfred Westwood at Christ Church, Burntwood on 6 May 1889 and together they had 9 children, including a daughter named Noah.

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Ellen’s father, Nonnie’s grandfather, Job Lysons lived to the age of 79. He was born about 1828 in the Shropshire village of Longden, 3 miles from Pontesbury, and was baptised in Pontesbury on 19 April 1829. He died at the age of 79 in 1907 and was buried in St Anne’s Church, Burntwood, on 30 April 1907. Ellen’s mother, Emma Sophia Hill, was born about 1837 in Birmingham, Warwickshire. She died at the age of 67 in 1904 and was buried in St Anne’s Church, Burntwood, on 8 January 1904. 

Ellen’s husband, John William Pritchard was the eldest of 10 children born to Henry Pritchard and his wife Ann. He was born in Chasetown about 1867. The 1881 and 1891 censuses show that he had 5 brothers – George, Joseph, Henry, Albert and Wilfred – and 4 sisters – Mary, Alice, Clara and Elsie May.

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Although the 1881 census states that John’s parents Henry and Ann were born in Cannock, the 1891 and 1901 censuses confirm that Henry was born in Lye in Worcestershire and that his wife Ann was born in Derbyshire; the 1901 census records her place of birth as Cauthorp, which could refer to the village of Cutthorpe, between Chesterfield and the Peak District National Park. Despite numerous searches, no reliable details have been found for Henry and Ann’s marriage, nor for their births, nor for Ann’s surname at birth.

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Ellen and John’s eldest son, Thomas Pritchard, was born in Chasetown on 16 February 1891 and was baptised on 15 March 1891 in the Burntwood Primitive Methodist Chapel. Like his younger brother, Nonnie, Thomas began his working life in the local coal mines, 1911 seeing him employed as a driver underground; in 1939 he was working as a lamp man above ground. In the first quarter of 1916 he married Alice Margaret Walton at Lichfield Register Office and together they had 6 children, 4 boys and 2 girls. Alice, the daughter of Herbert and Emily Walton, was born in Rugby in Warwickshire in 1896 and baptised in Holy Trinity Church, Rugby, on 11 April 1897. Sadly, she died at the age of 30, in the second quarter of 1926, shortly after the birth of the couple’s sixth child, Frank Pritchard. Their eldest son, Herbert Thomas Pritchard was born on 7 June 1916 and died in Stafford about January 1990. Thomas and Alice’s second son was born on 5 June 1918, shortly after the death of Thomas’ brother, Nonnie, on the Western Front. They named their second son in his honour, Nonnie Augustus Etaples Pritchard; he died in Hertford, Hertfordshire, about June 1953.  The couple’s other children were Wilfred John Pritchard, born on 26 September 1920 and Cecilia Noah Pritchard, born on 24 August 1922; a second daughter, Alice Margaret Pritchard, was born during the second quarter of 1925 but died shortly after birth. Their only surviving daughter, Cecilia Noah Pritchard, married Jack Mowbray at St Luke’s Church in Cannock about June 1945 and died in Stafford early in 2001. 

After the death of his wife, Alice, in 1926, Thomas Pritchard married again, about December 1932 in Lichfield Register Office. His second wife, Olive Westwood was born on 18 May 1908 and was the youngest daughter of Noah Eliza Lysons and her husband Alfred Westwood; Noah was a younger sister of Job Lysons, the father of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard’s cousin Noah Lysons.

Thomas and Olive Pritchard had two children, Mary Ellen Pritchard, born on 13 May 1933 and Henry Watson Pritchard, born on 13 February 1936. The 1939 census shows the family living at 7 Victory Avenue, Chase Terrace. Thomas and Alice’s eldest son, Herbert Thomas Pritchard, is living with them and working as a miner, loading coal below ground.

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Almost 50 years after his brother Nonnie was killed on the Western Front, Thomas Pritchard passed away at the age of 76 in Lichfield about September 1967. His second wife, Olive, survived him by almost 20 years, dying at the age of 78, also in Lichfield, about April 1987.

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Reference, item and source

1.     Photograph of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard (standing) and Noah John Lysons © Malcom Lysons

2.     Photograph of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard from the Walsall Observer & South Staffordshire Chronicle edition of 18 May 1918 © Walsall Local History Centre

3.     Certificate in memory of Private Nonnie Lysons Pritchard © Commonwealth War Graves Commission

4.     The grave of Private Nonnie Lysons Pritchard at Étaples Military Cemetery © The War Graves Photographic Project

5.     Photograph of Étaples Military Cemetery, Route Départementale 940, 62630, Étaples, Pas de Calais, France © The Commonwealth War Graves Commission

6.     Photograph of Étaples Military Cemetery, Route Départementale 940, 62630, Étaples, Pas de Calais, France © The Commonwealth War Graves Commission

7.     Plan of Étaples Military Cemetery, showing the location of the grave of Private Nonnie Lysons Pritchard in Plot XXIX Row A Grave 12A © The Commonwealth War Graves Commission

8.     Map showing the location of mines in the Cannock area © The Coalmining History Resource Centre http://www.cmhrc.co.uk/site/home/index.html

9.     The medal card for Private Nonnie Lysons Pritchard (260045), 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers © The National Archives and Ancestry

10.   Poem “Mametz Wood” written by Owen Sheers © Owen Sheers

11.   “The Welsh at Mametz Wood” painted by Christopher Williams © Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales

12.   Combination of extracts from British First World War trench maps, 20 SW Edition 5A (upper part) and 28 NW Edition 6A (lower part) © The National Library of Scotland

13.   “The Attack at the River Steenbeck, Belgium, 31 July 1917”, an illustration by the Anglo-French artist Sir Amédée Forestier © The Print Collector / Heritage-Images

14.   Postcard showing Elverdinghe Chateau prior to the Great War

15.   Postcard showing the ruins of Elverdinghe Church following its bombardment during the Great War

16.   The Royal Garrison Artillery at Elverdinghe taking up shells by motor-driven light railway (tramway) during the Battle of Langemark, 19 August 1917 © Imperial War Museum

17.   Details of the medical treatment received by Private Nonnie Lysons Pritchard on 20 August 1917, page taken from his British Army WWI Service Records © The National Archives and Ancestry

18.   Extract from the British First World War trench map 20 SW Edition 5A showing the region around Langemark occupied by the men of the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers on the night of 23/24 August 1917 © The National Library of Scotland

19.   January 1918 photograph from the Western Front showing an Allied machine gunner firing on German communication trenches illuminated by British Very Lights © Imperial War Museum

20.   World War I observation balloon, Ypres, Belgium, 1917 © Melbourne Museum, Victoria, Australia

21.   Royal Flying Corps kite balloon with the observer standing in the balloon’s anchored basket just prior to lift off © Royal Air Force Museum

22.   Kite balloon observers preparing to descend by parachute © Wikipedia website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute

23.   Extracts from the 25 September 1917 Supplement to The London Gazette recording the Military Medal citations for Lt/Cpl Mahoney and Private Evans © The London Gazette

24.   Photograph of Major Joseph Edward Crawshay Partridge © History of Newport RFC website  http://www.historyofnewport.co.uk/players/players.php?id=000198

25.   Extract from the British First World War trench map 36 NW Edition 8A showing the region south of Armentières occupied by the men of the 11th Battalion South Wales Borderers during September and October 1917 © The National Library of Scotland

26.   Mobile anti-aircraft guns – mounted on Thornycroft lorries – in action at Armentières on 28 December 1917 © Imperial War Museum

27.   Extract from Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig’s despatch of 7 November 1917 printed in the 14 December 1917 Supplement to The London Gazette © The London Gazette

28.   Extract from the 1st of January 1918 Supplement to the London Gazette © The London Gazette

29.   Map showing the positions of the front line during the Battles of the Lys in April 1918 © The Commonwealth War Graves Commission

30.   Map showing the northern region of the Battle of the Lys in April 1918 © “The History of the South Wales Borderers” by C. T. Atkinson

31.   Map showing the southern region of the Battle of the Lys in April 1918 © “The History of the South Wales Borderers” by C. T. Atkinson

32.   Map showing the territory gained during the German Spring Offensive of 1918 © Wikipedia website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Offensive

33.   Extract from the 1915 British Trench Map 36A NE Edition 2 used to explain how locations were referenced © The National Library of Scotland

34.   Extract from the British Trench Map 36A NE Edition 7A of May 1918 showing the region around Merville © The National Library of Scotland

35.   Extract from the British Trench Map 36A NE Edition 7A of May 1918 showing the region around Merville © The National Library of Scotland

36.   British troops forming a line of defence beside a Merville railway track, 11 April 1918 © The photographic collection of Lieutenant John Warwick Brooke, Imperial War Museum

37.   British troops crossing over a Merville railway bridge that has been primed with explosives in case the bridge needs to be destroyed, 11 April 1918© The photographic collection of Lieutenant John Warwick Brooke, Imperial War Museum

38.   British troops reaching a Merville railway embankment that they have been sent to defend, 11 April 1918 © The photographic collection of Lieutenant John Warwick Brooke, Imperial War Museum

39.   Men loading stores and munitions onto a barge on the canal at Merville to prevent them falling into German hands, 11 April 1918 © The photographic collection of Lieutenant John Warwick Brooke, Imperial War Museum

40.   British infantry troops holding a line of defence along the canal near Merville, 12 April 1918 © The photographic collection of Lieutenant John Warwick Brooke, Imperial War Museum

41.   Extract from the 18 May 1918 edition of the Walsall Observer & South Staffordshire Chronicle recording the death of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard on the Western Front © Walsall Local History Centre

42.   Extract from the 18 May 1918 edition of the Walsall Observer & South Staffordshire Chronicle recording the death of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard on the Western Front © Walsall Local History Centre

43.   Family tributes to Nonnie Lysons Pritchard from the 4 May 1918 edition of the Walsall Observer & South Staffordshire Chronicle © Walsall Local History Centre

44.   Photograph taken by Henry Armytage Sanders recording the memorial service held at the Étaples Military Cemetery on 4 August 1918 © The Royal New Zealand Returned and Services’ Association Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand

45.   Copy of the Marriage Register for Margaret Ellen Lysons and John William Pritchard © General Register Office

46.   Copy of the Birth Certificate for Thomas Pritchard © General Register Office

47.   1891 Census for Job and Emma Lysons and family © Ancestry

48.   Copy of the Birth Certificate for Nonnie Lysons Pritchard (named Stirtius Lysons on the certificate) © General Register Office

49.   1901 Census for Job and Emma Lysons and family © Ancestry

50.   1911 Census for Margaret Ellen Pritchard (née Lysons) and her sons Thomas and Nonnie © Ancestry

51.   1881 Census for Job and Emma Lysons and family © Ancestry

52.   1871 Census for Job and Emma Lysons and family © Ancestry

53.   1861 Census for Job and Emma Lysons and family © Ancestry

54.   1881 Census for Henry and Ann Pritchard and family © Ancestry

55.   1891 Census for Henry and Ann Pritchard and family © Ancestry

56.   1901 Census for Henry and Ann Pritchard and family © Ancestry

57.   Extract from the 1939 census for Thomas and Olive Pritchard © Find My Past

58.   Extract for Nonnie Lysons Pritchard from the  Inmemories website http://www.inmemories.com/Cemeteries/etaples.htm © Pierre Vandervelden

59.   Copy of the entry of 28 August 1918 regarding the War Gratuity payment to Nonnie's mother Margaret Ellen Pritchard © National Army Museum Register of Soldiers’ Effects

60.   Extract 1 from the Attestation Papers and Military Record of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard © Ancestry

61.   Extract 2 from the Attestation Papers and Military Record of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard © Ancestry

62.   Extract 3 from the Attestation Papers and Military Record of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard © Ancestry

63.   Extract 4 from the Attestation Papers and Military Record of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard © Ancestry

64.   Extract 5 from the Attestation Papers and Military Record of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard © Ancestry

65.   Extract 6 from the Attestation Papers and Military Record of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard © Ancestry

66.   Extract 7 from the Attestation Papers and Military Record of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard © Ancestry

67.   Extract 8 from the Attestation Papers and Military Record of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard © Ancestry

68.   Extract 9 from the Attestation Papers and Military Record of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard © Ancestry

69.   Extract 10 from the Attestation Papers and Military Record of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard © Ancestry

70.   Extract 11 from the Attestation Papers and Military Record of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard © Ancestry

71.   Extract 12 from the Attestation Papers and Military Record of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard © Ancestry

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12 extracts from the Attestation Papers and Military Record of Nonnie Lysons Pritchard