Pte A H Dale 1st Suffolks Died in Germany 1915

The edition of the Norwich Mercury dated Saturday, July 10th 1915, has a picture of this man.

 

The accompanying caption reads “DIED IN GERMANY. Private A.H. Dale, 16532, 1st Suffolk regiment, son of Mr. and Mrs. W.E. Dale, Lowestoft, who was wounded in France, and died in Dortmund Hospital, Germany.”

 

DALE, ARTHUR HARRY

Rank:………………..........Private

Service No:………….....16532

Date of Death:…….....28/05/1915

Age:………………….........20

Regiment:………….......Suffolk Regiment, 1st Bn.

Grave Reference:…..XV. B. 15.

Cemetery:…………......COLOGNE SOUTHERN CEMETERY

Additional Information:

Son of William and Eliza Dale, of 2, Norfolk St., Lowestoft.

CWGC: www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/901265/DALE,%20ARTHUR...

 

The Medal Index Card for Private 16532 Arthur H Dale, 1st Suffolk Regiment, is held at the National Archive under reference WO 372/5/149873

discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D2066442

 

His Service Records do not appear to have survived the incendiary attack during the Blitz on the Warehouse where all the Army service records were stored.

 

There is no obvious Soldiers Will or Civil Probate for this man.

 

The International Red Cross, (IRC), has two sets of papers for this man. The first set have a cover page in English or German which relate to a 16332 H Dale of D.W. Co., 1a Suffolk Regiment. There are some other words there which I believe relate to the German words for Service Number and Unit, but they have been abbreviated to difficult to be sure.

grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/File/Details/3935672/3/2/

 

The associated reports in that records refer to his initial incarceration in the Lz (probably Lazarette, or Prison Hospital) at Bruderh, Dortmund. This report was received by the IRC on the 9th June 1915.

grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/List/3935672/698/2398/

 

Next he was held at 1 u.3.Rosselare, A,G.1 O.Schkl.

grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/List/3935672/698/2482/

 

A further prison hospital report received at the end of October 1915 seems to have him in 123/1 Rosselare. No first name is given, only a serial number, but now he seems to be referred to as an O- Leutn, (could that be an officer, Ober-Leutnant?), which all the others on the same page are referred to as either “Sold”, (i.e.Private), or “Gefr”. (Gefreiter – usually a Lance-Corporal).

grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/List/3935672/698/3567/

 

The next file has a front sheet written in French \ Swiss and refers to him as “Arthur Henri Dale”, 16532 1st Battalion Suffolk regiment.

grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/File/Details/4446221/3/2/

 

The first report, received 16th June 1915, records “Artur” Harry in the Lazarette at Brud.Krkhs Dortmund.

grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/List/4446221/698/2361/

 

The next report, received 19th June 1915, records that Arthur Harry Dale, 16532, died in the Dortmund Lazarette at Bruderkrnkhs on the 28th May 1915 and was buried at Dortmund.

grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/List/4446221/698/2438/

This was repeated in a report received on the 20th June 1915.

grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/List/4446221/698/2572/

And again in a report received 3rd July 1915.

grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/List/4446221/698/2626/

 

A list of all deaths from the period seems to have been prepared in May 1918 by the Germans and submitted to the IRC, who received it on the 18th June 1918.They list a Private Arthur Harri Dale, 4th Company, Suffolk Regiment, who died on the 28th May 1915 in the Lazarette at Dortmund. He was about 20 years old and came from Lowestoft, Suffolk.

grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/List/4446221/698/27024/

 

The key document however was an undated summary prepared in French for the family.

 

AVIS DE DECES

 

DALE Arthur Harri

Engl. Suffolk Regt. 1er Bataillon 4me Compagnie

Marque 16532 C.E.

 

Ne le 4 mai 1895

Mort le 28 mai 1915 a 3 haures 30 du matin

Fait prisonnier le 8 mai 1915 a Ypres

 

Adresse du pere: M. William DALE – Lowesloff 2 Norfolk Street

Coup de Fusil a l’epaule et empoisonnement

Enseveli au cimetiere du sud-ouest de Dortmund (Westphalie)

Sa tombe est marquee

Pas de succession

Il a garde des le commencement sa pleine connaissance et tranquillite et est mort aussi paisiblement assiste de frere Eulognia.

 

Lazaret de reserve de Dortmund.

 

My basis French topped up by Google translate gives the following

 

Obituary

 

Arthur Harry Dale, service number 16532, served with the 4th Company, 1st Battalion, Suffolk Regiment.

 

He was born on the 4th May 1895, captured at Ypres on the 8th May 1915 and died on the 28th May 1915 at 3.30 in the morning.

 

His fathers address was Mr William Dale, 2 Norfolk Street, Lowestoft.

 

Arthur died from a rifle shot in the shoulder which became infected. He was buried in a marked grave in the cemetery in the south-west of Dortmund. (Pas de succession in context probably means that IRC could not access the grave, although elsewhere it would mean no children.)

He was calm and fully conscious from the outset and died peacefully with the assistance of the monk, Brother Eulogna.

grandeguerre.icrc.org/en/List/4446221/699/10275/

 

Arthur Harry is also remembered at St John’s Church in Lowestoft.

www.roll-of-honour.com/Suffolk/LowestoftStJohnsChurch.html

 

 

1895 - Birth

 

The birth of an Arthur Harry Dale was registered in the Mutford District of Suffolk in the April to June quarter, (Q2), of 1895.

 

Mutford District covered Lowestoft and the nearby villages.

 

(The International Red Cross records his birthdate as the 4th May 1895).

 

1901 Census of England and Wales

 

The 5 year old Arthur H Dale, born Lowestoft, was recorded living at Popes Farmhouse, Norwich Road, Lowestoft. This was the household of his parents, William, (50, a Farm Bailiff, born Snape, Suffolk), and Eliza, (50, born Farnham, Suffolk). As well as Arthur their other children still single and living with them are:-

Bertie J………..aged 15….born Lowestoft..Bricklayers Apprentice

Gertrude E(?)…aged 10….born Lowestoft

 

1911 Census of England and Wales

 

The Dale family were now living at 2 Norfolk Street, Lowestoft. Parents William, (60, a Building Contractor born Snape, Suffolk) and Eliza, (60, born Farnham, Suffolk), have been married 40 years and have had 9 children, all then still alive. Children still single and living at home are Gertie, (20) and Harry, (16, Carter for a Building Contractor).

 

Post August 1911 it became compulsory when registering a birth with the Civil Authorities in England and Wales to also record the mothers maiden name. A check of the General Registrars Office Index of Birth for England and Wales 1911 – 1983 shows

 

His capture

 

From “The History of the Suffolk Regiment 1914-1927” by Lieutenant-Colonel C.C.R.Murphy

 

(Page 69 - 70) On the 29th the battalion was heavily shelled while digging new trenches, which they occupied on May 2. The intervening days were miserably spent as the dugouts were half full of water and the hostile aircraft and artillery continually busy. On May 2 “A” Company, parading to occupy the new trenches, sustained thirteen casualties. On the 4th the battalion was bombarded with trench mortars, 2nd Lieut. F.E. Stantial being killed, and Captain R.W. Leach and 2nd Lieuts H.J.F. White and L.M. Charrington wounded. The next day the battalion was heavily shelled and its headquarters hit.

 

Casualties had seriously depleted the ranks of the battalion, the men were on the verge of exhaustion, and the rain, almost incessant since the middle of April, had converted the trenches into streams of mud. On May 6 the situation suddenly quietened down, but the peaceful stillness which hung over the line during the night of the 7th-8th seemed to forebode a great disturbance. Just before dawn on May 8 Captain Balders went round the trenches and warned all ranks that an attack was to be expected at any moment adding that the C.O, relied on the battalion to yield no ground, but to stand to the last.

 

(There is than a gap in the narrative whilst the 4th Battalion events of the same period are narrated.)

 

(Page 76 - 78) The adjutant’s warning to the 1st Battalion was not delivered in vain, for at dawn on May 8, the storm returning burst over ravaged Ypres, and violent shelling began all along the line. At about ten o’clock a determined attack was launched against the point of the Salient, and soon the battle of Frezenberg Ridge was raging in all its fury. As for the 1st Battalion, they had a galling time. The din was terrific. The enemy was sending over projectiles of every calibre and description. High-explosive shells crashed in all directions, scattering bricks and timber like chaff before the wind. Huge guns and howitzers roared incessantly, shaking the earth, and the crackle of machine-guns and musketry, mingling with the boom of mortars and bombs, made a noise that sounded like an army of riveters at work during some titanic thunderstorm. Amid the roar of battle vile yellow-green poison gas floated like a spectre through the British lines, and before it men reeled back, livid, choking and blinded. Every engine of war, every invention of the devil, every device and wile of hell seemed to be in action against the Allies. All communication by wire was completely cut off for a distance of two miles behind the line, and getting into touch with anyone was almost impossibility. The only roads up to the Immortal Salient ran through the town of Ypres itself, which was now in flames, presenting a wonderful spectacle. Who in those early days would have dared to foretell that such intensity of bombardment would ever be surpassed?

 

The difficulties experienced by the transport in endeavouring to get up to their various units were inconceivably great. The roads, torn up by shells, choked with fallen and falling debris, and running here and there between raging fires, were at times quite impassable. Other routes had therefore to be followed and ways forced through. Frequently touch with battalions could not be maintained at all in which case the transport units, after exhausting every means in their power, had to dump their supplies as near to the support trenches as possible and hope for the best.

 

For days the 1st Battalion had been struggling in the bloody havoc of war. It seemed, indeed, as if hell itself had been let loose. The colonel, the adjutant, most of the officers and the regimental sergeant-major had become casualties, battalion headquarters had been destroyed, but still our men held on, clinging to their ground with desperate tenacity. Verily the full flood of the attack had swept over them; the enemy had succeeded in making a big breach on our right, and before noon the battalion had been completely overwhelmed. The casualties on May 8 amounted to over four hundred, including the following officers and R.S.M. M.S Chase, who was severely wounded –

Killed or died of wounds: Captains F.W.W.T. Attree and R. Chalmers (Captain Chalmerts had been slightly wounded a few days previously but had refused to leave the battalion.); 2nd Lieuts. G.P. Hornby, R.A. Pargiter, D.W. Cox, and S. Wrinch.

Wounded: Captain and Adjutant D.V.M. Balders.

Wounded and Missing: Lieut. C. Ainsley; 2nd Lieuts G. Bargh and K.H.F.Cayley.

Missing. Lieut.-Colonel W.B. Wallace and 2nd Lieut. L.B. Jolly.

 

On May 9th the remnants of the 1st Battalion were collected in Balloon Wood. The same day a draft, under Captain B.D. Rushbrooke, arrived from Felixstowe and camped outside Poperinghe. This draft was met by Lieuts. Venning and Hoggan, Lieut. and Quartermaster Godbolt, and twenty-seven survivors from the trenches.

lib.militaryarchive.co.uk/library/infantry-histories/libr...

 

From “A History of the Great War: Volume 11 – The British Campaigns” by Arthur Conan Doyle.

 

(Page 89 - 90) It has already been described how the 83rd Brigade had been driven back by the extreme weight of the German advances. Their fellow brigade upon the left, the 84th (Bowes), had a similar experience. They also held their line under heavy losses, and were finally, shortly after mid-day, compelled to retire. The flank regiment on the right, the 1st Suffolk, were cut off and destroyed even as their second battalion had been at Le Cateau.

 

At this time the 1st Suffolk was so reduced by the losses sustained when it had formed part of Wallace’s detachment, as described in the last chapter, that there were fewer than 300 men with the Colours. When the Germans broke through the left flank of the 83rd Brigade they got partly to the rear of the Suffolk trenches. The survivors of the Suffolks were crowded down the trench and mixed up with the 2nd Cheshires, who were their immediate neighbours. The parapets were wrecked, the trenches full of debris, the air polluted with gas, and the Germans pushing forward on the flank, holding before them the prisoners that they had just taken from the 83rd Brigade. It is little wonder that in these circumstances this most gallant battalion was overwhelmed. Colonel Wallace and 130 men were taken. The 2nd Northumberland Fusiliers and the 1st Monmouths sustained also very heavy losses, as did the 12th London Rangers. The shattered remains of the brigade were compelled to fall back in conformity with the 83rd upon the right, sustaining fresh losses as they were swept with artillery fire on emerging from the trenches. This was about 11.30 in the morning.

 

Postscript

 

As part of the commemoration of the outbreak of the Great War, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission have added a number of original documents to their website. Normally when the grave has been relocated there will be a Concentration Report detailing where the body has been moved from. There is not one of these on the webpage for Arthur, but on the working copy of the Grave Registration Document for South Cemetery, Cologne, prepared in the autumn of 1923 when the Imperial War Graves Commission was looking to take over responsibility for the Cemetery, there is a handwritten note on the document showing that the 14 graves on the same page as Arthur were all relocations.

 

(Mildly photoshopped to minimise the visual impact of damage that was present on the original image.)

Done