Redhill circular war walk A new self-guided walk around Redhill has been Reigate and Banstead created, showing points of interest from the First and Second World Wars. The five mile walk* starts Redhill Remembers Circular from and finishes at the War Memorial at Shaw’s War Walk Corner, Hatchlands Road. The walk takes in landmarks including the Old Redhill Hospital, Redstone Cemetery and World War I Redhill Common. Pick up a leaflet from the pavilion in Memorial 1914 - 1918 Park or download a copy from our website at www.reigate-banstead.gov.uk/ww1. (*allow approximately 1 hour 45 mins) Acknowledgements Our grateful thanks to our contributors for their time, knowledge, pictures and input in collating this programme. Neil Uwins Funded with grateful thanks by the Armed Forces Covenant. Commemorative centenary programme 2017 Reigate & Banstead Borough Council Town Hall, Castlefield Road, Reigate, Surrey RH2 0SH www.reigate-banstead.gov.uk Introduction from the Leader Adopt a grave scheme Reigate & Banstead Borough Our successful Council is very proud of the part programme of As part of our project to restore the borough’s private war graves, local that local residents played in the commemorative schools, uniform groups (like the Scouts), organisations and residents First World War and is determined activities and events have taken on a crucial role to help look after them. that their bravery is remembered by continues in 2017, future generations. from remembering the centenary of Weeding plots, cutting the grass and keeping headstones and surrounds the Battles of Passchendaele and Since the start of our centenary clean will ensure the graves of the borough’s fallen are kept neat and tidy Vimy Ridge, to our popular ‘Discover commemorations in 2014, the over the coming years. WWI’ event and Remembrance Council has refurbished war services. memorials, revamped Redhill’s Volunteers are still needed to help care for war graves at certain sites, so Memorial Park and worked with local I would like to thank our local if you’d like to get involved, please call 01737 276322 or email residents, schools, uniform groups historians, history societies [email protected] to find out more. and the community to care for the and residents for their valuable borough’s war graves. contributions, without whom this publication would not be possible. We want to give people of all ages the opportunity to learn more about If you have an interesting story to tell Sources World War I and our borough’s role about the role of a friend, relative or and to come together to remember your community in the conflict please Source 1: www.bbc.co.uk/guides; those who fought or died in the get in touch (see back page for The Keep Military Museum: www.keepmilitarymuseum.org; conflict. contact details). The National Archives: www.discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk; “British Regiments 1914-1918” By Brigadier E. A. James; “Boy Cllr Victor Broad, Council Leader Soldiers of the Great War” by Richard Van Emden; Source 2: ‘The call of the Empire, the call of the war’, by Patrick Bishop, Contents Historian and author (from the Telegraph); www.gurkhabde.com Two Fusiliers by Robert Graves ........3 The call of the Empire, Introduction to the events of 1917 .....4 the call of the war ..............16 Source 3: Extracts from “The Great War as you may not know it” by Gabriele The Battle of Passchendaele.............5 On the Home Front ..........................18 Wills. A list of the books used to derive the information can be found at www.4yearsofww1.info Key World War I events in 1917 ........6 Did you know? .................................20 Mud... the ally of the Germans at The Dilemma ...................................21 Source 4: The levels of the underage recruits in the graphic are proportional to Passchendaele ......................8 The Remembrance flowers .............21 the estimated number of recruits for that year, based on a sample of Britain’s underage soldiers in WWI ..10 Redhill War Hospital ........................22 1,000 underage soldiers. Source: Boy Soldiers of The Great War, The Young Soldier Battalions .......... 11 Medical Officer’s report 1917 ..........22 Richard van Emden; www.bbc.co.uk/guide Merstham war memorial ..................12 Adopt a grave and Sources .............23 Events listing ...................................13 Redhill circular war walk .............. back Canadians at Vimy ..........................14 2 23 Redhill War Hospital Two Fusiliers by Robert Graves (1917) And have we done with War at last? Earlswood Common Workhouse Infirmary (built in 1915-16) was Well, we’ve been lucky devils both, requisitioned in May 1917 by the Army Council and became the Redhill War And there’s no need of pledge or oath Hospital. To bind our lovely friendship fast, By firmer stuff, The War Hospital was officially opened on 20 June by Lord and Lady Close bound enough. Ashcombe. It was affiliated to Croydon War Hospital and had 80 beds for wounded and sick servicemen. It had an operating theatre, x-ray By wire and wood and stake we’re bound, department and a massage department and was staffed by members of the By Fricourt and by Festubert, Surrey/108 Voluntary Aid Detachment. On 3 July 1917 the hospital received By whipping rain, by the sun’s glare, its first convoy of wounded. By all the misery and loud sound, By a Spring day, It became a first-line hospital, receiving the wounded direct from overseas. By Picard clay. The War Hospital closed on 31 December 1918. However, it continued to Show me the two so closely bound provide care for discharged soldiers still in need of medical treatment. As we, by the wet bond of blood, The site continued to be a hospital until its closure in 1991 and is now a By friendship blossoming from mud, housing estate. By Death: we faced him, and we found, Beauty in death, Source: Lost hospitals of London http://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/ In dead men, breath. Robert Graves was born in 1895 in Wimbledon. Although he secured a Borough of Reigate Medical scholarship at Oxford, when war broke out he volunteered for the Royal Officer’s report 1917 Welsh Fusiliers, aged 19. He went on to serve as a captain, alongside poet Siegfried Sassoon. “Three of the staff are in the army, consequently Graves was badly wounded at the Somme and was reported dead on his only urgent matters can receive attention. The 21st birthday. His obituary appeared in The Times. However, he survived Disinfecting Officer joined the Army in July, his injuries and was given home service for the rest of the war, keeping in and it has been impossible to obtain a capable contact with his poet friends behind the lines. substitute, with the result we have had to refuse Graves published his first collection of poems in 1916. Goodbye To All That both to disinfect large numbers of horse rugs (1929) is among the most compelling contemporary prose accounts of the from the Remount Depot, and also to comply First World War. with repeated requests to cleanse soldiers infested with vermin.” Following the war, Graves went to live in Majorca. He had a long career as a poet, novelist and university lecturer with well-known works including I, Claudius and The Golden Fleece. Robert Graves ceased writing after his 80th birthday. He died in 1985 in Majorca. 22 3 Introduction to the events of 1917 The Dilemma As the First World War entered its fourth year, major offensives continued by Jared Cross, a student at The Beacon School, Banstead in France, Belgium and Italy. It’s your duty to serve, they all said, For our England, our haven, born and bred. Among the most renowned battles of 1917 are the Third Battle of Ypres at “Your country needs you!”. “You are no exception”. Passchendaele and the Battle of Arras, when Canadian forces took Vimy To do my part I must enlist, no hesitation, Ridge. Anything for our beloved country, The conflict also escalated in other theatres of war including Palestine, She will stand tall as our honoured lady, Jordan, Salonika (Greece), Syria and Mesopotamia (Iraq). Soldiers from We must not let her sacred soils be tainted, the United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and across I shall defend the heaven she has created. the Commonwealth from as far afield as the West Indies joined the fighting. But what if I do not return to home, What if I fall on the battlefield at roam? Innovation in new weapons My sweet England how I will pine for you. technology advanced at an ever Expanses of pure countryside to view, increasing pace. The use of tank Solid blue sky, rivers so clear, English air niche, warfare increased on both sides as If I die, these memories alone have my heart at peace. did the use of U-boats and aircraft, leading to the first bombing raids on London. The Remembrance flowers With conscription into its second year, many communities felt keenly the The Poppy: John McCrae’s poem, In Flanders Fields, inspired loss of the menfolk away fighting, particularly those families whose loved the British Commonwealth to adopt the poppy as their symbol of ones would not return. Women and children continued to take on a greater remembrance. Its red flower is a poignant reminder of the blood role in supporting the war effort, in munitions, industry, agriculture and shed upon the fields. within their communities. The Alpine Myosotis: Not only are the flowers of the white Alpine Myosotis a potent symbol for peace, the German name This commemorative programme aims to give an overview of the key for the plant, Vergissmeinnicht, has the exact same meaning of events of 1917, illustrated with local stories and how things changed on the remembrance as it does in English: forget-me-not.