Admin/biog history
The letters were transcribed by Wilfred Hammond’s nephew, Pat MacCulloch of Toronto, in 1994, and the catalogue entries have been prepared from his work without checking systematically against the originals.
The background notes on the Hammond family are also his work:
My uncle, Wilfred Hammond was born in the little English market town of Wellingborough in February 1899.
When his sister May, my mother, died in 1986, amongst her effects was a little box containing letters written by him during the 1914-18 World War. I found them poignant reading.
At first we see his initial excitement as he takes to army life in a foreign country. Then, as the months pass, and he is submerged into the deadly routine of trench warfare, we see his increasing struggle to find anything new or cheerful to write home about. He wants to ease his mother’s worry for his continued safety, but what is there to say? His nonchalant accounts of his daily life give a graphic picture of the terrible conditions endured by the front-line troops in that war.
In his letters home we are also going to catch glimpses of the family in which he had grown up, and I’ll tell you a little about it. The central figure was Sarah, his mother, and most of his letters are directed to her. She was the one who week by week packed up and sent out the food parcels that meant so much to him. Wilf and his mother clearly had a close and loving relationship; in fact, remembering Sarah, who was my grandmother, it is impossible to think of anyone who would not have warmed to her loving and laughing personality.
I found an echo of my own young years in the tenor of Wilf’s letters. The love, the humour, the occasional teasing, the catchwords, indeed the evident fascination with words that we can find in Wilf’s letters, endured to be the characteristics of the family in which I myself grew up years later.
Wilf was clearly not as close to his father. George had been an apprentice in the speciality pork butcher shop run by Sarah’s father. He had married Sarah when she was suddenly orphaned at the age of seventeen by the almost simultaneous deaths of her parents.
Together they took over and carried on the butcher business. By the time war came in 1914 they had relocated to Bedford. The shop still stands there. It is easy for me to picture it the way it was then; big front window opening onto a white marble slab where joints of meat were displayed, the shop itself brightly lit by the new electric light, open until late at night, and with the family living in the cosy rooms behind and above the shop; an older member of the family always ready to respond to the cry of “shop!” whenever a customer was heard to enter.
I don’t know too much about George because he died before I was born. I do know that he was a merry kind of man, a great practical joker, and an innovator – he had the first automatic sausage making machine in the county! He was very proud of his machine and invited all the other butchers in the town to come and see it. He hadn’t put it together properly and when he turned it on all the chopping knives flew out. My grandmother used to rock with laughter as she described all those bulky butchers diving for cover. George in turn had an apprentice, one of whose jobs was to deliver the meat to the customers’ houses. For this they had a tricycle with a big box with a locker between the two front wheels. One hot day my grandfather got annoyed with the apprentice. He loaded up the tricycle and told the apprentice to make a delivery at the top of a big hill. The apprentice sweated his way up the hill, arrived at the delivery address, opened the box door to get the meat out – and out jumped my grandfather’s dog!
It was probably from the top of the same hill that he gave his daughter Eva her first and last lesson in bicycle riding. His theory was that with enough speed anyone could ride a bike. He launched Eva from the top of the hill before she really had any ideas as to how to steer or stop. She used to tell me about flying down the hill faster and faster towards a horse and cart that seemed to be going slower and slower. If you look at anything hard enough when you’re riding a bike you somehow can’t help running into it. I think Eva must have looked at the horse and cart very hard because she rode right into the back of the cart and flew over the tailgate into the dozen sheep that the farmer was taking to market.
My grandfather thought that was pretty funny, but Eva didn’t and she never got on a bicycle again”!
George and Sarah had six children, three boys and three girls.
Fred, the oldest boy, emigrated to the United States around 1910. He made his living first as a professional fighter, then as a plant guard at a Ford factory in Detroit. By way of contrast he was a keen amateur painter and frequently published writer. He was in his mid seventies when I came to Canada and
met him for the first time; but still teaching boxing at the Detroit Athletic Club. Like his father he was a humourist and practical joker; altogether a complex character.
Bob, the second son, became an engineer, and with a “reserved occupation” did not get called up when the 1914/18 war came. His wife is the Gertie mentioned in Wilf’s letters.
Wilf’s two older sisters; Beth, called “Sis”, and Eva (of bicycle fame); both became teachers. At the time of Wilf’s letters Beth had already married Harry, while Eva was going out with Lou, of whom I know nothing, since before the war was over she had married Ernest. Last to arrive was my own mother, May, also known as “Maisie” and “the littl’un”.
The stable world of Victorian small-town England changed for ever in 1914. Years of peace in Europe gave way to an almost universal readiness to go to war and to display the most violent patriotic fervour. Looking back eighty years it is almost impossible for us to understand the temper of those times, but then those were times before the true horror of modern warfare became known.
Wilf soon got caught up in all this. He had left school at fifteen and landed a good job in the office at the local generating station. Although he was still under age for military service he is said to have looked older. The girls in the office, again reflecting the spirit of the times, took to leaving white feathers – symbolizing cowardice – on his desk each morning.
So, in early 1916, and lying to conceal the fact that he was still only seventeen, Wilf enlisted.
In May of 1916 his battalion was sent across to France. Before then I doubt he had ever been away from his family, or indeed more than fifty miles from home in his life.
Wilf’s first message home was a greeting card hastily written as he embarked for France (ref: Z 1360/1/1). He didn’t want his mother to feel bad about not seeing him off, and as a loving son he chose and signed one designed to cheer her up. The caption reads, “When down in the mouth think of Jonah. He came out all right.”
From Folkestone a channel ferry carried them across to France, probably to the port city of Calais. From there they were transferred to a combined holding and training camp, there to be readied for the slaughter of the front line trenches.
Wilf was intrigued and excited by his new surroundings. Like any seventeen or eighteen year old he lived mostly for the day; in his letters we see no consciousness of the appalling conditions to which he and his comrades were being inexorably led.
Private soldiers like Wilf had little if any real understanding of the overall conduct of the war. Their horizon was the parapet of their trench, their
information was word of mouth rumour and what they could glean from the newspapers they received from home.
In the early days of the war there was little difference in outlook between the unblooded troops and the optimistic and widely patriotic tone of the papers. But as the war dragged on the fighting troops, trying to survive in conditions which to this day almost defy belief, came to realize that their reality was too much for the people at home, and that the newspapers reflected only an idealized, propagandized, view of the conflict.
Wilf was about to have his baptism of fire, going into the front line trenches for the first time just at the start of the battle of the Somme (refs Z 1360/1/9-10).
The German and French armies had fought each other to a standstill at Verdun. The French had lost 500,000 men and their army was on the verge of mutiny. It was time for the British army to draw the pressure off the French.
The British General Haig settled on a massive set-piece attack. The British infantry was ordered to attack across no-man’s land and open up a gap for the cavalry. The British artillery bombardment – an incredible million and a half shells – was supposed to have decimated the Germans and eradicated their extensive barbed wire defences.
But the Germans had survived in their deep bunkers and most of the wire was still intact. In the first day’s attack the British soldiers suffered appalling casualties when their charge was stopped by the wire. “The extended lines started in excellent order, but gradually melted away. There was no wavering or attempting to come back, the men fell in their ranks, mostly before the first hundred yards of No Man’s Land had been crossed.”(British Official History of the War, quoted in “The First World “War,” by John Terraine).
“As a display of bravery it was magnificent, as an example of tactics its very memory made one shudder.” (‘Prelude to Victory’ by Spears, quoted in “The First World War,” by John Terraine). Nearly 60,000 British troops were dead or wounded by nightfall.
Throughout the four and a half months of this battle the barbed wire was festooned with rotting bodies.
The cavalry was never used; in fact this is the point in history at which it became redundant. Later in the battle Winston Churchill’s new weapon, the tank, made its first appearance, but in insufficient numbers to greatly affect the outcome of the fighting.
The infantry were rotated into and out of the front line trenches on a fairly regular basis, so while the great battle of the Somme rumbled on we find Wilf out “resting” periodically.
Up to this point Wilf has managed to keep a cheerful tone to his letters. But the problem of writing often enough for his family to know that he was still alive, and yet having nothing new or cheering to say, begins to become apparent. But his essential humour also shows through.
September 15th [1916] was a big day for Wilf’s unit (between letters Z 1360/1/22 and 23). The Regiment’s war diary tells the story. A major attack was planned. The British artillery barrage began at 6 a.m. It was immediately answered by the German guns and one of their shells killed the four principal officers in Wilf’s battalion, the Commanding Officer, the Adjutant, the Signals Officer, and the Trench Major.
Surviving junior officers assumed command and at 6.20 a.m. led their troops over the parapet to charge across no-man’s-land behind the creeping barrage.
By 6.45 a.m. the first objective, the German front trench, had been taken in the face of fierce German machine gun fire.
At this point Churchill’s tanks made their first appearance. 40 tanks had been scheduled to go over the top, but only 24 were running. Ten of these were allocated to Wilf’s battalion. The idea was for the tanks to breach any of the wife left intact by the artillery, with the infantry following close behind. Where the tanks did not just break down this plan worked well and the Germans pulled back. By day’s end the final objective, the town of Flers, had been captured.
This letter was written at the height on one of the major battles of the whole war (Z 1360/1/26).
The wound that Wilf mentioned so casually in that last letter was received during the closing days of the infamous Battle of the Somme. Wilf had certainly come close to death when that bullet nicked the side of his ear, but at least he was still alive (Z 1360/1/27).
Three million men went into the battle of the Somme. It lasted four and a half months, cost over a million lives, and won eight miles of advance for the British forces.
Wilf’s letters indicate that he was in the line for at least three months of that battle, but one would never know from his letters.
Wilf came out of the Battle of the Somme with more than a hole in his ear.
In January 1917 the Official Gazette announced the aware of the Military Medal to him. I imagine that it was the incident mentioned which happened on the day he got “pipped” through the ear.
The previous letter (Z 1360/1/34) was written on what turned out to be the last day of the Battle of the Somme. A survivor described the scene, “a brass buckle; a fragment of leather, skull with curls matted upon it; puttee curled about leg bone….everywhere the dead had merged with the
ground…..Thousands upon thousands of helmets lay among the grass bents and thistle stalks. Anguish rose in him: wherever he looked, to whatever horizon…the grey wilderness extended in an arc of skyline fretted by stumps of trees.”
Then came a bitterly cold winter; “We were marooned on a frozen desert. There is not a sign of life, and a thousand signs of death. Not a blade of grass, not an insect; once or twice a day, the shadow of a big hawk,scenting carrion.”” (Wilfred Owen).
But the next summer an Official War Artist named William Orpen came to paint the scene, “Never shall I forget my first sight of the Somme in summertime…No words could express the beauty of it. The dreary, dismal mud was baked white and pure – dazzling white. White daisies, red poppies, and a blue flower, great masses of them, stretched for miles and miles. The sky a pure, dark blue, and the whole air…thick with butterflies; your clothes were covered with butterflies. It was an enchanted land: but in place of fairies, there were thousands of little white crosses marked “Unknown British soldier”….blue dragonflies darted about; high up the larks sang, higher still the aeroplanes droned….”
Fifty cemeteries were needed to house the British dead alone; and a great memorial arch commemorates another 73,000 men who simply disappeared in the mud and slaughter of the Battle of the Somme.
I imagine that Si Mason’s picture appeared in the local Bedford paper in connection with a “Mention in Despatches” or a medal. Wilf himself is displaying a modesty (Z 1360/1/35) typical of the Hammonds as I knew them.
The gap in letters, from before Christmas to January 13th (Z 1360/1/41) must have really worried the folk back home. By this point in the war the pride and glory days were over, and the daily casualty reports had become a dread part of life on the home front. The boys at the front, enduring dreadful living (and dying) conditions with no prospect in sight of an ending, faced the irony of having to find something, anything, to write home about in a way that would cheer and reassure their families.
On April 9th the third battle of Ypres began with a major Allied offensive. In the first major engagement, Canadian troops captured a major part of the strategically important Vimy Ridge, suffering frightful losses in the process.
The Allied attacks continued throughout April, May, and June.
Wilf was in that part of the front facing another piece of strategic high ground, the Messines Ridge which had been in German hands since 1914.
Preparations for attacking that ridge including driving nineteen tunnels under the enemy lines and packing them with explosives.
At dawn on June 7th nearly a million tons of TNT – the largest blast of the whole war – exploded under the German trenches. “The effect was like an earthquake. Tall rose-coloured mushroom clouds ascended into the air; the sound was clearly heard in London. Before it could die away, it was caught and redoubled in the tempestuous road or 2,266 guns and howitzers, laying down a barrage 700 yards deep.” (from “The First World War,” by John Terraine)
Then the British infantry went in.
The sound and spectacles of this explosion must have awed Wilf as he went “over the top” in this major infantry charge against the German lines…………….
…..so great a destiny! (Z 1360/1/61) What bitter irony! Wilf’s great destiny was to be swallowed by the Flanders mud at age nineteen, and to lie for ever in Bus House Cemetery near Ypres.
The “Bedfordshire Standard” Friday June 22nd, page 3.
“Military medallist killed in action”.
Officer’s tribute to gallant young Bedford hero.
We regret to record that news has been received of the death in action of Sergeant Wilfred Hammond, King’s Royal Rifles, youngest son of Mr and Mrs Hammond of 53 Tavistock Street, Bedford. The deceased sergeant who was only 19 last February, was formerly on the staff of the Borough Electric Light Department. He patriotically joined the Colours before he was of military age, and quickly proved himself a very keen and smart soldier, with the result that his promotion was as rapid as it was well deserved. He went to France on Empire Day, 1916, and in September of that year he was awarded the Military Medal for great presence of mind in action, when he took charge of a Lewis gun against the enemy, although not trained specially for that work. Sergeant Hammond, who has proved himself a brave soldier, was of a very retiring disposition, and it was with great difficulty he could be prevailed upon to recount his experiences. Great sympathy is felt for his bereaved parents, brothers and sisters in their great loss. The news was conveyed by Sergeant F Ryder K.R.R, in the following letter; Dear Madam, it is with much regret that I write these few lines to you to inform you of the great loss of your son. It is very hard for me to write, but, being his chum, I felt it my duty his loss is felt throughout the whole company as he was highly respected and a great favourite with all. I can assure you that he never suffered, his death being instantaneous, on the morning of the 7th inst. The men of his platoon, of which he was sergeant, and myself, send our deepest sympathy to you and all.
Since receiving the above letter Sergeant Hammond’s CO has written as follows “Dear Madam, I very much regret to inform you that during the recent heavy fighting your son was killed on the morning of the 7th instant.” (recites Z1360/1/60 in full).
The sad news was officially notified on Tuesday evening, with an expression of sympathy and regret of the Army council. The secretary of state for War also sent the following message: The King commands me to assure you of the true sympathy of his majesty and the queen in your sorrow.
Does one life count amongst so many? 12,824 men of Wilf’s regiment alone were killed in Flanders. That’s more than half of the total number that enlisted – all volunteers.
As always, Winston Churchill found the words that resonate, when he described General Kitchener’s “New Army,” the volunteer force in which Wilf went to war, “The finest we have ever marshalled, improvised at the sound of the carronade, every man a volunteer, inspired not only by love of country but by a widespread conviction that human freedom was challenged by military and Imperial tyranny, they drudged no sacrifice, however unfruitful, and shrank from no ordeal however destructive. Struggling forward through the mire and filth of the trenches, across the corpse-strewn crater fields, amid the flaring, crashing, blasting barrages and murderous machine-gun fire…they seized the most formidable soldiery of Europe by the throat, slew them and hurled them unceasingly backward…..the battlefields of the Somme were the graveyards of Kitchener’s Army. The flower of that generous manhood….which came at the call of Britain…..was shorn away for ever. (From “The Battle of the Somme,” by Christopher Martin).
Young Wilf was certainly shorn away from his family in everything but loving remembrances. His mother Sarah proudly wore his Military Medal ribbon on her top-coat for the rest of her years, but she never ceased to mourn his loss. It was the same with my mother Maisie. She and Wilf had been the two youngest children and were obviously very close. Throughout my childhood I can recall her talking lovingly and sadly about him. I also recall her fear when twenty two years later her sister Beth’s son Bill went off into the 1939-45 war. I remember her saying that hardly one family had come through the previous war without losing someone, how could it be different this time? Bill called in at our house on his way to the railway station to join his regiment; I remember her fears and tears as our front door closed behind him.
For myself, I knew about Wilf, but I didn’t really know him as a person until I started to go through his letters.
Here is a man whose spirit and sense of humour is barely dented by the dire circumstances in which he found himself, a man who can set aside his own tribulations to demonstrate his love and concern for his beloved mother and for the others in his family.
Here is a man of demonstrated bravery and leadership. And here is a man who, with just a very basic education, can show us to take pleasure in writing and playing with words.
I like the man that was Wilf, and I would love to have had him as an uncle. But then, I have to ask myself, considering the scale of the general carnage in that terrible war – over twelve million deaths – is there any justifiable reason to pick our and talk about just one dead soldier?
There must be. Otherwise Wilf died for nothing. He may have been just a cipher in the overall scheme of things but for so long as he is remembered by you, his family, even just once in a while, then there is something to be won from his life and his dying.
Consider the dreadful circumstances in which he lived out those twelve months in France. See in his letters the love and consideration he had for his mother. Her letters to Wilf could not survive, but his constant references to her parcels speaks for itself. So we see that mutual love and consideration can help lighten each other’s load.
Whether addressed just to his mother or not, Wilf’s letters were intended for his whole family. Let him remind us of the strength and support to be given and gained by treasuring family ties. Let it be Wilf’s destiny to renew our own sense of commitment to our families and to focus on those family values of support, encouragement, and love that Wilf so movingly espoused.