1915-16

286 Brigade in training 1915-16

Francis Schultz – my maternal grandmother’s brother – was a Sergeant in 286 Bde. He was 18 when War broke out and he was still 18 when he enlisted the following May. In the aftermath of the sinking of the Lusitania (7 May 1915), there was a surge in recruitment and he enlisted in the West Lancashire Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery (later renamed and numbered 286 Brigade). Francis kept a diary which covers the period from June to October 1915 and provides an insight into training and preparation at home while the war was at stalemate in France.

In each artillery brigade there are various specialist roles, such as gunner, driver, wheeler, saddler, etc. Francis was a signaller. From his diary we learn, for example, that on 22 June, Francis is told to go as a telephonist on a firing course on Salisbury Plain and on 26 June he gets the night train to Amesbury, where he joins 285 and 286 Brigade on the firing range. On the ranges on 29th, he says ‘285 Bde fire and they do badly’, he’s out again the next day with 286 Bde, who do better. On Saturday he is late for duty and gets a stern lecture from the officer. After firing practice, ‘we all go into the village and nearly all the men get drunk’. Firing practice continues during early July and the performance of the Brigades is at best patchy. Comically, on 5 July, ‘the horses are put to graze in a field from which they escape and we have to chase them for miles, an experience which those mounted enjoyed. We get them back safely after a 3 hour chase.’ Later in the week, they practise range-finding assisted by an aeroplane and wireless communication. Their firing practice comes to an end on 11 July and they move to Larkhill Camp. They sleep in a harness room as they don’t want to bunk up with strangers, and from their room they have a good view of Stonehenge, 2 miles away. The following day (12 July), they are up at 2.30 to start their journey to Minden Barracks, Deepcut, where they arrive at 11.30, and that afternoon Francis learns that he is to be allocated to ‘A’ Battery (most of the other men from Bamber Bridge were allocated to ‘C’ Battery; it’s not clear why Francis was allocated to a different unit but from his diary he seems already to be destined for promotion, and indeed, by the end of training (end of 1916) Francis had been promoted to Sergeant).

But back to 12 July 1915, when a ‘rather unpleasant incident occurred’. Francis and his mates were walking round the camp (Deepcut), which was also being used as an internment camp for German prisoners of war – this is a relatively novel phenomenon as thus far in the War few prisoners have been taken and fewer still brought back to England. ‘A Lancashire regiment was guarding the prisoners and one of them spat at a sentry who immediately ran his bayonet through him. The other guards followed suit and several prisoners were killed in a very short time.’ Francis doesn’t say what happened next but according to other sources, the camp commander had a second fence built around the perimeter of the prison camp so guards and prisoners were kept well apart, but no disciplinary action was taken against anyone involved. Francis was just coming up to his 19th birthday when he witnessed this (what would now be considered a war crime). The picture shows Francis (in the middle) with two of his mates (from Lostock Hall), around that time. Bert Nickson (on the left) was killed at Passchendaele in 1917, Tom Craven (on the right) survived the War.

But what is an artillery brigade?

An artillery brigade was made up of four batteries (usually, denominated A, B, C and D, D being a Howitzer battery), and each battery had a total crew of 198 men and six guns. The Q.F. (Quick Fire) 18pdr Gun was one of the main field artillery pieces of the War. It came into service in 1904 and by the end of the War over 10,000 had been produced. It was a very effective weapon and some remained in service until World War 2. It weighed 1.5 tons, had a crew of 10 to operate it, and was drawn by 6 horses. It could fire up to 30 18lb shells per minute and had a maximum range of 9,300 yards (over 5 miles). It was a very versatile weapon, being capable of firing a wide range of shells with different contents and purposes: high explosive, smoke, poison gas and shrapnel. It is estimated that during the War close to 100 million shells were fired. The picture shows RFA in training at Deepcut Barracks in Surrey in 1916.

Francis’ diary stops in October 1915, but the West Lancashire Brigades continued their training together, in Kent, Surrey and Wiltshire until they embarked for France in February 1917. By this time, Francis had been promoted to Sergeant. In the picture below, Francis is standing, second from the left, with the other sergeants from ‘A’ Battery, 286 Brigade.

The final picture shows “C”Bty of 286 Bde in November 1916 – after training and before embarking for the front in February 1917.