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TALES FROM THE WESTERN FRONT
CHAPTER 9 ◊ THE SHORT BUT EVENTFUL LIFE OF ALBERT BALL, VC
I suppose all that’s to be said about the life and career of Albert Ball VC has already been said. Done to death even, if I may be excused such an execrable pun. After all, he was just 20 in 1917 when his luck ran out over the muddy fields of French Flanders. However I’m going to have a crack at the subject in the hope that my recent research can add a little to what already exists. Now, where to begin? The houses where Albert lived in Nottingham, his home town, might be as good a starting point as any.
There seems to be a bit of confusion regarding the house in which Albert was born on 14 August, 1896, apparently 301 Lenton Boulevard. Both of his recent biographers, Chaz Bowyer in 1994 and Colin Pengelly in 2010 (see bibliography) agree on this and so there seems to be no mystery there. The difficulty arises in trying to trace the infant Ball’s domicile today for photographic purposes. You see, Lenton Boulevard was later incorporated into Castle Boulevard for reasons, I surmise, of civic orderliness. There remains today a terraced house of the correct period at Number 301, Castle Boulevard. However, is this the same number as in 1896? To muddy the water still further, Pengelly reveals that 301 Lenton Boulevard eventually became 245 Castle Boulevard. Unfortunately there’s no trace of that number today, just some contemporary commercial property where it should be.
However, a definite light was shone on these apparent contradictions in an article in ‘The Lenton Listener’, the magazine of the Local History Society. In Issue 14, published in 1981, it was revealed by none other than Albert’s older sister, Mrs Lois Anderson, that the address in Castle Boulevard was NOT her brother’s birthplace. Instead the great event occurred at 32 Lenton Boulevard, now given over to student accommodation. In fact most of Lenton Boulevard has, over the years, been given over to flats, in the process of which standards have fallen away sadly from the solid respectability of Albert’s day. Be that as it may, given the provenance provided by Lois, I submit that we can safely accept that this latter address is definitely where little Albert chewed on his first Farley’s Rusk. Though many might disagree with this rather cavalier assumption of authenticity, it’s the best I’ve been able to come up with. Where there is no doubt, however, with regard to the houses lived in by the Balls, is the decidedly upmarket dwelling which Albert left to go to war and, ultimately, to die
.
Sedgley House is still there at 43 Lenton Road in the prestigious Park District of Nottingham, high on a rise overlooking the canal. Purchased by Albert’s father, also Albert Ball, in early 1900 the house represented a significant move in the Ball family’s upward mobility. Though Albert Senior began his working life “in trade” in his father’s plumbing business, he rapidly progressed through a mixture of diligence and opportunism to the pinnacle of the booming local property market. As a result he became not only wealthy but also respected enough to be elected Mayor of the city, not just once but four times, and to be elevated to a knighthood in 1924. In their home up near the Castle, his wife, Harriet, and the children - Lois, Albert and the youngest, Cyril - led a privileged, one might even say idyllic, life high above and a world away from the less salubrious parts of the city.
As Chaz Bowyer, Albert’s first ‘modern’ biographer, indicates, “All three children benefited from the love and indulgence of a close-knit family life.” Father Albert, though a tiger in commerce was, apparently, more of a pussy cat with his offspring while Harriet was a loving mother totally devoted to their welfare. In return, the Ball parents received back the love and respect of their children, proof of which can be seen in Albert’s letters home from the Western Front. Cocooned in apparent happiness, Albert was able to grow into a fine, if short, physical specimen, always on the lookout for fresh adventures. One of his youthful exploits reveals both his courage, or foolhardiness, and a very good head for heights, both desirable attributes for an aspiring fighter pilot. On his sixteenth birthday he celebrated by accompanying a local steeplejack to the top of a factory chimney, a feat which, apparently, left him completely unfazed.
Albert’s great interest in machines and electricity was also encouraged by his father providing him with that object of so many boys’ dreams, a shed of his own. There Albert built radio and Morse equipment and even succeeded in reconstructing clapped-out petrol engines on his workbench, skills which would come in very handy as he sought perfection for his planes on the airfields of France. Young Ball also refined his skill as a marksman by blasting off with a handgun at various targets in the grounds of Sedgley. (Just imagine, dear reader, where such an exercise would land you in contemporary Nottingham. A swoop by an emergency response team and a lengthy spell at Her Majesty’s Pleasure perhaps? Ah, the good old days……) Knowing what we know now, these youthful pursuits seem to lend a kind of inevitability to Albert’s final destination, the cockpit of a fighter plane. However, as all this play and no work might make a dim boy, Albert’s schooling was not going to be neglected.
SCHOOLDAYS
To maintain or even improve upon their relatively lofty rung on the Nottingham social ladder, Father deemed it necessary that the siblings should acquire that prerequisite of gentrified ambition, a good education. For Albert, this meant a scholastic journey from Lenton Church School via Grantham Grammar and Nottingham High to the more rarified atmosphere of Trent College in nearby Long Eaton where he pitched up in 1910.
Trent College today is a very upmarket co-educational fee-paying school with several impressive new structures no doubt endowed by grateful alumni. Fortunately for the purposes of this current project, it still maintains those buildings which would have been familiar to Albert. When our hero arrived there he was coming to what the English refer to as ‘a minor public school’. To my American readers, this statement might come as somewhat of a surprise. ‘Minor’ Trent might have been; it most certainly was not ‘public’. Only a select number of pupils (boys only then) would have been permitted to enter its portals, their admission determined either by academic brilliance (a few) or the ability to pay (the many). In fact it was and remains a strictly private establishment.
Established in 1868 with the motto ‘Manners Makyth Man’ and based on the tenets of the Church of England, it was by 1910 a Spartan establishment embracing the then popular notion of muscular Christianity. It might well be an understatement to describe Albert’s Trent experience as ‘character forming’. Cold baths in the morning and little or no heating would certainly have jolted him out of his previous comfortable existence at Sedgley. As was common practice, the boys underwent a regimen of strict discipline and exhausting exercise designed to suppress their sex drives with the matron probably (or improbably – please yourself) playing backup by slipping a little bromide into their night-time cocoa. Such a regime did not always sit comfortably with Albert and it is at Trent that we first glimpse that resentment he would feel at what he perceived to be injustices, especially those engendered by the stupidity of those in charge of his destiny. One story recounted by both Bowyer and Pengelly involves Albert running away to sea after some run-in with authority at school. Apparently he ended up covered in coal dust in the engine room of a steamer outgoing from the port of Liverpool. Though there appears to be some doubt as to the authenticity of this tale, it is indicative that Albert was at least considered to be capable of such an act of rebellion, a refreshing thought given the prevailing stiff upper lip ethos of the time.Eventually, however, Albert seems to have fitted in reasonably well at Trent even to the extent of professing in one of his many letters home “a great love for my school”. What then, if anything did Albert get from his schooling? Well, quite a lot it seems.
It gave a lad, described by Peter Hart as “academically undistinguished”, a chance to develop those skills which he undoubtedly possessed. He followed his mechanical inclinations to such an extent that, by 1912, he was professing a strong desire to go into electrical engineering on leaving school. Realising that he lacked the theoretical knowledge necessary to fulfil this ambition and showing a maturity beyond his years, Albert really buckled down, taking an extra year to make up for his previous shortcomings in mathematics and technical drawing. In what little spare time remained, he continued those hobbies of carpentry and photography begun in the shed at Sedgley and even revealed a hitherto unknown artistic side by learning to play the violin, an instrument to which he would later turn in times of stress. In addition to all this, his spell in the Officers’ Training Corps (OTC) at Trent, though at first going somewhat against his natural grain, gave him a sense of military discipline. This OTC experience would be of paramount importance to Albert’s future, given his tendency occasionally to stand up to higher authority. It would also provide him with a fast track to promotion once he had taken the King’s Shilling.
Though Albert was not always at ease at Trent, often preferring his own company, the school undoubtedly had a profound effect on him and, by the time he left aged 17 in 1913, many of the beliefs and traits of character which he would carry with him to the grave were firmly in place. Prominent among these were the aforementioned resentment of strict discipline, a keen sense of what he perceived to be injustice, and, above all, intense loyalty to family, school and, ultimately, country.
As Albert strode through Trent’s gates at the end of the summer term in 1913 he presented a not unpleasing figure. A strong, stocky lad of five foot six inches, he was ready to take on the world outside - on his own terms of course. He also had a clear idea, unusual in one so young, of the direction in which he was going. In the first instance, that was back to Nottingham and the bosom of his family.
Not one to let the grass grow under his feet, Albert immediately set about getting himself a job, or at least his Dad did. Using his not inconsiderable influence, Mr Ball arranged for his son to be taken on by an electrical engineering firm in Castle Boulevard to gain vital practical experience. And that might have been that. Albert would follow his father up the ladder to commercial success and eventual civic honours . Unfortunately the consequences of an assassination somewhere in middle Europe was going to put paid to all their dreams and schemes. Just over a year after beginning his career, Albert put everything on hold to join the thousands of young men answering their country’s call to arms. On the 21st of September, 1914, Albert Ball, civilian, became Private Albert Ball in the ranks of the Robin Hood Battalion of the Sherwood Foresters.
OFF TO WAR
From the very beginning of his military career, Albert’s potential was spotted and he enjoyed a meteoric promotional boost, rising from humble private to 2nd Lieutenant within a month of his enlistment. All that bull and square-bashing in the OTC at Trent was now paying off though Albert did not see it that way. He wanted to get to France in a hurry to grapple with his country’s enemies but the very reason for his rapid promotion was to frustrate his immediate ambitions. His previous experience meant that he was just the man to train raw recruits and thus he was left, champing at the bit, in England. However, in 1915, Albert’s military career was about to take a radical new turn. On a posting to Hendon, he discovered the joys of flight.
By leading an exhausting double life as army officer and personally financed trainee pilot, Albert was awarded his pilot’s licence in October, 1915. With his ‘ticket’ to back him up, he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) for pilot training in England. At last Albert had achieved his goal. He was on his way to the Front. Sporting his crisp new pilot’s wings, he reported to Number 13 Squadron in France.
It was the 18th of February, 1916, and Albert’s war was about to begin in earnest.
For the first three months of his combat career, Albert was assigned to artillery spotting and photographic patrols piloting a two-seater BE.2c. Described thus by Jack Herris in ‘Aircraft of World War I’, “The reliable but vulnerable BE.2 series remained at the Front long after it was obsolete, suffering heavy losses to German fighters. Only their crews’ courage enabled them to carry on.”
From the very outset of his combat career then, Albert was having to dip into a not inexhaustible pot of bravery. However, relief was at hand. In May, all that Albert had been working towards came to fruition when he was assigned to a much faster plane, the nippy Nieuport Scout. At last he was a real fighter pilot ready to enter into aerial jousts with the enemy.
ALBERT AT WAR
Other authors, most notably the ones I have already cited, have covered Albert Ball’s wartime exploits better than I could ever do. What I intend, therefore, is to look at what remains of Albert’s all too brief life in an effort, perhaps a tad presumptuously and almost certainly in vain, to try to find out what kind of kid he was. But first, keeping to the present tack, let’s look very briefly at his record as a fighter pilot in the skies over the Western Front.
From April 1916 until his untimely but almost inevitable death in May, 1917, Albert Ball wrought havoc among the squadrons of the Imperial German Air Service. Flying mainly in Nieuport Scouts, he engaged in 68 reported combats in which he notched up 44 ‘kills’, 43 aircraft and 1 observation balloon. Eleven of his last twelve combat victories came in SE5s, a plane which, though superior to the Nieuport, was not rated as highly by Ball.
Along the way to his date with death he accrued medals and public adulation. He became just what the proverbial doctor ordered, a much-needed national hero at a time when the country was reeling under the daily blows of ever-lengthening casualty lists. How then did Albert rise from being just an “average pupil” to the lofty status of Britain’s leading ace in the space of fifteen months?
THE FLIER
From the very outset of his aviation career at Hendon, it was obvious that Albert relished flying despite, or maybe because of, the huge element of danger involved. The wobbly beginnings in training, which included crashing into some trees, he described as “a ripping time”. But such simple enthusiasm is not going to get you to the top, though it helps. In fact, it was their very keenness that got many brave young pilots killed. Success demands an X Factor (ahem) and Albert had its vital ingredients - complete, almost blinkered, dedication plus attention to detail. In fact he had them in spades and, once he was in France, he went into overdrive.
Contemporary sources reveal that Albert was constantly “prowling around”, watching what his mechanics, riggers and armourers were doing and generally checking that nothing, as far as he was concerned, was going to be left to chance. So keen was he, in fact, that he would get up before dawn to ensure that everything was to his satisfaction. The result was that he became as familiar with his machines as the members of his ground crew. All those hours pottering in his shed at Sedgley and the extra year at Trent were now beginning to pay major dividends. Content that his machine was in order, all that remained was for Albert to fly it. And how he flew it! Straight down the throat of the Hun.
BALL IN A CHINA SHOP
The renowned writer, Cecil Lewis, who was a contemporary in the RFC, described Albert’s combat style as follows.
“……his tactics were point blank, going right in, sometimes to within a few yards of the enemy, without the slightest hesitation……”
Preferring to attack the enemy from below, Albert would try for his opponent’s blind spot and then, in his own chilling words, he would “hose him”. As Peter Hart of the Imperial War Museum points out, these methods were extremely risky, resulting in frequent severe damage to his aircraft. Nevertheless Albert pressed on through the dark days of the Somme in 1916 and ‘Bloody April’ in 1917 to rack up an impressive number of victories. No longer just an “average” flier, Ball had become, through hard work, experience and “suicidal bravery”, a savage competitor to whom “superior numbers were as a red rag to the proverbial bull..….”
I use the word ‘competitor’ quite deliberately. Albert, like all great sportsmen, was fiercely competitive, becoming ever more obsessed with his ‘score’ as the victory tally mounted. He was set upon becoming the ace of aces, especially if it meant one in the eye for his great French rival Georges Guynemer.
NATIONAL TREASURE
Gradually news of Ball’s exploits had filtered home and, by the time he went on leave late in 1916, he had become a real celebrity. The newspapers, hungry for any good news in that dreadful year of the Somme, grabbed Albert’s coat tails and hung on like grim death. Albert was, quite simply, not only great copy but also “……a genuine hero……” who had established “……the true benchmark of courage.” (Peter Hart).
It helped, of course, that he looked like a hero. Just take a gander at the most frequently used photo of Albert, taken in early 1916.
He’s got ‘the look’, somewhat similar to Guy Gibson of Dambuster renown in World War II, whose exploits were equally used to cheer up a nation mired down in an apparently endless conflict. It now seems almost a paradox to observe that the nation’s happiness level in both wars relied on killing people, combatants and non-combatants alike. Understandable, I suppose, given the military casualties on the Somme in 1916 and the civilian losses in the Blitz of the early 1940s. Be that as it may, Albert was undoubtedly and deservedly England’s darling in that far-off November of 1916. Girls adored him, matrons wanted to mother him and men admired him. Not bad going for a lad just turned 20.
It would have been excusable if all this fame had gone to Albert’s head – but it didn’t. According to Peter Hart, “……most found Ball an unassuming lad despite the fame and honours that had been showered upon him……” So ‘unassuming’ in fact that he returned to France and to combat rather than remaining in England as an instructor. Life at the Front seems to have been preferable to Albert to the pressures of hero worship back home.
Now comes the flip-side. There was a price, a huge price, to be paid for medals from the King and the Freedom of the City of Nottingham. And Albert would pay his bill in full.
BATTLE FATIGUE
Albert’s letters home reveal just how “fagged” he was. Towards the end of the Somme campaign, the signs were beginning to show. “I was feeling very rotten and my nerves were poo-poo……Oh, I am feeling in the dumps……”
It’s impossible to know whether or not this nervous exhaustion was exacerbated by Albert’s ‘loner’ tendency. Throughout his flying career he preferred to shift for himself to the extent that he constructed a wooden shed (shades of Sedgley) on his main airfield in France. There he lived by himself, tending his little vegetable patch and spurning the chance to indulge in high jinks in the mess. Maybe he should have ‘got out more’ but hangovers would have interfered with his efficiency and close relationships in wartime usually lead to pain. Also he could play his violin without upsetting his colleagues.
Despite this horticultural therapy and regular fiddle playing, by April, 1917 Albert was more than just ‘poo-poo’; he was nearing the end of his tether. By May 3, 1917, he was “feeling so old” while in his last letter dated May 6, 1917, he revealed to his sister Lois that he had lost in a draw for leave. Characteristically, he brushed off any justifiable disappointment, resentment even, with the observation that it had been “a sporting chance”. Next day, instead of being on a leave train for Boulogne, he had embarked on that last flight from which he never returned.
So that’s that, I suppose - Albert, dead and buried (by the Germans incidentally).
But who was it they were interring?
Who was Albert Ball, VC?
Intriguingly, the Albert revealed through his letters and the work of previous writers presents us with a series of paradoxes. A savage fighter with sympathy for his opponents. A hustling entrepreneur with plenty of ambition yet a traditional romantic with the girls. A bit of a rebel but, ultimately, a slave to duty.
ALBERT AND THE HUN
We’ve already looked at Albert the hunter-killer but not at how he regarded his prey. The surviving letters in the Nottinghamshire Archives reveal a surprising attitude in one so devoted to killing the enemy. It quickly becomes obvious that, to Albert, his opponents were just ordinary Johanns duty-bound to do their job, just as he was.
A letter to his father at the height of the air battle over the Somme in July, 1916, shows us a young man far removed from the gung-ho hero created by the media. It’s also very instructive in showing the gap that existed between the armchair generals in Blighty with those at the sharp end of battlefield reality.
“You ask me to let the devils have it when I fight. Yes, I always let them have it when I can, but really I don’t think of them as devils. I only scrap because it is my duty, but I do not think anything bad about the Hun. He is just a good chap……trying to do his best. Nothing makes me feel more rotten than to see them go down, but you see it is either them or me, so I must do my best to make it a case of them.”
A later missive :
“I feel so sorry for the chaps I have killed. Just imagine what their poor people must feel like……However it must be done……”
And, finally, just prior to his death :
“Oh! I do get tired of always living to kill and am really beginning to feel like a murderer……”
This obvious regret at having to kill shows a surprising maturity in one so young but I suppose boys grew up quickly in the cockpit of a Scout. To what extent this attitude prevailed among fighter pilots on the Western Front, I have no idea. However it certainly contrasts sharply with that of Edward ‘Mick’ Mannock VC, another leading British ace, who, when apprised of the death of the fabled Red Baron, Manfred von Richthofen, observed, “I hope he roasted the whole way down……”
Ironically, it would be Mannock who eventually ‘roasted’, not the Baron.
Peter Hart’s research has uncovered evidence that a vestige of that fabled chivalry of old survived in the skies of France even if there was precious little in the mud below. For example, having engaged in a furious dogfight Albert found that not only he but also his opponent had exhausted their ammunition at which point “……we both burst out laughing……it was so ridiculous. We flew side-by-side laughing at each other for a few seconds and then waved adieu……He was a real sport that Hun.”
In the final analysis, however, Albert knew that he was there to do a job, reducing the number of Germans flying about over France. He was also fully aware that his was a dirty job but someone had to do it.
Duty, duty. Always bloody duty.
However, away from all the guts and glory there existed another Albert Ball, Albert the young Lothario. He may have been a loner when surrounded by males, taciturn even, but put him in close proximity to a pretty female and he became positively garrulous.
ALBERT AND THE BIRDS
Although it’s likely that Albert would have been seen as ‘a bit of a catch’ in his social circle in Nottingham, he doesn’t seem to have had any ‘serious’ relationships there. Nevertheless, as Colin Pengelly reveals, he did not lack for female companionship locally. However it was once he was in the RFC uniform, badged and booted and positively glowing with glamour, that he was on his way to the stars so far as girls were concerned.
From time to time he would have momentary misgivings about what he supposed to be his philandering ways. During these brief bouts of guilt he would unburden himself to his family, especially his father, in his letters home. On his 19th birthday, for example, he confesses to a positive charge sheet of romantic banditry. Beginning with “a ripping little girl” whom he is leading on with no “genuine” intentions, he is overcome with apparent remorse.
“Now I look back on the last two years and see what a rotter I have been. I have fooled two girls that you know of, and, of course, I have made heaps of other girls think I liked them that you didn’t know of. I really do feel a bit of a rotter but I really mean to stop now……I will try.”
Oh, yes. I’m sure you will, Albert. Time will tell.
What are we to make of this “rotter” Albert, especially in light of these further revelations?
“Really I cannot say what a job it is for me to be satisfied with just one girl, but it is a huge job……”
While, in reply to his father’s remonstrations with regard to his behaviour over Yuletide, 1915, when he went out with “a few girl friends” in Nottingham while at the same time professing great love for another, “special” girl, we find :
“Do please remember that it was Xmas time, also no one was at home……Don’t forget that I am not exactly an Angel……”
At first glance it would appear that Albert had been cutting a swathe of sexual voracity across the midlands and south of England. More realistically perhaps, he just liked female company and basking in the praise offered by impressionable little girls. What evidence can I offer for this interpretation? None at all, just a feeling that Albert was one of those for whom the thrill of the chase was as important as the capture. Much like he flew in fact.
The ‘special girl’ referred to above whom Albert had ‘betrayed’ at Xmas time, 1915 was his first serious girlfriend, Thelma Starr, known to Albert as ‘Pup’ or ‘Tec’ and, eventually and almost unbelievably, “Nipper”. Don’t ask.
This bestowing of incredibly twee nicknames is definitely Albert’s most annoying trait and suggests, to me at least, in its childish naivete that his relationships with the girls were essentially of an ‘innocent’ variety.
Thelma was the daughter of a manufacturer of domestic pots in Nottingham. Aged only about 14 and looking considerably younger with white ankle socks and pigtails, it’s not surprising that Albert’s family were never happy about this relationship. Whether for social reasons or because of her age, they constantly tried to get Albert to give ‘Tec’up which, predictably, he refused to do. Until, that is, the end of 1916 when she seems to have met someone else. Presumably a chap who didn’t call her daft names.
Never short of female company, Albert immediately declared himself to be in love with Dollie about whom nothing is known except for the fact that she was soon discarded for the latest model in March, 1917.
Flora Young was, apparently, the love of Albert’s life, given his rather elastic interpretation of the meaning of the word 'love'. She was certainly the most ‘suitable’ of his long list of girlfriends - own car, well-off and pretty. She was also at 18 quite a mature addition to Albert’s list. Given his predilection for annoying nicknames and fast working, it should not come as a surprise that Flora swiftly became ‘Bobs’ and the subject of another whirlwind onslaught. From an initial spin in Albert’s plane on the 24th of March they had progressed to the position of ‘unofficial engagement’ by the time he left for France in late April. In place of a ring he gave her a gold identity bracelet. The prayer book Bobs gave to Albert was found on his broken body on a field in France on May, 7.
It was all over.
No more nicknames, no more flirtations, no more anything.
DEATH OF A LEGEND
Combine Albert’s bravery with his intense desire to be the ace of aces, add his highly individual tactics and a definite touch of battle fatigue to the mix and Albert’s death seems, in retrospect, inevitable.
Taking off in the early evening of May 7, 1917, Albert was piloting an SE.5, an excellent aeroplane but not his machine of choice. When the flight he was leading was attacked by five Albatros D.3s, Albert engaged in a brief skirmish during which he forced down Lothar von Richthofen, younger brother of you know who. Flying into heavy cloud, it would appear that Albert, despite his experience, became disorientated. Emerging from the cloud upside down and at too low an altitude to recover, he ploughed into farmland near Annouellin. He didn’t stand a chance and died shortly afterwards in the arms of a young French woman.
Albert was buried with full military honours by the Germans in their graveyard at Annouellin where he lies to this day, a lone Englishman surrounded by his former enemies.
A more appropriate ending could not have been devised by the kitschiest of screenwriters.
ALBERT BALL – THE AFTERMATH
For Albert’s contemporaries, the most immediate effect of his death was a temporary blip in the general morale of the RFC. However there would be precious little time for mourning; staying alive was a more pressing priority. But there was another consequence to Albert’s death, one that has nothing to do with rationality.
Peter Hart reveals that an almost cult-like belief arose concerning the circumstances of his final flight.
“The death of a great ace……often became enshrouded in as much mystery as the demise of a medieval saint. The fact that Ball was last seen flying into an ominous thundercloud only added to the slightly Arthurian nature of the reports of his death.”
Despite the fact that Albert was firmly planted six feet under the turf of France, a belief persisted among some impressionable souls that he would return some day to pick up the torch once more. Like a latter day Sir Francis Drake responding to the call of his Drum. Or the Bowmen. Or the Angel of Mons. All baloney, of course, but there was a lot of that particular sausage around at the time, understandable I suppose given the almost surreal nature of the casualty lists. Even the inscription on his grave lends some support to this view.
“Fighting Gloriously” Albert didn’t die. Instead he “Passed Over”.
Back home the news of his death shattered his mother. Most poignant, or spooky, depending on how you view such behaviour, she kept his room at Sedgley exactly as Albert had left it and so it remained until her own death in 1931. His father assuaged his grief in more practical ways, erecting a marker, which continues to survive the ravages of time and pig dung, on the approximate site of Albert’s death and commissioning an impressive tombstone in the German cemetery in Annouellin.
In fact, Albert Senior seems to have been made of some pretty stern stuff. He soldiered on, becoming Lord Mayor of Nottingham yet again, receiving a knighthood and even finding the energy to remarry before his eventual demise in 1946 aged 83.
His son would, I think, have been proud of him.
LATER MEMORIALS
Albert is remembered in a variety of ways in the Nottingham area. At Trent College there is a portrait and a propeller blade while in the city itself there is a magnificent memorial up at the Castle where he forever gazes skywards.
Also at the Castle, in the Sherwood Forester’s Regimental Museum there is an impressive display of relics and medals. Certainly the most practical legacy of his death locally is the Albert Ball Memorial Homes in Lenton just down from the church where the family worshipped. These houses were presented by Mr and Mrs Ball to be occupied by the widows and mothers of Lenton men who had been killed in action. They stand there today, albeit in need of some good old TLC, a reminder that sometimes good can come out of tragedy.
The greatest tribute to Albert however exists not in Nottingham but far away back in Annouellin in France. There the local secondary school is ‘Albert Ball College’, a name chosen by the pupils themselves relatively recently.
Albert Ball College, Annouellin - Perhaps a man doesn't always die when he stops breathing.
CONCLUSION
When I began this chapter, it was with the feeling that it would all be done and dusted in the space of a couple of pages and a few photos. Yet here I am, around 6000 words later, still searching for the essence of Albert and finding only paradoxes.
Devoted to his family, though not above challenging his father from time to time.
Equally devoted to his country and yet a bit of a rebel.
As keen as his father on making money, even to the extent of flogging cars and motorcycles to his RFC companions, yet also a hopeless romantic.
Polite and affable yet a loner at heart.
The terror of the skies and yet a deeply religious boy with a conscience about killing.
A national hero, idolised wherever he went, but innately modest.
Contradictions everywhere.
So what certainties are we left with?
Simply this one - Albert was a 100% genuine hero.
But the following words with which he closed one of his last letters to his family perhaps show us the real Albert Ball and what might have been.
Tons of Love,
Albert
APPENDIX
ALBERT’S MEDALS
Military Cross – Gazetted 27 July, 1916
Distinguished Service Order (DSO) – Gazetted 22 September, 1916
Bar to DSO – Gazetted 22 September, 1916
Bar #2 to DSO- Gazetted 25 November, 1916
Thus Albert became the first treble DSO recipient.
Russian Order of St George – Gazetted 16 February, 1917
French Legion d’Honneur – Gazetted 2 June, 1917 (Posthumous)
The Victoria Cross – Gazetted 8 June, 1917 (Posthumous)
Not a bad haul for a little lad from Nottingham.
The Albert Ball Memorial Display
Holy Trinity Church, Church Street, Lenton, Nottingham
Ball Family Memorial Plaque, Holy Trinity
CHAPTER 10 ◊ "LET RIGHT BE DONE!" - THE WINSLOW BOY
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