George Goodenough

LEVERSTOCK GREEN WAR MEMORIAL 1914 - 1918

EDWARD GEORGE GOODENOUGH 1892 – 1916

 7.30am, 1st July 1916, Zero hour. All along the front line, officers in the trenches blow whistles and their soldiers scrambled up ladders to go "over the top" for the infantry the battle of the Somme had started. There was no running, instead the troops were ordered to walk towards the enemy lines. Met with relentless and continuous machine gun fire thousands of brave young men were cut down in minutes. One of those young man was Edward George Goodenough; popularly known as George the fourth child to Frank Joseph and Elizabeth, born 19th May 1892 with his baptism taking place in the village church of Leverstock Green two months later on July 10th.  Parents Frank aged 23 and 21 year old Elizabeth Tarbox  had married in the village church on 14th March 1885. Elizabeth was a local girl from Leverstock Green who worked with her mother as a laundress, whilst her father was an agricultural labourer, Frank was originally from the village of Swanwick in Hampshire.

Three months after their marriage a daughter, Catherine was born, unfortunately she survived only for 5 days, born next was Ethel in 1887, followed by Ada 1890, Edward 1892, Ruth 1898, James 1899 and Herbert in 1902.

Frank manufactured house bricks probable at the Acorn brick works at Bennetts End as he lived close by, first in the area of Hill End. The time spent here was at least until Ada was born, before moving to a semi-detached home known as New Cottage, in Tile Kiln Lane, Bennetts End and it's here the family would stay. In the following years living conditions in New Cottage would became cramped with the arrival of small children, not until Ethel married in 1909 to William Freeman would conditions start to improve. This house is still standing but with a dual carriageway running through the back garden, it’s now a far cry from the peace and tranquillity of those far off days.

Along with most other children from Bennetts End George attended Leverstock Green School; although some children travelled as far as Nash Mills to school, this could have been due to overcrowding at Leverstock Green School.

George played for the village football team as a forward and seems to have worked hard as on one occasion and being 6 – 0 down the Gazette reported him as being the only player working hard to score.  Leverstock went on to lose 10 – 0.

Each year a village fete took place and below are two extract from the Hemel Hempstead Gazette.

Greasy Pole. -  In this amusing competition Jimmy Fossey “the greasy pole chap” after a very hard struggle was successful in reaching the ham at the top of the pole.  He has now won this event three years in succession.       

Football tournament - in three heats The winners were E. Rance, B. Mayo, T.Perkins, G.Goodenough, each of whom received a walking stick.

By the summer of 1914; the youngest of the children, 12 year old Herbert had joined his two brothers and sister Ruth working "Down the Mill "as John Dickinson’s situated at Apsley Mills was known.

George was such an active sports person and worked in the Book Department;

Is he one of these players?

If you can name any person in this photo or know about the Uncles Cup, please let me know.

 Teams were still playing in the Uncles Cup Competition during 1920, such as Nash Mills, Wards Saw Mills of Bourne End, Fosters, Apsley Mills Engineering Department, the Envelop Department, the Stationery Department, the Book Department, and Home Park.

ARMY SERVICE

On the outbreak of war and employed in the Book Department of John Dickinson Ltd, George was to answer his country’s call within three weeks of the war’s start, being the 66th person to enlist at the recently opened recruitment centre in Marlows. 56 other men will have enlisted from the book department by 3rd October 1914.

In the early days of the war the Gazette carry lists of men who had joined the forces with such headings as “DICKINSON'S ROLL OF HONOUR. A SPLENDID RESPONSE” followed by the names of all who had joined up.

George’s army service records have not survived but some of his service history can be found using his medal index rolls and the War Diaries of the units he served in. George arrived in France on 24th March 1915, as private 387, 8th cyclist company, Army Cyclist Corp, 8th Division, a few weeks after the Division had participated in the battle of Neuve Chapelle, where it had taken high casualties. 

The cyclist company were in billets at La Gorgue in the north of France when on the afternoon of the 28th March 52 soldiers from England arrived, George was most likely one of them. Whilst in France he would have received the sad news of his mother’s death during August 1915.

 The primary roles of the Cyclists located at the various headquarters throughout the division was reconnaissance and communications, delivering messages. They were armed as infantry and could provide mobile firepower if required but also spent much time in trench-holding duties and used as workers for a variety of construction jobs.

 George was killed in Action on July 1st 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme, and the first of 5 men from Leverstock Green to be killed during this battle that raged on until November. Having been transferred from the Cyclist Corp along with 76 other cyclist to the 2nd Bn Berkshire Regiment, issued a new Regimental number of 27458. The Berkshire battalion had been receiving drafts of men thought out May.

This battalion one of four in 25th Brigade, 8th Division.

On the last day of June the Berkshire battalion were in a camp in Long Valley near Albert. The Battalion paraded about 9.15pm in readiness to proceed to its assembly positions for the coming assault.

The Battalion took up its assembly position in the front line trenches with the 2nd Bn LINCOLNSHIRE REGT on the left and the 2nd Bn DEVONSHIRE REGT on the right.

July 1st 1916. The assault began at 07:30 hours when the greatest artillery barrage ever fired by the British Army lifted, allowing the troops to go “over the top” and on to the German lines.  Never before had so many men walked to a certain death.  British casualties stood for the day at 57,470, of whom nearly 20,000 were dead.  A black day indeed, but a one off, the average daily casualties for the battle was 2,950 killed, wounded and missing.

The 2nd Berkshires attack on the French village of Ovillers did not start well, The battalion's war diary gives the following description; 

The barbed wire was not sufficiently cut and parties were immediately sent out by Companies to clear it. At 6.25am the intensive bombardment began as scheduled. At about 7.15am the enemy opened rifle and machine gun fire on our line; this fire was probably drawn by the 2nd DEVON REGT which at about this time attempted to line up in front of their parapet.

At 7.30am the three assaulting Companies advanced to attack the German line. They were met by intense rifle and machine gun fire which prevented any of the waves reaching the enemy lines. A little group on the left of the Battalion succeeded in getting in, but were eventually bombed out.

At about 7.45am the COMMANDING OFFICER (LT COL A.M. HOLDSWORTH) and SECOND IN COMMAND (MAJOR G.H. SAWYER DSO) were wounded in the sap on the left of our front, the commanding officer handed over Command of the Battalion to 2nd Lieutenant C. Mollet (ACTG ADJT) by this time the parapet was swept by rifle and machine gun fire which prevented any exit from our trenches. The enemy replied to our intensive bombardment by barraging the front line from about 6.35am onwards. No message was received from other Battalions in immediate vicinity.

At about 11am the order came from Brigade Headquarters to "stand by" and await further orders.

About 200 men of the Battalion were collected on the right of the front line and in the assembly trenches off ULVERSTON Street.

At about 12.30pm news was received that the Brigade would be relieved.

At about 3pm Major Hon R. BRAND, 2nd Rifle Brigade arranged to take over all the front line and with the sanction of the Brigade the Battalion was withdrawn to RIBBLE STREET.

On relief by the 37th INFANTRY BDE, the Battalion marched back to bivouac in LONG VALLEY.

TWO LEWIS GUNS were damaged; Steel Helmets proved invaluable and in numberless cases saved men’s lives.

WHAT HAPPENED

The German front had been held by them for nearly two years, within this time they had constructed extremely strong lines of trenches along the high ground protected by lavish belts of wire entanglements with very deep underground shelters for the infantry.

On 24th June the week long British preliminary bombardment began trying to destroy German positions by the firing off over a million shells.

Ovillers la Boisselle is a village Northwest of Albert, this was the 8th Divisions objective on July 1st, using part of each of its three Brigades for this attack.  It was also known that right from the start that there was no chance of success if the flanking Divisions did not make any simultaneous progress with 8th Division.

With 25th Brigade in the centre, to its right was 23rd Brigade, who were to advance up Mash Valley, so called because the neighbouring valley was named sausage valley, due to a German Balloon (the sausage) always flying over it.  70th Brigade was on the left.

25th Brigade was thought at the time to have the easiest task inasmuch that it would be out of sight of the German defenders of Ovillers for the first three to four hundred yards of its advance to capture this village.

Whilst the final minutes of the bombardment was going on the troops began to move out into no man's land, which for some Battalions was as much as 800 yards wide, there they started to come under fire from machine guns and rifles.  At 7:30 am the bombardment lifted and the troops advanced across very exposed terrain into appalling fire which grow in volume the closer they moved to Ovillers, which in itself proved to be a terrible obstacle.  By 9:00 am over half of the Battalion had become casualties, 437 in total for the day, of these 148 were killed.  By 7:50 am parties of soldiers from the Lincolnshire regiment had managed to cross no man's land, but were forced out with the survivors returning to the British front line.  With no gains made, the attack along this section of front was a total failure.

The battalions used for the attack from 25th Brigade were the 2nd Royal Berks and 2nd Lincolnshire regiment.  Due to the losses incurred this day it would take three and a half months to regain the divisions fighting capability, hence a saying at the time “It took 2 years in the making and 10 minutes in the destroying”.

Hemel Hempstead was to have 6 of its young men killed this day on the Somme.

They were:-

MEMORIAL

George was 24 years old when he was killed and has no known grave, but is remembered on Pier and Face 11 D of the Thiepval memorial to the missing.

Named as George on the order of service for the parish church at Easter 1919, the village school war memorial, and the Leverstock Green War Memorial, on Apsley Mills memorial as G E Goodenough and E G Goodenough on the Hemel Hempstead town War Memorial.

Thiepval Memorial

The Thiepval Memorial, the Memorial to the Missing of the Somme, bears the names of more than 72,000 officers and men of the United Kingdom and South African forces who died in the Somme sector before 20 March 1918 and have no known grave. The memorial, designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens, was built between 1928 and 1932 and unveiled by the Prince of Wales, in the presence of the President of France, on 1 August 1932

MEDALS

1914-15 Star

War Medal

Victory Medal

LEVERSTOCK GREEN WAR MEMORIAL 1914 - 1918