William Thomas Butcher(s) (1892-1916)

Post date: Sep 16, 2015 2:45:32 PM

Willie's name was registered at his birth in the final quarter of 1892 as Thomas William Butchers, but he was known as Willie and the order William Thomas was often used (following the practice of his father Stephen Thomas or Thomas Stephen). To make matters more confusing, the s at the end of Butchers was sometimes dropped.

He attended Wateringbury School.

He lived, aged 18 at the the time of the census in 1911, with his father (described as a "labourer") and mother (Annie) and 5 younger siblings in a 6 room dwelling in Fuller's Corner (close to the junction of the Tonbridge Road with Dann's Lane) . His mother had 8 children born alive but by 1911 one was dead and one had left home. He is described as a gardener in the census (one of many such in the village) but when he enlists 4 years later he gives his occupation as a footman. Also from Hermitage farm, near Fuller's Corner and killed at the Somme were Thomas Weller and Charles Winter. George Clements also came from Fuller's Corner but survived the war.

He enlisted at Maidstone on 11^th May 1915 into the Royal West Kent Regiment (service number 6448) but was transferred to the Border Regiment six months later on 9^th November. His medical examination on enlistment records his age as 22 years and 6 months, that he was 5 feet 10 ³/₈ inches tall, weighed 157 pounds, had a chest measurement of 38 ¹/₂ inches; a bulging below a scar of an operation for hernia is noted but did not disqualify him for service.

Willie joined his battalion, the 1^st Battalion Border Regiment⁵, in France on 27^th March 1916. At the outbreak of the war the battalion had been in Burma, had returned to the UK in December 1914 before going to Gallipoli in April 1915. The battalion was evacuated from Gallipoli to Mudros then Alexandria in January 1916, having suffered heavy casualties from combat, disease and weather before going to France in March, when William joined what was then a well seasoned body for the 3 months before his death.

The War Diary (Army Form C 2118) of the 1st Battalion Border Regiment is available at The National Archivers (reference WO 95/2305/1). The following is a transcription of the handwritten diary for the 1^st July 1916, the first day of the Somme offensive³ (or The Battle of Albert) and the date of William's death:

7.30 a.m¹. The Btn. (less 10%⁸) advanced just south of BEAUMONT HAMEL⁶ their objective being BEAUCOURT REDOUBT⁷.

The 2^nd S.W.B⁹.s whose objective was the first two GERMAN LINES were wiped out by machine gun fire in our own wire.

The 1^st Btn THE BORDER REGT. then went over the top from our support line, and over our first line, the

bridges over our front trench having been ranged by the GERMAN MACHINE GUNNERS⁴ the day previously

we met with heavy losses while crossing these bridges and passing through the lanes out in our

wire. The men were absolutely magnificent, and formed up as ordered outside our wire,

made a right incline, and advanced into "NO MAN'S LAND"¹⁰ at a slow walk² also as ordered.

The advance was continued until only little groups of half a dozen were left here and there

and these, finding that no reinforcements were in sight, took cover in shell-holes or wherever they could.

8.00 a.m. The advance was brought entirely to a standstill.

8.15 a.m. Enemy reopened his bombardment of our trenches, for which our guns retaliated.

9.15 a.m. Lieut-Col. Ellis having been wounded and brought in by No 8409, PTE. NEWCOMBE, MAJOR MIECKLEJOHN

(who had been in command of the 10%s) assumed command of the Btn, and collected all the men he could

in the support line, as ordered by the BRIGADIER.

10.15 a.m. The 10%⁸ ordered back to the reserve line, where they stayed until next morning. Advance definitely given

up in this sector. The Btn strength of those who took part in advance was OFFICERS 23 OTHER RANKS 809.

CASUALTIES :[Officers are named individually, 2 killed, 4 missing believed killed, 14 wounded]

OTHER RANKS: KILLED 64

WOUNDED 411

MISSING 144

The attack in the Beaumont Hamel sector, north of the River Ancre, on 1st July was disastrous. One contributory factor nearby was the premature explosion at 7.20 a.m. of the Hawthorne Ridge mine giving the Germans an important 10 minutes warning of the impending attack; debris from the explosion only took a minute to clear; a crater 130 feet across and 40 feet deep was created; but the devastation on German positions was localised. The mine crater was under a mile from the Ist Borderer's position.

The August 1916 Parish Magazine notes his death as follows:

It is with great regret that we have to record the death on active service, in the battle of the Somme, of Frederick Adams, Albert William Frank Cheeseman and William Thomas Butcher. Adams and Cheeseman each leaves a widow and young children. The former a member of an old Wateringbury family, settled at Yalding, and recently removed to Nettlestead; the latter, who married one of the Waghorns, of Birchetts, is a recent comer to the parish, but his widow and children do not on that account receive less of our sympathy in their trouble. Willie Butcher, like Adams, grew up among us—a fine young fellow, of whom the last seen was when, acting as a messenger, he stopped on his way through the trenches to bind up the wounds of a comrade. On Sunday, August 13th, we hold a Memorial Service in Church at 3 p.m., for these three, and also for Thomas Richard Bowles, whose death (previously recorded) occurred on board H.M.S. Lion in the Jutland naval victory. We shall also include the memory of Arthur Jukes and also of Charles Bevan, who, like Jukes, has been missing since September of last year, and whose name, hitherto retained in hope on our active list, we now feel with sorrow must be transferred to our Roll of Honour.

His name apparently appears also on the Doddington, Kent war memorial but his connection with Doddington is a bit of a mystery and any information available would be welcome by The Lynsted with Kingsdown Society.

William is commemorated, along with 72,000 others (including from Wateringbury: Frederick Adams, William Cowlard, George Datlen, Albert Herbert, Frederick Latter and George Pearce, Lewis Newman) on The Thiepval Memorial on the D73, next to the village of Thiepval, off the main Bapaume to Albert road (D929) on Pier and Face 6 A and 7 C.

Notes:

1. 7.30 a.m. ('Z' hour) start was a compromise between General Rawlinson who wanted an attack before sunrise when German machine gunners would have less visibility and French who wanted a later attack at a time when artillery observation posts could see the German trenches.

2. The slow walk was partly a result of the overloading of men, across the whole front, with equipment and a major cause of the heavy casualties. The Germans were very surprised to see them walking "as though they were on a parade ground". The order for a slow walk assumed that the German front line would have been destroyed by the preliminary artillery bombardment (over 7 days) but in fact the Germans were able to survive the bombardment in deep bunkers they had constructed. Their barbed wire also was not cut to the extent anticipated. A slow walk also supposedly kept the men together, giving each other confidence.

3. First day of the Somme saw almost half of the 120,000 men from 143 battalions who had gone over the top on 1st July become casualties: 993 officers and 18,247 other ranks killed; 1,337 officers and 34,156 other ranks wounded; 96 officers and 2,056 other ranks missing; 12 officers and 573 other ranks taken as P.O.Ws. (Source Andrew Roberts' "Elegy: The first Day on the Somme ", page 201). Total casualties 57,471.

4.German Machine gunners are estimated to have caused 90% of British casualties on the First day of the Somme. Their gun was called a Maschinengewehr 08 . It was introduced to the German army in 1908; was of 7.92 mm calibre; fired 600 rounds per minute and weighed (including mount 56 kg.

5. The 1st Battalion Border Regiment at the Somme was part of the 87th Brigade of the 29th Division. The 29th Division had fought at Gallipoli and may have for that reason incurred the prejudice of Haig who commented subsequently that they hardly left their trench lines (whereas their casualties on the 1st July were 15,000 of the 57,000 British total. The Battalion had suffered 15 deaths (total British losses of 112) on 6th April from a bombardment followed by a successful German raid on the Beaumont Hamel sector.

6. Beaumont Hamel, a village on the D163 just North of River Ancre, which before 1914 had about 162 houses making it the third largest village on the Somme. It also had extensive chalk caves and quarries, excavated to obtain hard chalk for building.

7. Beaucourt Redoubt is Beaucourt-sur-L'Ancre a village in the Ancre Valley on the D50. It was a very strong defensive position for the Germans and its trenches were a "wildly optimistic" objective ( Gerald Gliddon Somme 1916 p 80) which not achieved.

8. 10% of a battalion's strength were usually left behind on an attack to be a nucleus around which the battalion could reform in the event of severe losses. (Source: Mark Aidan's Western Front Companion, page 201).

9. S.W.B. stands for South Wales Borderers who went over the top first in this sector.

10. No Man's Land is the area between the British front line and the German front line. It varied in depth along the front but where the 1st Border Battalion attacked it was between 250 to 300 metres and is now part of the Newfoundland Memorial Park (the Newfoundlanders were part of the second wave).