15th February 1915 – ‘Steady the Buffs’

A personal note from the Trust’s blogger, in memory of my grandfather Bill Adams (who, with many thousands of others, did his duty on our behalf).

Bill was born in 1895 at Canterbury in Kent. He was a regular soldier in the British Army, in the 2nd Battalion of the Buffs (the historic Royal East Kent Regiment of infantry), with his father Sergeant Harry Adams. Bill joined the Army on his fourteenth birthday, in Hong Kong. He was given the rank of ‘Boy’ and he was in the battalion band. In August 1914, when WW1 was declared, Bill was living with his family at the Wellington Barracks in Madras in India. Regular Army units which were stationed around the British empire had to be brought back to Europe to fight on the Western Front. The 2nd Battalion of the Buffs (2nd Buffs) left Bombay on the 16th November and were transported back to Britain by ship, arriving at Plymouth on the 23rd December 1914 and then marching to Winchester.

The 2nd Buffs joined the 85th Infantry Brigade in the 28th Division, which was formed at Winchester in December 1914-January 1915. The 2nd Buffs had a miserable time in a tented military camp until they were moved into billets in the town. The Division was inspected by Lord Kitchener himself on the 12th January, and then it was moved rapidly to the front line in France, to join the B.E.F. and reinforce the line after the terrible losses of the first Battle of Ypres. (Apparently, regular Army units were used to strengthen the line and also to set an example to other units: a battalion consisted of 800-1,000 men.)

The 28th Division marched to Southampton, embarked and was transported by camouflaged troopship to Le Havre, disembarking on the 16th-19th January 1915 and then being moved up to the area between Bailleul and Hazebrouck on the Belgian border. The 2nd Buffs actually sailed on the 16th January and arrived on the 17th. They were entrained on cattle trucks and taken to Hazebrouck. On the 21st January, the 2nd Buffs marched to Rouge-Croix. They were then transported in Army Service Corps vehicles (modified London omnibuses) to the wrecked city of Ypres and then on to their sector trenches in the Ypres Salient.

The 2nd Buffs went ‘over the top’ for the first time at 7.00pm on the 15th February 1915, 100 years ago today. Two companies bayonet-charged a section of the German line (‘O Trench’) across 50 yards of No Man’s Land and up a 120-yard slope. They took ‘O Trench’ despite heavy German machine gun and artillery fire, but fifty Buffs were wounded, fifteen were killed, and ten were reported as missing. As a bandsman, Bill was probably not a combatant but would have served as a stretcher-bearer to his battalion on the front line.

The 2nd Buffs took part in the second Battle of Ypres (22nd April-25th May 1915) and the Battle of Loos (25th September-18th October 1915). The 85th Infantry Brigade suffered terrible losses during the battles. Bill was gassed and, in August 1915, he was wounded (by ‘gunshot’): he had to spend six months convalescing in Britain. He then returned to the front line in France, probably in the 1st Buffs, as the 2nd Buffs left France for Egypt in October 1915, having lost 1,868 men in eight months on the Western Front. Bill served on the Western Front until the 4th March 1919, and he was lucky – he survived. He resumed Home Service in Britain on the 5th March 1919.

Bill had been a clarinettist but he could no longer play the clarinet after his lungs were damaged by the poison gas during WW1. He was retrained as a violinist and eventually became the band-leader of the 2nd Buffs battalion band. Bill made the rank of sergeant, but he contracted TB and was invalided out of the Army in 1927. He was treated at the TB hospital which was part of the Royal British Legion Village at Preston Hall in Kent. Bill survived the TB: he and his family moved into the Village and he was given employment as a clerk for the Royal British Legion. Bill went on to set up the Preston Hall Home Guard platoon, in which he served throughout WW2 as platoon captain. During WW2, he also formed a string quartet of wounded WW1 veterans, and they would perform for the wounded servicemen of WW2 in the Preston Hall hospital. In the 1950s, Bill even went on a coach trip to visit the battlefields of the Western Front.

During WW1 (1914-1918 plus 1919), it is calculated that 32,000 men passed through the ranks of the regiment of the Buffs. About 6,000 of these died. The regiment was awarded 48 battle honours. See Historical Records of the Buffs (East Kent Regiment) 1914-1919 by R S H Moody, 2002 (Naval and Military Press).

(Coincidentally, a new, Kitchener battalion of the Buffs – the 6th (Service) Battalion – was formed at Canterbury in August 1914. It was moved to Colchester garrison to join the 12th Eastern Division, which was organised here in August 1914-February 1915. The division was one of the first New Army divisions to be formed in WW1, as part of  ‘K1’, and it also included a Kitchener battalion from the Essex Regiment.)

The image shows Bill relaxing on the beach with a cigarette, in summer 1919: he has undone his collar button and taken his cap off… (You can see his medal ribbons over his heart, his lance-corporal stripe on each sleeve, his good conduct and long service chevron on each sleeve, and his wound stripe near the cuff of his left sleeve.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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* The famous phrase ‘Steady the Buffs’ originated during the 2nd Battalion’s time in the garrison at Malta in 1851. It became a saying in general usage, apparently because it was used in the novel Soldiers Three by Rudyard Kipling (published 1888).

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