My grandfather, Frank Walker, was a member of the 8th Brigade Royal Field Artillery during the Great War. Like many others, he joined up under age (he was 17 – the minimum qualifying age was 19). He entered the Theatre of War in France/Belgium on
19 August 1914, just a fortnight after Britain had declared war on Germany. He'd originally joined the King's Royal Rifle Corps on 20 April 1914 and transferred to the RFA on 1 July 1914. His Service Record indicates that he spent a total of 4 years 221 days in France (until 24 April 1919).
Perhaps not surprisingly, he never spoke to us about the war. As a family, getting on for a century later, we find ourselves left with only a few half-remembered stories, some medals and the odd photograph. Frank was not a war hero (no more than all the others who went to fight) but I wanted to find out more about what he was doing/where he was and to understand a little of what it must have been like to have been a soldier during that time.
The following endeavours to tell his “story”, mainly through access to War Diaries at The National Archives (some sections are very much still “in progress”):
HAVE you forgotten yet?...
For the world's events have rumbled on since those gagged days,
Like traffic checked while at the crossing of city-ways:
And the haunted gap in your mind has filled with thoughts that flow
Like clouds in the lit heaven of life; and you're a man reprieved to go,
Taking your peaceful share of Time, with joy to spare.
But the past is just the same-and War's a bloody game...
Have you forgotten yet?...
Look down, and swear by the slain of the War that you'll never forget.
Extract from “AFTERMATH” by Siegfried Sassoon, 1920
