Extract from the November 2009 November 2009 Practical Family History 57, pages 56/57
Pat Meakin looks at the valuable work of the Western Front Association and explains how this remarkable charity could help you trace your forebears who fought in the First World War.
Sorting through some First World War trench maps in the archives of the Imperial War Museum, volunteer Howard Anderson came across one which stopped him in his tracks, because it was heavily bloodstained. It was a sobering moment, he says. A reminder of where they had come from.
Not that he needed reminding, because Howard is an active member of the Western Front Association (WFA), a British-based charity which aims to foster interest in the Great War and perpetuate the memory, courage and comradeship of those on all sides who served in it.
Founded in 1980 by military historian John Giles, the WFA now has more than 6,500 members worldwide, with branches not just across the UK but in many other countries including France, New Zealand, the USA, Belgium and Australia.
Projects
Its activities are varied, and include offering support to remembrance and research projects, such as the renovation of battlefield memorials. Although most members merely enjoy mixing with others who share their interests, a number are acknowledged experts, regularly consulted by film and documentary makers and for educational projects.
| Dr David Payne: following in Dad's footsteps |
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Dr David Payne, now living in Wales, recalls walking the locations where his father fought a generation before... One sepia photograph of himself in uniform in 1915, a German infantryman's hat and a leather battle-dress belt, were the only reminders of his war service that Charles Payne left behind, plus a few brief, remembered anecdotes passed on over the years. "We didn't have any real facts or information," says his son, Dr David Payne, who, 30 years after his father's death, set out to investigate his war service. "We knew only that he served with the Northamptonshire Regiment and had been in the trenches. Although it was a really important time of his life he barely spoke about the war to his family, certainly nothing of real importance. Instead he would go to local servicemen's clubs, where the members had a strong bond because they could talk about shared experiences. But he kept no papers, no documents, left no diary - we didn't even know his service number or his battalion, which are the minimum essentials if you're going to start any research. Even his campaign medals had been lost after my mother's death." But David wasn't deterred. A doctor who had spent his life with the World Health Organisation (WHO), specialising in malaria, he applied professional thoroughness to the task, and methodically explored every avenue, visiting the regimental museum and the Public Record Office (now The National Archives) at Kew, contacting the Ministry of Defence and everywhere drawing a blank. "Now it would be easier, but in the 1980s the Great War section at Kew hadn't been established, and the remaining MoD's records of Great War soldiers (some had been destroyed or damaged during the Blitz) hadn't yet been put onto microfilm," he says. Then Dr Payne had an inspiration. "All those who saw active service in the Great War received campaign medals, and I realised that somewhere there must be a list of all those who received one." It proved to be the key. The records did exist, and were at Kew, and soon they found the details they needed - rank, regiment, service number, medals and a list of the battles in which he had fought. Within weeks he had his father's complete service history, which gave Dr Payne and his son Marcus, a trained librarian with archivist skills, the chance to research further into the areas of war in which he had served and create as complete a picture as possible of his five years of war, via maps, documents, and the regiments official war diaries, which detailed the movements of the individual battalions. "What it brought home to me was just how anonymous the vast majority of non-commissioned British soldiers were at that time. Other ranks were seldom mentioned unless for an outstanding reason - even casualties were routinely detailed only by number, he says. Four privates killed, four infantry men, etc - total anonymity." In his WHO service Dr Payne has worked in 43 countries on five continents, and he found himself in a number of the places where his father saw service, including Alexandria, Cairo and Palestine. He would, I'm sure, have recognised of the places I visited, he says. ‘It was a strange feeling to know I was walking some of the same localities and streets.' A keen member of the WFA, with which he has visited many of the battlefields, Dr Payne has published a number of bound copies of his findings, complete with maps and sketches, and has lodged copies with a number of sources, including TNA, the Northamptonshire Record Office, and the Northampton and Wellingborough libraries, where they can be easily accessed by anyone interested. |
The WFA's website at www.westernfrontassociation.com has a wealth of information on researching your Great War forebears, including links to other useful sites and a forum where you can chat to fellow researchers.
An ongoing involvement has seen the association give financial support to the Imperial War Museum, to assist with projects to digitise the recordings of both the sound and paper archives.
"The sound archives include interviews with people from all walks of life, in every conflict from the Boer War through both world wars to more recent ones, like the Falklands," said Margaret Brooks, Keeper of the sound archives.
"The WFA has donated funds to help pay for the older ones to be digitised, which will make it much easier for people to access them.
"There have been occasions when people researching their family history have found a recording of one of their ancestors, a grandparent perhaps, and its very touching to see their reaction," she added.
"Some of the recordings are amazing," said Martin Hornby, WFA vice-chairman. "There are reminiscences from soldiers who fought in the trenches, and also pilots talking about the very early days of aviation, so we were pleased to help."
The association also paid £6,000 to buy a special scanner which is being used to digitise some of the vast number of paper items in store, amounting to 40,000, beginning with the large number of First World War trench maps and it was these that Howard was working on when he found the bloodstained one.
The completed maps, together with aerial photographs to help identify have been put onto a series of DVDs which are on sale through the WFA's website, with a donation from the sale of each going to the museum
Howard has been involved with the project for the last four years, helping out both in London and at the Imperial War Museum at Duxford in Cambridgeshire.
"There are an enormous number of maps, ranging in scale from 1:1,000,000 down to 1:500, and they vary depending on who they were intended for," he says. "There are intelligence maps, transport maps, railways, water locations, and also different maps for different areas of responsibility. The officer in the trenches, for instance, would have needed different information from the general overseeing the action.
"The trench maps for some of the areas of the best known battles were most poignant. Often they didn't put the location of British trenches on them, because they were worried that if they were found by an enemy it would give them useful intelligence, but we did find one rare one in the archives.
Family History
In recent years Howard has seen an increase in interest in the First World War.
"I tour some of the battlefields and every time I go, or visit the cemeteries, there seem to be more people there. Its not surprising, because what happened during those four years changed history, and its such a massive subject."
One reason for the upsurge in interest, he believes, is because more people are researching their family history, as he has done himself.
"My grandfather, Cpl Albert Edward Allen, served in the 1st Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment right through the war, from the first day to the last, and saw action at Loos, the Somme and Passchendaele, three of the bloodiest battles. I've researched what I could but it isn't easy to get information about an individual soldier from the Great War, because although officers are mentioned by name, other ranks are just referred to by their number. There are more records when someone died in action."I was lucky in that my grandfather was mentioned in despatches three times, but there were no family memories because, once he returned home, he refused to talk about his wartime experiences at all, except with people who had been there with him. Like a lot of old soldiers he just wanted to forget."
Howard Anderson has created a website relating to his grandfather's regiment in the Great War at http://freespace.virgin.net/howard.anderson
Harry's Legacy
Unsuprisingly WFA members were in close contact with Harry Patch, the last surviving soldier to have fought in the trenches of the Great War, until his death this summer at the age of 111. From their first contact when he was 102, he often attended the asssociation's monthly meetings at the Somerset branch near his residential home, and the WFA arranged to fulfil his ambition to go up in a hot air balloon (though it remained tethered, in deference to his age and frailty!)
Harry always said that it was important to him that the sacrifice of those who fell shouldn't be forgotten, or their legacy ignored. It is an aim that the Western Front Association works hard to achieve.
The Author
Pat Meakin is a freelance journalist who became interested in genealogy when writing a series of articles for a local newspaper.
"I realised for the first time that history isn't confined to books but is literally all around us if we look,' she says. Her interest became more personal when her husband's uncle discovered that one of her ancestors had once lived in a cottage he himself owned for many years.
"It provided a link between my family and my husband's which I would never have suspected."
