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First published in Great Britain in 2016 by
PEN & SWORD MILITARY
an imprint of
Pen and Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire S70 2AS
Copyright Stephen Wynn, 2016
ISBN: 978 1 47382 7 899
PDF ISBN: 978 1 47386 4 979
EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47386 4 962
PRC ISBN: 978 1 47386 4 955
The right of Stephen Wynn to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Contents
I had grown up in a humanist atmosphere, and war to me was never anything but horror, mutilation and senseless destruction, and I knew that many great and wise people felt the same way about it.
George Grosz
(German First World War Soldier and Artist)
God would never be cruel enought to create a cyclone as terrible as that Argonne battle. Only man would ever think of doing an awful thing like that. It looked like the abomination of desolation must look like. And all through the long night those big guns flashed and growled just like the lightning and thunder when it storms in the mountains back home.
And, oh my, we had to pass the wounded. And some of them were on stretchers going back to the dressing stations, and some of them were lying around, moaning and twitching. And the dead were all along the road. And it was wet and cold. And it make me think of the Bible and the story of the Anti-Christ and Armageddon. And Im telling you the little log cabin in Wolf Valley in old Tennesse seemed a long way off.
From The Diary of Alvin York
and his account of 7 October 1918.
About The Author
Stephen is a retired police officer having served with Essex Police as a constable for thirty years between 1983 and 2013. He is married to Tanya and has two sons, Luke and Ross, and a daughter, Aimee. His sons served five tours of Afghanistan between 2008 and 2013 and both were injured. This led to the publication of his first book, Two Sons in a Warzone Afghanistan: The True Story of a Fathers Conflict, published in October 2010.
Both Stephens grandfathers served in and survived the First World War, one with the Royal Irish Rifles, the other in the Mercantile Marine, whilst his father was a member of the Royal Army Ordnance Corps during the Second World War.
Stephen co-wrote a book published in August 2012, entitled German POW Camp 266 Langdon Hills. He has also co-written three crime thrillers which featuring a fictional Detective Chief Inspector named Terry Danvers.
Gravesend in the Great War is one of numerous books which Stephen has written for Pen & Sword in the Towns and Cities of The Great War series which commemorate the sacrifices made by young men up and down the country.
Acknowledgements
Researching a book of this nature requires a considerable amount of time and effort on the authors part, but it would not have been possible to complete without the help and assistance of others. I would like to express my appreciation to the following:
Andrew Bratley, for the use of his research on Kent men who served in the Australian Army; the staff at Gravesend library for their help and assistance; my wife Tanya, for her continued support, help and understanding.
Every effort has been made to identify and acknowledge the copyright holders of photographs and documents used or referred to in this book. Any omissions are unintentional.
PROLOGUE
Pre-war Gravesend
The town of Gravesend has a long a varied history going as far back as the Stone Age. Implements from that era have been found and there is also evidence of both an Iron Age settlement, as well as extensive Roman remains at nearby Springhead.
Gravesend lies immediately to the north of the old Roman road which is now called Watling Street and connects London with the Kent coast to the east. It is situated in north-west Kent, immediately opposite Tilbury in Essex on the north side of the River Thames and just 21 miles from the centre of London. Because of its geographical location and closeness to the capital, the town has always had an important role to play in the areas history.
Milton Chantry, a Grade II listed building, is Gravesends earliest building, dating from the late thirteenth century, and can be found in the gardens of the towns old fort. The Chantry is on the site of a leper hospital which was founded in 1189. It was also known as the Hospital of St Mary the Virgin. The original purpose of the Chantry was a place where prayers could be offered for the souls of those who had died. Over the years the Chantry has also been a private home, a farm and an inn, called the New Tavern, which at one time was also part of the barracks of New Tavern Fort.
Gravesend also has one of the countrys oldest surviving markets, with its charter dating from 1268. In the same year the area, which covered the two parishes of Gravesend and Milton, was granted town status by King Henry III. The first Mayor of Gravesend was also elected in 1268, although the first town hall was not built until 1573. This building was replaced in 1764 and additional alterations were made to the building in 1836.
In 1380, during the Hundred Years War, Gravesend had the ignominy of being sacked and burned by a Castilian fleet which had sailed up the River Thames before landing in the town.
In 1401, the town was awarded a royal grant which allowed local men to operate boats between London and Gravesend. The river crossing became a popular alternative for travelling to and from London, taking away the worries of being robbed and killed by highwaymen, a threat that was always a possibility when travelling by road, as the main London to Dover road crossed Blackheath Common on the outskirts of London, a notorious area for highwaymen.
At Fort Gardens is the New Tavern Fort, currently a museum, built during the 1780s and extensively rebuilt by General Gordon between 1865 and 1879.
On 21 March 1617 John and Rebecca Rolfe (Princess Pocahontas) along with their two-year-old son, Thomas, left London on board a ship bound for Virginia in the New World of America. The ship,
