Costin - Cambridgeshire Kitcheners: a History of 11th (Service) Battalion (Cambs) Suffolk Regiment

Cambridgeshire Kitcheners

A History of the 11th (Service) Battalion (Cambs) Suffolk Regiment

Joanna Costin

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by

Pen & Sword Military

an imprint of

Pen & Sword Books Ltd

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Barnsley

South Yorkshire

S70 2AS

Copyright Joanna Costin 2016

ISBN 978 1 47386 900 4

eISBN 978 1 47386 902 8

Mobi ISBN 978 1 47386 901 1

The right of Joanna Costin to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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T he Cambridgeshire Kitcheners, or 11th (Service) Battalion (Cambs) Suffolk Regiment, to give it its official title, was one of a multitude of Pals or Chums battalions formed across the UK during the First World War. Raised in Cambridgeshire and the Isle of Ely, officered in large part by university men who had been part of the Officer Training Corps, the Kitcheners went to France in 1916 and saw their first major action on 1 July 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Despite suffering staggering casualties 188 men killed on that one day, with the casualty total reaching 205 when those who died of wounds soon after are included the battalion continued to fight throughout the remainder of the war, seeing action during the Battle of Arras, the German Spring Offensive and the Allies Hundred Days campaign at the close of the war.

During the war the Kitcheners suffered around 970 men killed and numerous others wounded and taken prisoner (exact figures are hard to come by, as those logged in the war diary as missing might be prisoners, dead, wounded, or simply men separated from the rest but who returned unharmed). About 4,500 men passed through the battalion, including those who were transferred out for reasons other than wounds. With the exception of one website and a mention on another First World War commemorative website, however, the battalion is largely unknown, even in Cambridge. Other Pals battalions have become famous (most notably the Accrington Pals, thanks in large measure to Peter Whelans play) and the Sheffield City Battalion was immediately commemorated and had an old pals association in the years following the war. Perhaps because Cambridge also had a Territorial Regiment, one battalion of which went abroad on active service, with three others remaining at home as training battalions, perhaps because of high casualties and the fact that men were drawn from all areas of the county and Isle, the battalion seems almost to have been forgotten.

Much of the information behind this book is drawn from battalion, brigade and division war diaries and local newspapers. Thanks are due to the staff at the Cambridgeshire Collection, who have been very helpful both in suggesting materials and in assisting, without laughing, when the microfilm machine (used to read the local newspapers) ran away with me. There were a small number of interviews recorded with veterans in the 1970s and 80s, held at the Imperial War Museum, and a small number of documents survive at the Bury St Edmunds branch of the Suffolk Record Office. The Shire Hill office of the Cambridgeshire Record Office holds the records of the Territorial Association (which raised the battalion) and more general records relating to the First World War (particularly training documents) have been consulted at the Imperial War Museum and at the National Archives.

Valuable help has been given by Phil Curme, who maintains the sole website devoted to the battalion. This can be found at www.curme.co.uk . Tony Beeton has shared his research into Sidney Beeton and Arthur Josiah Elbourne and kindly allowed me to use his family letters, photos and memories. Paul Hammond of Perth has also shared his family history with me. Thanks also to Janice Ellam for assistance with some of the Balsham soldiers. Professor David Reynolds first directed my attention towards the Pals battalions and supervised my initial research into the Accrington Pals. It was while researching them that I first came across mention of a Cambridgeshire equivalent. Thanks are also due to Nicola, who supplied countless cups of tea and somewhere to work while this was being written. Any typos I will blame on the cat!

I would also like to thank Irene Moore for editing the book and the team at Pen & Sword.

Finally, without the website Lives of the First World War, created and maintained by the Imperial War Museum, much of the research into the personal details of members of the battalion could not have been carried out. The site platform has enabled research using medal records, census returns, BMD data and other military records.

T he Cambridgeshire Kitcheners were formed less from a sense of local pride, which inspired the formation of many of the other Pals battalions, nor from a social class (as in the Public Schools Brigade or the Sportsmens battalions), than because of an overflow of recruits for general service. In September, the Bury St Edmunds depot of the Suffolk Regiment the nearest Regular unit and the one to which most Cambridge men who attested for general service were being sent was full to overflowing. They requested that no more men be sent, so the men who joined up were gathered into the Corn Exchange in Cambridge and began taking over various local schools for barracks, as well as erecting tents. Preliminary training began to be conducted on Parkers Piece, and it was decided to apply to the War Office for permission to keep these men all together and to form a Pals or Chums or Kitchener battalion (the local papers never quite appear to have agreed on what the battalion should be called, but the most common references are to the Kitcheners and the Cambs Suffolks).

That said, once the Cambridgeshire Kitcheners were formed, the local newspapers were keen to emphasise what an honour it was to the county to have been given this task. The Cambridge Daily News exhorted readers:

It was from East Anglia that Cromwell drew his Ironsides, those famous soldiers by whose aid he banished from England the doctrine of the divine right of kings. Let the successors of the Ironsides come forward in increasing numbers and help our modern Cromwell to smash the equally blasphemous pretensions of the homicidal maniac who is ravaging Europe.

This comparison with Cromwells Ironsides was frequently made, and the intention was that the battalion would be (according to the Cambridge Weekly News) the envy of the neighbourhood, and if it had the chance to fight it would be the terror of their opponents.