Albert Victor Lewis

Private Albert Victor Lewis of the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, 2/8th Battalion (Formerly 2179 Hampshire Rgt.) was killed in action on the 20th July 1916, aged 28.¹

The Outbreak of War

Albert’s main Army records were destroyed during the Blitz in the Second World War. There are some documents (Medal Roll and Index card, Commonwealth War Graves records, Soldiers effects ledger) which give some basic information, allowing some reconstruction of his war story.

The first waymark is that his family, on his death, were awarded his Service Gratuity of £9 0s 0d. The size of this payment is related to the length of his Army service to the date of death, indicating Albert was deemed to have enlisted in August 1914. For the circumstances surrounding his enlistment we need to return to events at college.

Bulford Camp, Salisbury Plain. Public Domain

Alongside their studies and social life, almost all students enlisted in the 4th Battalion Territorial Force of the Hampshire Regiment. As the academic year came to a close in the summer of 1914, these men left for the annual territorials summer training camp which had been arranged on Salisbury Plain at Bulford Camp, Sling Plantation and Bustard Camp, from 25th July to 4th August 1914. Following the declaration of war they were immediately mobilised. Territorial soldiers could only be stationed within the United Kingdom unless they voluntarily agreed to serve overseas. They would signal this agreement by signing an Imperial Service Obligation (Army Form E624). Students that did so were sent to fight abroad: those transferred to the 1/4th Battalion left for Poona, India on the 9th October, followed by those allocated to the 2/4th Battalion who left for Quetta, India, now modern-day Pakistan, on 12th December. Albert had elected, with some others, to remain as territorials for the time being.

As for the handful of students (six of the eighty in training in the 1913-1914 academic year)¹¹ who were not territorials, they would resume their studies in September but at Bede College, Durham, not Winchester. The college had closed for the duration of the war and would not open again until 1919.

The Great War

Private Albert Victor Lewis was home (i.e. U.K.) based until mid-1916.  It is highly likely that his service through this time closely followed that of fellow 1913-1915 student Merton Rose. This would place him probably in the 84th Provisional Battalion, more commonly known as the 2/6th (Duke of Connaught’s) Battalion of the Hampshire Regiment. Although the exact whereabouts and responsibilities of this unit are not known, in February 1916 it was stationed at Blyth, on the Northumberland Coast, suggesting coastal defence was one of his duties. The Battalion had been in the Northeast at least since October 1915 as they are reported in the Newcastle Journal as competing in an inter-battalion cross country race.¹² From other histories, postings of this battalion through this period include Petersfield, Bournemouth and Hursley Park.

Tidworth Camp. Public Domain

Again, assuming the link with Rose is correct, a transfer in February in 1916 to the 3/16th Battalion London Regiment would have followed. This unit had just moved from Richmond to Winchester, bringing Albert back to his old haunts. In April the Battalion name was changed from 3/16th to simply to 16th Battalion London Regiment. The barracks were at Tidworth/Perham Down on the Hampshire/Wiltshire border. He was transferred to the 2/8th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment on 16th May. And on the morning of Sunday, May 22nd 1916, the Battalion left their camp at Perham Down in Wiltshire, marching the short distance to entrain at Ludgershall station, en route to Southampton. As Albert began his journey to the Western Front, it is comforting to know that he would be with friends: fellow WTC students Merton Rose and Joseph Sharp were also making the same journey. All three had overlapped at college in the 1913-1914 academic year. At 7pm, 23 Officers, 855 Other Ranks boarded the paddle steamer Princess Clementine at Southampton Dock, bound for Le Havre, landing there the next morning at 3am. They had landed in France as part of the 182nd (2nd Warwickshire) Brigade in the 61st (2nd South Midland) Division, heading into the conflict.

The Battalion travelled 150 miles to L’Ecleme by train. Here, encamped 5 miles northwest of Béthune, they trained and drilled and, through most of July, the men would be in trenches in the Neuve Chapelle sector, close to the France–Belgium border. Towards the end of the month, they would see their first action nearby, in the Battle of Fromelles. The Division was paired with the 5th Australians, both of whom were untried in battle yet were required to provide a major diversionary attack to draw enemy troops and resources away from the Somme. The enemy had had considerable time to establish strong defensive positions and as a result the British and Australians suffered heavy losses. Month-end casualty totals are not given in the Battalion War Diary, so losses are difficult to quantify.

In the battle, Albert and the 2/8th Warwickshires were held in reserve, with the 2/6th and 2/7th Warwickshires on the front line in the Fauquissart section of trenches, where no man’s land was moderately wide (approximately 300 yards). The ground was soft with many drainage ditches, making movement difficult. The Germans had placed machine guns to cover the exit points from the British trench system, making it virtually impossible to attack without a high rate of casualties as the men went over the top at Zero Hour—11am on July 19th.

8 Section Panorama Western Front. FIELD OF VIEW: Aubers Ridge. DIRECTION OF VIEW: East South East to South East. CAMERA LOCATION: Through gap in tiles of house roof in Fauquissart. Copyright Imperial War Museum © IWM (Q 44542) Note trenches marked by sandbags.

At 8.30pm, Albert and his Battalion were ordered to move up to relieve the badly depleted 2/6th and 2/7th. They arrived in the front-line trenches at 11pm and the relief was completed by 12.50am on the 20th. Some measure of the intensity of the action even at this late stage in the attack can be understood from the fact that 7 of the relieving 2/8th men suffered from shell shock during the advance to the front-line trenches and the hand-over.

The Battalion War Diary for the 20th July is sparse, with nothing recorded for the 18 hours following the relief. As darkness fell, parties were sent out into no-man’s land to recover killed and wounded—a task that would continue for the next three nights. During daylight on the 22nd a party went out to recover the last of the wounded, 60 hours or so on from the start of the battle.¹³ On that first night it simply records ‘Many bodies buried.’

The time and day of Albert’s death is not known. There were casualties in the 2/8th during the relief and from that point onwards. His death date is officially recorded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and his Soldiers Effects ledger as 20th July—the official date of his death. Earlier records such as information from the family,¹⁴ his Aubers Ridge Grave Registration Form, and a grave exhumation record¹⁵ indicate 19th July, i.e. during the front-line relief.

Albert’s body was exhumed from its location near Fauquissart and reinterred at the Aubers Ridge British Cemetery on 4th March 1920.

Postscript

Casualty lists in the Surrey Mirror of 29 August and 1st September 1916 and the Dorking and Leatherhead Advertiser of 2nd September list him as King’s Royal Regiment but there is no other evidence for this connection. These reports are likely to be from a single syndicated source rather than independent and corroborative.

There is a report in the Surrey Mirror of Friday 4th August 1916, carrying news of Albert’s death, that his brother had been killed earlier in the war. This would appear not to be the case. His only brother, William John Ackland Lewis, served in the Royal Engineers as a telegraphist, enlisting on 16th December 1914 in Liverpool. He served in Gallipoli and Egypt before being evacuated to Britain by hospital ship on 21st September 1915, suffering from enteric fever. He made a full recovery and went on to serve until the end of the war, being discharged on 29th April 1919 and dying in 1956. Albert had no other brother. His brother-in-law served in the 8th Battalion East Kent Regiment (The Buffs), at home from November 1914 to September 1915 before being sent to France. He served there for one month before becoming a prisoner of war, a report being sent to his family in late October to say that he was wounded and in a German hospital. He was liberated in December 1918, discharged from the Army in 1919 and died in 1976. Finally, a memorial insertion on the anniversary of Albert’s death, carried in the Surrey Mirror on Friday 27th July 1917, ends with the words, From his sorrowing mother, sister and brother.’

Researcher and Author: John Westwood. Revised with additional material by John Vickers.

Aubers Ridge British Cemetery photos taken by Pat Naylor and Peter Lidgitt