The whole group at Grandas regiment memorial site at the edge of Gravelle where he won his medal for bravery on 28th of April 1917 . It was 90 years to the day.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Paddy Horkan WW1 M.M. Gavrelle 1917
This is a report following after Mary and I visited the Island of Ireland Peace Park in Nov. 2003,
from information I had gathered over the years and data I had of Dad's regiment the Worcestershires.
It was written for the parish magazine that Christmas but was held over by the Connacht Telegraph for an early edition of the newspaper in 2004. Sean
Patrick Horkan By Sean Horkan
WW1 Military Medal, Gavrell France April 28/29 1917
Visiting The Island of Ireland Peace Park on an October evening 2003, made all we have read about the Great World War, very real.
Visiting its lovely Irish Round Tower and seeing in the records there that a Patrick Horkan of Swinford and Patrick Horkan of Foxford were killed in action and are buried in a unmarked grave somewhere in the Ypres Salient. How fortunate are we, and our Horkan clan, that Patrick Horkan of Castlebar came trough that great conflict and made it home after that Great War.
Looking out on the beautiful landscape, the Flanders Fields sweeping away from the Messines Ridge the site of this Irish Peace Park
the lines of John Mc Crae poem
“ In Flanders Field” came very much alive,
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our places, and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below Etc. etc.
In the distance the hills, over the French border, quite close-by is the village of Gavrele, where in 1917 Dad, Patrick Horkan from Castlebar was awarded the Military Medal for bravery in action, as stretcher bearer of the 14th Worchester, Pioneer Battalion, A Company of the Royal Naval Division, attached to the 63rd. Division, Anson Battalion.
I read in the WW1 records of the Battle of Arelux:
“By the time that all were in position, dawn had broken( April29th.)and the battle was raging on all sides. Gavrelle lies in a fold in the ground. To the eastward a maze of German trenches stretches across low-lying ground. Those trenches had been taken during the previous day, but had been retaken by the German counter-attacks. On the low ridge immediately above the northern exits of the village a fierce struggle was raging around the ruins of a conspicuous Windmill, which was being stoutly defended by a party of Marines.
Just as A Company reached the British front line the Anson Battalion advanced in a renewed attack against the German trenches east of the village. A protracted struggle followed amid shell-fire, which rendered everything obscure.
The enemy attempted to follow up their success, but were met with a steady fire from the Worcestershire Company, which effectually checked any advance.
Meanwhile on the left, the Marines have gallantly held the Windmill.
Heavy fighting continued all day but died away at nightfall, leaving the 63rd Division, sorely depleted, in the trenches they had held before the battle, but with the captured Windmill secured as an advanced post.
“A” Company was admitted by all to have behaved splendidly(c);
(c note says “for gallantry during the day two stretcher-bearers of the Battalion Pte P. Horkan and C. Rooke, were awarded the M. M.)
so much so that when the remainder of the Brigade was relived during the following night (April 29th/30th) the Worcestershire company was left to hold the north-eastern corner of the village during the relief and did not rejoin the remainder of the Battalion until the following night.
· The 63rd Division then moved out of the line to rest and train, on 30th the 14th Worcestershire made a short move westward to St. Aubin, whence the Poineers went out on many working parties during the next three weeks”.
The daily war diaries entries, signed by Lt. Col. C.H. Gascoigne (who was one of the many letter writers to the Horkan home at Castle St. Castlebar, following the notice of awarding of the M.M. in May)
gives details of the work of the companies of the Pioneer Btn. each day.
The entries as follows, for the:
28th April, at 9.0p.m. without previous warning the whole Battalion were urgently ordered to march in Battle Order without tools to report to O.C. Ansons Battalion then holding the front line as Right Battalion of 188thBrigade, who were holding the Divisional front. Lewis Guns were taken, but there were no time to issue rations, and all ranks lived on their iron rations the following day. The Battalions were placed as follows: “A” Company to Anson Battalion, “C” Company to 1st R.N.L.I., “B” Company to H.A.C., all in the front line, and “D” Company in reserve. Six Lewis Guns were put on Anson Battalion front and two with the Reserve Company, - Headquarters of the Battalion under Lt.Col,C.H. Gascoigne were established in the Reserve Line with the Headquarters of the Anson Battalion.
29th April During the early morning Anson Battalion, with “A2 company and Lewis Guns repelled by Rifle and Lewis Gun Fire, with artillery assistance, a counter attack dispersing the enemy before his attack had fully developed. During the day no other attack developed.
30th April The Battalion, less “A” Company were relived at 3.0 a.m. by units of the 93rd Brigade, 31st Division, and during their 30 hour in the trenches sustained the following casualties:- Killed, 2 other ranks, Wounded, 2nd Lieut W.S.Roper 11 other ranks. The Battalion – less Company “A” in the line – moved by March route to St. Aubin.
"Entry for 25th May accounts for the news of: 30363 Pte. Horkan P. awarded the Military Medal for at GAVRELLE on the morning of April 29th the men of the Coy. to which Pte. Horkan belongs whilst advancing over the open ground to a fresh position were caught in an enemy barrage. Several men were wounded and were consequently left on the top without cover. Pte. Horkan who is a stretcher-bearer showed great courage and devotion to duty in getting to these men under enemy fire, tendering their wounds, and eventually bringing them under cover.
He himself was wounded but returned to duty after getting the men to the dressing station and having his own wound attended to. "
The war diaries entries are normanly short and to the point, which shows the importance of the Pioneer Batt. involvement on April 28/29/30,
as in reports show
for: April 19th Work as yesterday.
(note: the Pioneer was a work corps, who had to keep the roads, trenches in good repair with basic tools and also take part in the fighting)
April 20th. Work on the road progressing satisfactorily.
C.E. X111 Corps went over it with Commanding Officer.
April 21st Work as yesterday. Major Hayward admitted hospital.
April 22nd Work as yesterday.
April 23rd to 27th detailed the extra activity for work in consolidating the front line
as in April 26th entry: “A and B Companies on road works.
C and D Companies in front line trenches
making strong points in front of Gavrelle. ”
Gravelle is a small village in the north east of France, population of 800 and was totally destroyed in April 1917.
In 1914 German invasion, Gavrell was occupied and remained so in 1915/1916.
In early 1916 the Germans went on the offensive and attached Verdun.
1916 is notable for the Battle of the Somme, as well as Verdun, but fighting also occurred at Vimy Ridge. All the offensives of 1915 and 1916 altered the Front Line very little, all that seemed to result was an increase in the size of the numerous military cemeteries in that area, including the German cemetery at Gravelle.
The winter of 1916/17 was the hardest in memory, creating great hardship in the trenches and behind the lines. In the occupied villages the houses were stripped for firewood, even staircases were chopped up and replaced by ladders.
Because of the Royal Navy blockade of Germany, there were acute shortages of food and materials. The French population of the occupied areas were regarded as extra mouths to feed and by march 1917 most of the villagers of Gavrelle were sent to un-occupied France via Switzerland.
Even as early as April signs of spring had not yet arrived. If the cold was deadly in the trenches, it was worse above the trenches, in an open cockpit, Peter Warren RFC (one of Manfred von Richthofen’s victims), explains the extreme weather conditions on 2 April 1917, the day he was shot down over Vimy Ridge. “We left the aerodrome at 10-30 in the morning. The weather was bad-rain and hail, with almost a gale blowing in the direction of the German lines. Our faces were covered with whale oil to prevent frost-bite. So many flyers had to be laid up with frost-bitten faces that the use of the grease was compulsory, and a case of frost-bite became an offence calling for a court martial”.
The Battle of Arras started on Easter Monday 9 April 1917, after a weeks long bombardment. The weather was still wintery, with a bitter westerly wind and snow flurries. Accounts of the first day of the Battle of Arras are often dominated by the Canadian Corps, which captured Vimy Ridge, but the XV11 Corps advanced to the German 3rd line of defence and captured a strong point known as Hyderabad Redoubt, south of Gavrelle. This was a distance of five kilometres and the Official History states; it was the longest advance in a single day since trench warfare had started in 1914. An advancing patrol had to contend with, heavily fired on, cutting gaps in the wire, clear outposts and heavily defended trenches, snipers lying in the ground and come under machine-gun fire from the North and South.
After years of being several kilometres behind the front, Gavrelle was now the German Front Line. The actions from 9-14 April 1917 are known as the First Battle of the Scarpe. Another attack of 23 April was known as the Second Battle of the Scarpe. Gavrelle was important because it was part of the Arleux Loop, a defensive line of significant importance. The Germans wanted to hold the allied armies on this line whilst their half-finished defences behind were completed, part of The Siegfied Line. To capture of the important high ground to the North of the village, giving excellent observation of practically the whole Douai plain, fell to the 63rd Royal Naval Division and was an important part of this unique Division’s history. In the days after 23April the German artillery was very active, constantly trying to blast the RND out of their gains.
On 28April a second British attack around Gavrelle was planned.
Its objective was to take the windmill, and the high ground to the north east of Gavrelle, which were barring any advance out of, and threatening the British hold on, Gavrelle. Things at the end of the day were virtually the same as at the start, except that the strategically important Windmill position and the high ground it stood on were taken and held. The rest of the front line was the same, except that two Royal Marine battalions had been hammered, along with a company of Anson Battalion. The losses for the Royal Marines Light Infantry were, and still are, the largest casualty list for one day’s fighting in its history, which amounted to 850 all ranks with a high fatal to wounded ratio of almost one to one, whereas it would be normally one to three.
The Royal Naval Division (RND) was a unique formation, formed in 1914 on the outbreak of the war using surplus naval reservists when there were more men than boats. The division was sent to Belgium in October 1914 to assist around Antwerp, but after a short while were withdrawn, losing a third of its strength in Holland or taken prisoner. The division was reconstructed with new recruits from all over the country, took part in Gallipoli campaign. Again reconstructed, and was ordered to France.
The division proved its worth in the Somme campaign, at Beaumont Hamel and Beaucourt.
The Division fought around the Ancre in February, pushing the line forward before the Germans abandoned their lines and withdrew in March.
The RND was moved down to the Arras sector for the Arras offensive and ready for their date with history at Gavrelle.
The T.Tasker-K. Tallett book “BattlegroundEurope GAVELLE” gives an account of the Gavrelle fighting and says “ this action was a defining moment in the Royal Naval Division as it was at Gavrelle that almost the last of the originals were killed off, those Gallipoli survivors and those who had just come back from wounds incurred at Beaucourt. Gavrelle was the deathbed of the original RND.
The Division was rebuilt with men who had inherited a reputation, which they enhanced at Poelcappele, Welsh Ridge, and the Somme in March 1918 and on the finial advance to victory when it breached the Queant-Drocourt line, the Canal du Nord, and with the 57th Division, helped capture Cambrai.
They had a unique esprit de corps, and constantly had to fight the Army as well as the Germans for its survival. The division was disbanded in early 1919, never to reform, so became a wartime only formation.
During its short history it gained six VCs and suffered 45,000 casualties”
from information I had gathered over the years and data I had of Dad's regiment the Worcestershires.
It was written for the parish magazine that Christmas but was held over by the Connacht Telegraph for an early edition of the newspaper in 2004. Sean
Patrick Horkan By Sean Horkan
WW1 Military Medal, Gavrell France April 28/29 1917
Visiting The Island of Ireland Peace Park on an October evening 2003, made all we have read about the Great World War, very real.
Visiting its lovely Irish Round Tower and seeing in the records there that a Patrick Horkan of Swinford and Patrick Horkan of Foxford were killed in action and are buried in a unmarked grave somewhere in the Ypres Salient. How fortunate are we, and our Horkan clan, that Patrick Horkan of Castlebar came trough that great conflict and made it home after that Great War.
Looking out on the beautiful landscape, the Flanders Fields sweeping away from the Messines Ridge the site of this Irish Peace Park
the lines of John Mc Crae poem
“ In Flanders Field” came very much alive,
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row
That mark our places, and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below Etc. etc.
In the distance the hills, over the French border, quite close-by is the village of Gavrele, where in 1917 Dad, Patrick Horkan from Castlebar was awarded the Military Medal for bravery in action, as stretcher bearer of the 14th Worchester, Pioneer Battalion, A Company of the Royal Naval Division, attached to the 63rd. Division, Anson Battalion.
I read in the WW1 records of the Battle of Arelux:
“By the time that all were in position, dawn had broken( April29th.)and the battle was raging on all sides. Gavrelle lies in a fold in the ground. To the eastward a maze of German trenches stretches across low-lying ground. Those trenches had been taken during the previous day, but had been retaken by the German counter-attacks. On the low ridge immediately above the northern exits of the village a fierce struggle was raging around the ruins of a conspicuous Windmill, which was being stoutly defended by a party of Marines.
Just as A Company reached the British front line the Anson Battalion advanced in a renewed attack against the German trenches east of the village. A protracted struggle followed amid shell-fire, which rendered everything obscure.
The enemy attempted to follow up their success, but were met with a steady fire from the Worcestershire Company, which effectually checked any advance.
Meanwhile on the left, the Marines have gallantly held the Windmill.
Heavy fighting continued all day but died away at nightfall, leaving the 63rd Division, sorely depleted, in the trenches they had held before the battle, but with the captured Windmill secured as an advanced post.
“A” Company was admitted by all to have behaved splendidly(c);
(c note says “for gallantry during the day two stretcher-bearers of the Battalion Pte P. Horkan and C. Rooke, were awarded the M. M.)
so much so that when the remainder of the Brigade was relived during the following night (April 29th/30th) the Worcestershire company was left to hold the north-eastern corner of the village during the relief and did not rejoin the remainder of the Battalion until the following night.
· The 63rd Division then moved out of the line to rest and train, on 30th the 14th Worcestershire made a short move westward to St. Aubin, whence the Poineers went out on many working parties during the next three weeks”.
The daily war diaries entries, signed by Lt. Col. C.H. Gascoigne (who was one of the many letter writers to the Horkan home at Castle St. Castlebar, following the notice of awarding of the M.M. in May)
gives details of the work of the companies of the Pioneer Btn. each day.
The entries as follows, for the:
28th April, at 9.0p.m. without previous warning the whole Battalion were urgently ordered to march in Battle Order without tools to report to O.C. Ansons Battalion then holding the front line as Right Battalion of 188thBrigade, who were holding the Divisional front. Lewis Guns were taken, but there were no time to issue rations, and all ranks lived on their iron rations the following day. The Battalions were placed as follows: “A” Company to Anson Battalion, “C” Company to 1st R.N.L.I., “B” Company to H.A.C., all in the front line, and “D” Company in reserve. Six Lewis Guns were put on Anson Battalion front and two with the Reserve Company, - Headquarters of the Battalion under Lt.Col,C.H. Gascoigne were established in the Reserve Line with the Headquarters of the Anson Battalion.
29th April During the early morning Anson Battalion, with “A2 company and Lewis Guns repelled by Rifle and Lewis Gun Fire, with artillery assistance, a counter attack dispersing the enemy before his attack had fully developed. During the day no other attack developed.
30th April The Battalion, less “A” Company were relived at 3.0 a.m. by units of the 93rd Brigade, 31st Division, and during their 30 hour in the trenches sustained the following casualties:- Killed, 2 other ranks, Wounded, 2nd Lieut W.S.Roper 11 other ranks. The Battalion – less Company “A” in the line – moved by March route to St. Aubin.
"Entry for 25th May accounts for the news of: 30363 Pte. Horkan P. awarded the Military Medal for at GAVRELLE on the morning of April 29th the men of the Coy. to which Pte. Horkan belongs whilst advancing over the open ground to a fresh position were caught in an enemy barrage. Several men were wounded and were consequently left on the top without cover. Pte. Horkan who is a stretcher-bearer showed great courage and devotion to duty in getting to these men under enemy fire, tendering their wounds, and eventually bringing them under cover.
He himself was wounded but returned to duty after getting the men to the dressing station and having his own wound attended to. "
The war diaries entries are normanly short and to the point, which shows the importance of the Pioneer Batt. involvement on April 28/29/30,
as in reports show
for: April 19th Work as yesterday.
(note: the Pioneer was a work corps, who had to keep the roads, trenches in good repair with basic tools and also take part in the fighting)
April 20th. Work on the road progressing satisfactorily.
C.E. X111 Corps went over it with Commanding Officer.
April 21st Work as yesterday. Major Hayward admitted hospital.
April 22nd Work as yesterday.
April 23rd to 27th detailed the extra activity for work in consolidating the front line
as in April 26th entry: “A and B Companies on road works.
C and D Companies in front line trenches
making strong points in front of Gavrelle. ”
Gravelle is a small village in the north east of France, population of 800 and was totally destroyed in April 1917.
In 1914 German invasion, Gavrell was occupied and remained so in 1915/1916.
In early 1916 the Germans went on the offensive and attached Verdun.
1916 is notable for the Battle of the Somme, as well as Verdun, but fighting also occurred at Vimy Ridge. All the offensives of 1915 and 1916 altered the Front Line very little, all that seemed to result was an increase in the size of the numerous military cemeteries in that area, including the German cemetery at Gravelle.
The winter of 1916/17 was the hardest in memory, creating great hardship in the trenches and behind the lines. In the occupied villages the houses were stripped for firewood, even staircases were chopped up and replaced by ladders.
Because of the Royal Navy blockade of Germany, there were acute shortages of food and materials. The French population of the occupied areas were regarded as extra mouths to feed and by march 1917 most of the villagers of Gavrelle were sent to un-occupied France via Switzerland.
Even as early as April signs of spring had not yet arrived. If the cold was deadly in the trenches, it was worse above the trenches, in an open cockpit, Peter Warren RFC (one of Manfred von Richthofen’s victims), explains the extreme weather conditions on 2 April 1917, the day he was shot down over Vimy Ridge. “We left the aerodrome at 10-30 in the morning. The weather was bad-rain and hail, with almost a gale blowing in the direction of the German lines. Our faces were covered with whale oil to prevent frost-bite. So many flyers had to be laid up with frost-bitten faces that the use of the grease was compulsory, and a case of frost-bite became an offence calling for a court martial”.
The Battle of Arras started on Easter Monday 9 April 1917, after a weeks long bombardment. The weather was still wintery, with a bitter westerly wind and snow flurries. Accounts of the first day of the Battle of Arras are often dominated by the Canadian Corps, which captured Vimy Ridge, but the XV11 Corps advanced to the German 3rd line of defence and captured a strong point known as Hyderabad Redoubt, south of Gavrelle. This was a distance of five kilometres and the Official History states; it was the longest advance in a single day since trench warfare had started in 1914. An advancing patrol had to contend with, heavily fired on, cutting gaps in the wire, clear outposts and heavily defended trenches, snipers lying in the ground and come under machine-gun fire from the North and South.
After years of being several kilometres behind the front, Gavrelle was now the German Front Line. The actions from 9-14 April 1917 are known as the First Battle of the Scarpe. Another attack of 23 April was known as the Second Battle of the Scarpe. Gavrelle was important because it was part of the Arleux Loop, a defensive line of significant importance. The Germans wanted to hold the allied armies on this line whilst their half-finished defences behind were completed, part of The Siegfied Line. To capture of the important high ground to the North of the village, giving excellent observation of practically the whole Douai plain, fell to the 63rd Royal Naval Division and was an important part of this unique Division’s history. In the days after 23April the German artillery was very active, constantly trying to blast the RND out of their gains.
On 28April a second British attack around Gavrelle was planned.
Its objective was to take the windmill, and the high ground to the north east of Gavrelle, which were barring any advance out of, and threatening the British hold on, Gavrelle. Things at the end of the day were virtually the same as at the start, except that the strategically important Windmill position and the high ground it stood on were taken and held. The rest of the front line was the same, except that two Royal Marine battalions had been hammered, along with a company of Anson Battalion. The losses for the Royal Marines Light Infantry were, and still are, the largest casualty list for one day’s fighting in its history, which amounted to 850 all ranks with a high fatal to wounded ratio of almost one to one, whereas it would be normally one to three.
The Royal Naval Division (RND) was a unique formation, formed in 1914 on the outbreak of the war using surplus naval reservists when there were more men than boats. The division was sent to Belgium in October 1914 to assist around Antwerp, but after a short while were withdrawn, losing a third of its strength in Holland or taken prisoner. The division was reconstructed with new recruits from all over the country, took part in Gallipoli campaign. Again reconstructed, and was ordered to France.
The division proved its worth in the Somme campaign, at Beaumont Hamel and Beaucourt.
The Division fought around the Ancre in February, pushing the line forward before the Germans abandoned their lines and withdrew in March.
The RND was moved down to the Arras sector for the Arras offensive and ready for their date with history at Gavrelle.
The T.Tasker-K. Tallett book “BattlegroundEurope GAVELLE” gives an account of the Gavrelle fighting and says “ this action was a defining moment in the Royal Naval Division as it was at Gavrelle that almost the last of the originals were killed off, those Gallipoli survivors and those who had just come back from wounds incurred at Beaucourt. Gavrelle was the deathbed of the original RND.
The Division was rebuilt with men who had inherited a reputation, which they enhanced at Poelcappele, Welsh Ridge, and the Somme in March 1918 and on the finial advance to victory when it breached the Queant-Drocourt line, the Canal du Nord, and with the 57th Division, helped capture Cambrai.
They had a unique esprit de corps, and constantly had to fight the Army as well as the Germans for its survival. The division was disbanded in early 1919, never to reform, so became a wartime only formation.
During its short history it gained six VCs and suffered 45,000 casualties”
Monday, April 2, 2007
Information on Gavrelle visit
E Mail received today re our trip. Sean
Back to the Package I sent today.
I know you have little time when in Gavrelle but I have sent info on 3 cemeteries. These cemeteries are important as regards your father.
In the Gavrelle guide I have a walk around Gavrelle, however, if you walk from the Mayor's House to Naval Trench Cemetery, this
would be the route your father went back and forth. Being a strecher bearer they would work from dugout aid posts and dressing stations,
those who died were buried outside the dugout and the wounded being taken back to HQ west of Bailleul (via Point-du-Jour).
So try to visit (by road) Point-du-Jour and Bailleul Road East Cemetery.
On page 166 I mention about stretcher bearer Frank Durham taking a killed comrade back to be buried, and attending a service by a padre.
I have listed the 11 14/Woresters buried in this cemetery. Worth rre-eading the write up on this cemetery, also my write-up on St.Laurent-Blangy German Cemetery
esp. the bit about the dugouts in the side of the railway cuttings, Bois de la Maision see trench map on page 175.
TREVOR
Back to the Package I sent today.
I know you have little time when in Gavrelle but I have sent info on 3 cemeteries. These cemeteries are important as regards your father.
In the Gavrelle guide I have a walk around Gavrelle, however, if you walk from the Mayor's House to Naval Trench Cemetery, this
would be the route your father went back and forth. Being a strecher bearer they would work from dugout aid posts and dressing stations,
those who died were buried outside the dugout and the wounded being taken back to HQ west of Bailleul (via Point-du-Jour).
So try to visit (by road) Point-du-Jour and Bailleul Road East Cemetery.
On page 166 I mention about stretcher bearer Frank Durham taking a killed comrade back to be buried, and attending a service by a padre.
I have listed the 11 14/Woresters buried in this cemetery. Worth rre-eading the write up on this cemetery, also my write-up on St.Laurent-Blangy German Cemetery
esp. the bit about the dugouts in the side of the railway cuttings, Bois de la Maision see trench map on page 175.
TREVOR
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