The Story of Pte John Comerskey
"a lost relative"
When we think of the Great War it is perhaps too easy to define the conflict as thousands of men dying in swamp infested muddy fields led by incompetent Generals drawing on experience gained while fighting natives in the Indian Mutiny wars of the later Victorian decades. We can easily recall images of bedraggled, ill equipped men at the front living largely underground off bully beef and plum and apple jam with the odd poet scribbling away in his dug out under a dim oil lamp while the ground shakes from the impact of randomly aimed shells; and plastered like his comrades, in thick glutinous mud and riddled with lice.
Today, it is the wholesale slaughter of those young men that forces us to remember them a century later. But not belittling their sacrifice it is perhaps important to remember that of the five million British and Commonwealth soldiers that served during the war just less than one million were killed in direct action with the enemy meaning that four million did in fact return home after the armistice. It is then fair to say that the attrition rate of the war was about 20% and other historical wars have proved to be much more costly than that.
So why do we remember?
Today, it is the wholesale slaughter of those young men that forces us to remember them a century later. But not belittling their sacrifice it is perhaps important to remember that of the five million British and Commonwealth soldiers that served during the war just less than one million were killed in direct action with the enemy meaning that four million did in fact return home after the armistice. It is then fair to say that the attrition rate of the war was about 20% and other historical wars have proved to be much more costly than that.
So why do we remember?
The only trace left of a life cut short; Johns name on the Tyne Cot Memorial in Belgium
I believe it is the timing of the Great War that really attracts special interest; it occurred at a point in British history that was ripe for change, the transition from the old servile and aristocratic world of Edwardian England where the extremes of fabulous wealth and abject poverty co existed; into our modern world where ultimately, the educated masses aided by technology would go on to enjoy a life of unprecedented ease and wealth.
With this in mind it is possible to understand what drove those young men of 1914 into fighting for a country that might well have been led by arrogant donkeys. It was perhaps simply the desperation for change and to seek out the fulfillment in new opportunities for their hopeless lives.
This story is about one such man; in fact my paternal great, great Uncle.
John Comerskey was born in New York, USA in 1885 and was likely to have been the child of immigrants from Europe. At some point in his childhood (1895?)he was brought to England and settled in North Yorkshire where by the age of 16 in 1901 John was working in the coal mines of Emley, a village between Huddersfield and Barnsley, and living in lodgings. John’s Mother died in 1904 and his "deck-hand" Father had left the family to return to America a little earlier, leaving John and his Sister to fend for themselves.
With this in mind it is possible to understand what drove those young men of 1914 into fighting for a country that might well have been led by arrogant donkeys. It was perhaps simply the desperation for change and to seek out the fulfillment in new opportunities for their hopeless lives.
This story is about one such man; in fact my paternal great, great Uncle.
John Comerskey was born in New York, USA in 1885 and was likely to have been the child of immigrants from Europe. At some point in his childhood (1895?)he was brought to England and settled in North Yorkshire where by the age of 16 in 1901 John was working in the coal mines of Emley, a village between Huddersfield and Barnsley, and living in lodgings. John’s Mother died in 1904 and his "deck-hand" Father had left the family to return to America a little earlier, leaving John and his Sister to fend for themselves.
Coal Mining in 1914
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Working deep in the earth hewing coal from bedrock is something JC knew all about from a young age.
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John married his first wife, Martha Goward, in 1908 when aged 23, who bore him two children, Dorothy and Alvin. Sadly, just three years later the 1911 census shows that by then he was a widower living with his in-laws in Emley, undoubtedly still working in the coal mining industry of the area while supporting his two young children.
He seems to have recovered from ill fortune as in 1912 the Wakefield Parish records show that he married his second wife, Ellen Dewes but it is not known if this marriage produced further children.
Like most young men of the period John’s life would have been hard and the certainty of illness and early death fell hand in hand with a coal miner’s lot as few saw old age. Britain however, was on the brink of great change and this came with the out break of the Great War in August 1914. We don’t know where John was on that date but we do know that on 12th September 1914 one of Lord Kitchener’s new army’s was being formed and The Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI) 7th (Service) Battalion came into being at Pontefract, Yorks. There afterward moving south to Woking, Surrey.
He seems to have recovered from ill fortune as in 1912 the Wakefield Parish records show that he married his second wife, Ellen Dewes but it is not known if this marriage produced further children.
Like most young men of the period John’s life would have been hard and the certainty of illness and early death fell hand in hand with a coal miner’s lot as few saw old age. Britain however, was on the brink of great change and this came with the out break of the Great War in August 1914. We don’t know where John was on that date but we do know that on 12th September 1914 one of Lord Kitchener’s new army’s was being formed and The Kings Own Yorkshire Light Infantry (KOYLI) 7th (Service) Battalion came into being at Pontefract, Yorks. There afterward moving south to Woking, Surrey.
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The rush to enlist; the huge tide of patriotic fever that drove men of all ages to "sign up" and those trapped in tedious jobs would have rushed at the chance, including JC, despite his young family.
John’s future life and this regiment were to become irrevocably linked and at some point, perhaps even at its inception, John enlisted, even though he was in a reserved occupation, to become Private 22219, Comerskey J. Whether answering the countries patriotic call to arms or simple escaping his tedious industrial life, John was on the move and soon training with his new regiment on Salisbury Plain during the first half of 1915.
The Regiment was mobilised for war on 22nd July 1915 and John together with 31 Officers, 983 OR’s, 73 horses and mules and 23 vehicles crossed the channel from Southampton to Le Havre on a night steamer arriving in France at 7:30 am on July 23rd. After rest stops and training he was sent north east into Belgium and was finally camped around the Fleurbaix, Armentieres, Steenwerck areas. Here he was largely involved with army service work such as trench digging, railway and bridge construction and building rifle ranges and camp expansion works during which time the remainder of 1915 went by largely uneventfully.
As the war took its terrible toll 1916 saw the 7th Service Battalion called up for combat duties and the regiment was soon embroiled in the major offensives of that year: - In support of the Canadian attack on Mount Sorrel, south east of Ypres. After a long march south to the Somme, fighting at Delville Wood, Guillemont, Courcelette, Morval and Le Transloy, where casualties increased.
In fact the annual casualty return for the battalion for the period July 22/1915 to July 22/1916 tells us that of the 31 Officers and 984 OR’s (other ranks) who landed in France in 1915, 12 Officers and 637 OR’s remained in 1916;a deficit of 649 men of which 444 were directly lost to the results of combat.
The Regiment was mobilised for war on 22nd July 1915 and John together with 31 Officers, 983 OR’s, 73 horses and mules and 23 vehicles crossed the channel from Southampton to Le Havre on a night steamer arriving in France at 7:30 am on July 23rd. After rest stops and training he was sent north east into Belgium and was finally camped around the Fleurbaix, Armentieres, Steenwerck areas. Here he was largely involved with army service work such as trench digging, railway and bridge construction and building rifle ranges and camp expansion works during which time the remainder of 1915 went by largely uneventfully.
As the war took its terrible toll 1916 saw the 7th Service Battalion called up for combat duties and the regiment was soon embroiled in the major offensives of that year: - In support of the Canadian attack on Mount Sorrel, south east of Ypres. After a long march south to the Somme, fighting at Delville Wood, Guillemont, Courcelette, Morval and Le Transloy, where casualties increased.
In fact the annual casualty return for the battalion for the period July 22/1915 to July 22/1916 tells us that of the 31 Officers and 984 OR’s (other ranks) who landed in France in 1915, 12 Officers and 637 OR’s remained in 1916;a deficit of 649 men of which 444 were directly lost to the results of combat.
The Battle of Third Ypres August 1917
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The battle for Langemarck August 16th 1917
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The regiment stayed in the Somme area until July 1917 and were frequently immersed in skirmishes with the German’s. But as history now records the British were planning a major offensive in Belgium that would decisively push back the entrenched German's to their Hindenburg Line; it would be known as The Battle of Third Ypres or colloquially, after the little town that would forever be the epitome of wholesale slaughter, “Passchendaele”. And the first objective was to take the German held village of “Langemarck”.
Having arrived by train from the Somme region this was Johns route to Pilkem via the training camps at Elverdinghe, Belgium.
(Michelin Map Extract)
Johns route to battle marked on the period map above. This distance was covered by route marches and the front line marked in blue, would have been hell on earth even in high summer.
The Last Few Days of John Comerskey’s Life
The KOYLI travelled up from the Somme region via Doullens, then into Belgium detraining at Godewaersvelde. It was then a stiff March to Proven Camp, near Poperinghe before entraining for the Rail Head at Elverdinge. The soldiers were billeted just south east of the train station at Malakoff Farm a few miles north west of Ypres. With the offensive now set for the morning of 16th August 1917 JC was by the 31st July, at Proven Camp undergoing intensive assault training and under orders to be ready to move to the front line within three hours notice.
The Battalion War Diary tells us the story:
August 5th: Having left Malakoff Farm JC crosses the Yser Canal and is in the support lines near Pilckem between Periscope House and Jolie Farm. The support line is little more than a row of consolidated shell holes adjoining Candle Trench. It’s a wet, swampy and desolate place.
August 6th: The Germans shell the support line area in a sustained barrage that includes gas shells. Casualties include 7 killed, 22 wounded and 28 gassed. The men are ordered back to International Corner, near Proven Camp for rest and recovery.
August 14/15th: The Battalion is moved from Malakoff Farm Billets back into the support line at Pilckem and Candle Support Trench. During the 15th the day was largely quiet but with some heavy shelling by the Germans.
This is JC’s last day alive.
August 15/16th: (In the words of Major J.T. Janson DSO)
“During the night the Battalion, moving in companies are ordered forward to assemble on the East Bank of the Steenbeek. A,B,C & D coy are spread laterally across the Steenbeek with the railway line to the left and the Somerset LI to the right. The assembly of all the men is hard going during the darkness with only two bridges across the Steenbeek. The forming up ground was full of shell holes and very wet, and there was a miniature lake about 30yds wide between C&D coy’s which was impassable.
The Germans put up frequent “Very Lights” that resulted in some casualties due to enemy fire”.
At 3:30am: JC and all were in position, but the line seemed very thin in places with only one man per six yards. Every advantage of shell holes was taken for cover and the men laid down with fixed bayonets as near as possible in their lines. Very few shells fell on the East bank of the Steenbeek and for the final hour until Zero all was comparatively quiet.
The KOYLI travelled up from the Somme region via Doullens, then into Belgium detraining at Godewaersvelde. It was then a stiff March to Proven Camp, near Poperinghe before entraining for the Rail Head at Elverdinge. The soldiers were billeted just south east of the train station at Malakoff Farm a few miles north west of Ypres. With the offensive now set for the morning of 16th August 1917 JC was by the 31st July, at Proven Camp undergoing intensive assault training and under orders to be ready to move to the front line within three hours notice.
The Battalion War Diary tells us the story:
August 5th: Having left Malakoff Farm JC crosses the Yser Canal and is in the support lines near Pilckem between Periscope House and Jolie Farm. The support line is little more than a row of consolidated shell holes adjoining Candle Trench. It’s a wet, swampy and desolate place.
August 6th: The Germans shell the support line area in a sustained barrage that includes gas shells. Casualties include 7 killed, 22 wounded and 28 gassed. The men are ordered back to International Corner, near Proven Camp for rest and recovery.
August 14/15th: The Battalion is moved from Malakoff Farm Billets back into the support line at Pilckem and Candle Support Trench. During the 15th the day was largely quiet but with some heavy shelling by the Germans.
This is JC’s last day alive.
August 15/16th: (In the words of Major J.T. Janson DSO)
“During the night the Battalion, moving in companies are ordered forward to assemble on the East Bank of the Steenbeek. A,B,C & D coy are spread laterally across the Steenbeek with the railway line to the left and the Somerset LI to the right. The assembly of all the men is hard going during the darkness with only two bridges across the Steenbeek. The forming up ground was full of shell holes and very wet, and there was a miniature lake about 30yds wide between C&D coy’s which was impassable.
The Germans put up frequent “Very Lights” that resulted in some casualties due to enemy fire”.
At 3:30am: JC and all were in position, but the line seemed very thin in places with only one man per six yards. Every advantage of shell holes was taken for cover and the men laid down with fixed bayonets as near as possible in their lines. Very few shells fell on the East bank of the Steenbeek and for the final hour until Zero all was comparatively quiet.
The morass that was the area around Au Bon Gite Farm can clearly be seen here in this period aerial photograph. The duck board track, laid by the British, is clearly discernible.
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An oblique aerial view of the area seen in the photo at left. One can clearly imagine what it must have been like to cross this area under heavy MG fire at dawn on 16th August 1917.
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August 16th 4:45am: (Verbatim from the war diary of Major J.T. Janson DSO)
“At exactly 4:45am the barrage commenced and about 1 minute after, an aeroplane flew over sweeping the ground to our front. The barrage was splendid and the men moved forward in excellent order, though apparently rather thin on the right. I moved up with HQ after about 10 to 15 minutes and there were no signs of casualties except for a man stuck in the mud, until we got to the ridge in front of Reitres Farm.
A machine gun from the right in the direction of Au Bon Gite was sweeping right across here almost into our backs and the adjutant fell mortally wounded. The front line was apparently held up though the men were trying to get forward in small parties, especially on the left, but the machine guns were very active from the right and from the Station and Reitres Farm and men were dropping all around”.
JC probably killed about 5am by German machine gun fire.
“At exactly 4:45am the barrage commenced and about 1 minute after, an aeroplane flew over sweeping the ground to our front. The barrage was splendid and the men moved forward in excellent order, though apparently rather thin on the right. I moved up with HQ after about 10 to 15 minutes and there were no signs of casualties except for a man stuck in the mud, until we got to the ridge in front of Reitres Farm.
A machine gun from the right in the direction of Au Bon Gite was sweeping right across here almost into our backs and the adjutant fell mortally wounded. The front line was apparently held up though the men were trying to get forward in small parties, especially on the left, but the machine guns were very active from the right and from the Station and Reitres Farm and men were dropping all around”.
JC probably killed about 5am by German machine gun fire.
"hell on earth" and men fought in conditions like this? This photograph explains why the dead simply vanished into the mud and were never found. This is the Passchendaele ridge just NE of Langemarck.
The war diary continues:
“However, after a check of about 15 minutes the men began to get forward again and after advancing slightly I saw a large crowd collecting round Reitries Farm. On reaching Reitries Farm, I found a crowd of German Prisoners being collected and turned out of the farm and most of the battalion were at work there.
Leaving a few to mop up, I sent on all I could find to the second objective as all the officers except one having been hit, the coys were rather mixed up.
The ground between the first and second objective round the Chateau was practically one large swamp, which was quite impossible to cross”.
(Langemarck Chateau in the centre of the village near the church was already a ruin with its grounds a quagmire).
By 5:15am Reitres Farm had been taken and 2 German Officers and 40 OR’s had been captured leaving many dead and wounded lying within the farm buildings. At the Railway Station buildings 3 German Officers and 30 OR’s had also been captured.
There had been 4 machine guns emplaced at Reitres Farm and 8 at the Station plus 2 to 4 more at Au Bon Gite; Those 16 machine guns had accounted for 8 Officers and 101 OR’s killed, wounded and missing.
Of the 7 men initially reported as missing during that intense twenty minute struggle, JC was one of them.
“However, after a check of about 15 minutes the men began to get forward again and after advancing slightly I saw a large crowd collecting round Reitries Farm. On reaching Reitries Farm, I found a crowd of German Prisoners being collected and turned out of the farm and most of the battalion were at work there.
Leaving a few to mop up, I sent on all I could find to the second objective as all the officers except one having been hit, the coys were rather mixed up.
The ground between the first and second objective round the Chateau was practically one large swamp, which was quite impossible to cross”.
(Langemarck Chateau in the centre of the village near the church was already a ruin with its grounds a quagmire).
By 5:15am Reitres Farm had been taken and 2 German Officers and 40 OR’s had been captured leaving many dead and wounded lying within the farm buildings. At the Railway Station buildings 3 German Officers and 30 OR’s had also been captured.
There had been 4 machine guns emplaced at Reitres Farm and 8 at the Station plus 2 to 4 more at Au Bon Gite; Those 16 machine guns had accounted for 8 Officers and 101 OR’s killed, wounded and missing.
Of the 7 men initially reported as missing during that intense twenty minute struggle, JC was one of them.
Photographed on our trip to Langemarck in September 2015. One can scarcely believe the carnage that happened here in 1917.
A montage of the forming up area for the KOYLI on the morning of 16th August 1917. The Steenbeek river is on the right and ahead is Langemarck church. This was once a heavily cratered killing field and far removed from how it looks today.
Why Missing?
From 11am the Germans began shelling the ground around Langemarck and Reitres Farm and up to the Steenbeek. One can propose that JC had fallen somewhere within this shell torn, swampy area into the thick mud. His body if not sucked under would likely to have been blasted to pieces by the German barrage leaving nothing to be found by the exhumation squads many days later. He was not alone; three of his officers killed on that morning also have no known grave and are listed on the Tyne Cot Memorial next to JC;
Capt. Reginald Cuthbert Welsford Smithers
2/Lt Leonard Whitaker
2/Lt Jonathan Napier
From 11am the Germans began shelling the ground around Langemarck and Reitres Farm and up to the Steenbeek. One can propose that JC had fallen somewhere within this shell torn, swampy area into the thick mud. His body if not sucked under would likely to have been blasted to pieces by the German barrage leaving nothing to be found by the exhumation squads many days later. He was not alone; three of his officers killed on that morning also have no known grave and are listed on the Tyne Cot Memorial next to JC;
Capt. Reginald Cuthbert Welsford Smithers
2/Lt Leonard Whitaker
2/Lt Jonathan Napier
JC was killed about here and we remember him and all the young men that perished along side him. Langemarck church in the back ground, September 2015.
In Conclusion
We read many accounts of young soldiers meeting their deaths on the Great War battlefields and everyone is tragic. Somehow a relative meeting a similar death hits home harder with more questions left unanswered; Did JC ever see his children again after 1914? Did his Wife or Sister ever know what happened to him or where he had fallen? Did they ever make the pilgrimage, as so many bereaved did after the war ended, to see where he might lie? How did his surviving family cope with him recorded as just “missing” and never knowing whether he would eventually come home?
John’s Sister Mary Jane Sullivan, nee Comerskey, was to ultimately become the contributor to my family and Johns Children played no part, nor do we know what became of them; but as if Ellen might have been honouring her husbands memory and after duly waiting out the “missing believed dead” period, she did marry again in 1918 to a Farmer in the town of Castleford, co incidentally just a stones throw from Pontefract where JC had enlisted four years earlier.
As for JC himself, well one can only hope that life in the army made him happier than digging coal out of the deep earth though perhaps at the cost of seeing little of his family and he would never had known that it wasn’t to be the coal dust that would eventually kill him but a German bullet in a foreign field, during a soporific war at the age of 32.
We read many accounts of young soldiers meeting their deaths on the Great War battlefields and everyone is tragic. Somehow a relative meeting a similar death hits home harder with more questions left unanswered; Did JC ever see his children again after 1914? Did his Wife or Sister ever know what happened to him or where he had fallen? Did they ever make the pilgrimage, as so many bereaved did after the war ended, to see where he might lie? How did his surviving family cope with him recorded as just “missing” and never knowing whether he would eventually come home?
John’s Sister Mary Jane Sullivan, nee Comerskey, was to ultimately become the contributor to my family and Johns Children played no part, nor do we know what became of them; but as if Ellen might have been honouring her husbands memory and after duly waiting out the “missing believed dead” period, she did marry again in 1918 to a Farmer in the town of Castleford, co incidentally just a stones throw from Pontefract where JC had enlisted four years earlier.
As for JC himself, well one can only hope that life in the army made him happier than digging coal out of the deep earth though perhaps at the cost of seeing little of his family and he would never had known that it wasn’t to be the coal dust that would eventually kill him but a German bullet in a foreign field, during a soporific war at the age of 32.
The Tyne Cot Memorial to the missing and the panels of the KOYLI.
The Tyne Cot Memorial to the missing list 788 Officers and Men of the KOYLI killed between 15th August 1917 to 11th November 1918.
The modern Google view of the Langemarck battlefield. Compare this with our annotated trench maps and the period aerial photographs.
And not forgetting one extraordinary deed performed on the morning of 16th August 1917........
During our research into JC’s life we came across an entry in the war diary about the heroic action taken by a Pte Wilfrid Edwards on that fateful morning shortly after JC was killed and the KOYLI were fighting to take the Railway Station machine gun bunker that had probably claimed so many British lives. The entry reads: “Pte Wilfrid Edwards of D Coy working entirely on his own crawled right up to the building and threw in a bomb, then got on top and waved to the men to come on and his action saved a critical situation”.
The London Gazette of 14th September 1917 published a brief account of this valiant action which resulted in Pte W. Edwards winning the Victoria Cross. Perhaps JC would have known him personally?
During our research into JC’s life we came across an entry in the war diary about the heroic action taken by a Pte Wilfrid Edwards on that fateful morning shortly after JC was killed and the KOYLI were fighting to take the Railway Station machine gun bunker that had probably claimed so many British lives. The entry reads: “Pte Wilfrid Edwards of D Coy working entirely on his own crawled right up to the building and threw in a bomb, then got on top and waved to the men to come on and his action saved a critical situation”.
The London Gazette of 14th September 1917 published a brief account of this valiant action which resulted in Pte W. Edwards winning the Victoria Cross. Perhaps JC would have known him personally?
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The Missing of the Great War still hold a special place for relatives even to this day. The shear volume of soldiers that simply vanished still staggers us and one needs only to visit the monuments of the Menin Gate in Belgium (55,000) and Thiepval on the Somme (72,000) to fully realise the scale of loss. To the families of these men it must have been terrible to "never know" what became of them.
We reproduce here advertisements that were placed in local papers after the war by desperate loved ones seeking news of their missing kin, who of course never came home. JC was one of these and so with these poignant adverts we would invite our readers to take a moment to remember all of the "Missing". |
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Pte John Henry Billett died on 31st October 1917 nr Gheluvelt, Belgium and is remembered on the Tyne Cot Memorial to the missing.
With thanks to my Lovely Aunt Pat in New Zealand for researching the family history; we know not of whence we came.
Sources: IWM. Passchendaele Museum. Western Front Association. The War Illustrated.
Sources: IWM. Passchendaele Museum. Western Front Association. The War Illustrated.
Copyright Steve Sullivan, May 2020
