remni feb 22 - wordpress.com · 2019. 2. 22. · february 22, 2019 the second battle of the scarpe...
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February 22, 2019
remembrance ni
Sailors in the WW1 trenches
Thomas Morrison from Tobergill Street in Belfast died on this day serving in WW1 with the Royal Naval Division on the Somme. He had previously served in the Dardanelles. From the Royal Marine Light Infantry, he was typical of the thousands of sailors who served as infantry. It is a complex story in which RN personnel kept their customs alive in hostile environments many of which were far from the sea.
At the outbreak of World War 1 the newly-mobilised Royal Navy had too many men, and too few crew places or other duties for them. This was a situation which Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, soon took advantage of at a time when the army’s recruitment had not yet delivered the numbers needed for the land war in Europe.
These unused sailors were formed into battalions, joined with the Royal Marine Light Infantry (RMLI) and Royal Marine Artillery and thus formed the Royal Naval Division (RND). The RND was dubbed “Winston’s Little Army”.
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The Division was disbanded in 1919 after an inspection and address by the Prince of Wales. Its deeds would be described with some self-justification and self-promotion by its sponsor Winston Churchill, then briefly out of Parliament, in a foreword to the 1923 official account of the RND’s actions -
“By their conduct in the forefront of the battle, by their character; and by the feats of arms which they performed, they raised themselves into that glorious company of the seven or eight most famous divisions of the British Army in the Great War.” - Churchill
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In the Dardanelles
The RND served in three distinct areas - in the defence of Antwerp, and later on the Western Front and in the Dardanelles campaign. The RND fought in every one of the very worst battles the British Army contested between 1914 and 1918 - Gallipoli, The Somme, Arras, Passchendale, the March offensive, and the 100 days to victory. Men from Northern Ireland served in each of these areas. The RND’s activities would cost it nearly 48,000 casualties throughout the war.
Over sixty men from Northern Ireland died serving with the RND in Gallipoli and on the Western Front. They included career men like Methodist College Belfast former pupil, William Leigh Maxwell, Lieutenant Colonel, Royal
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Marines, who was Brigade Major at Antwerp, and Jack Caton of Muckamore. He was a textile worker who enlisted, became a sergeant in the army and was commissioned as an RNVR Officer to serve with the Brigade. Maxwell was killed in action serving with the Division in the Dardanelles on 12/05/1915. Caton was killed on 27/03/1918 on the Western Front.
The Western FrontIn the Commonwealth War cemeteries along the Western
Front, the seried ranks of army corps and regimental badges are broken by the symbols of furled anchors marking the resting paces of the remains of the members of the Royal Naval Division.
One of the most distinctive actions of the RN Division was on the 13th November 1916 at Beaucourt when 12,000 sailors went over the top and in two days in winter went further and took more prisoners than the army had done in a day.
By the end of the Division's part in the Gallipoli campaign, very few men with sea service remain
ed. The RND was always regarded as being different to the rest of the army and although they were subsumed into the army in 1916 to become the 63rd (Royal Navy) Division, they were the only formation to wear both Navy and Army badges of rank. Attempts to convert the RND to conform
to army practices were tried but were generally unsuccessful, especially an attempt to disband the RND in
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1917 which was thwarted by the influence of the First Lord of Admiralty, Sir Edward Carson.
The Division transferred from the authority of the Admiralty to the War Office on 29 April 1916 and was redesignated as the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division on 19 July 1916.
The Division moved to France, arriving Marseilles 12-23 May 1916, after which it remained on the Western Front for the rest of the war and took part in the following engagements:
1916
The Battle of the Ancre, a phase of the Battles of the Somme 1916 (13-18 November 1916)
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1917
The Operations on the Ancre (January-March 1917)Page �5
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The Second Battle of the Scarpe (23-24 April 1917), a phase of the Arras Offensive, in which the Division captured Gavrelle
The Battle of Arleux (28-29 April 1917), a phase of the Arras Offensive
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The Second Battle of Passchendaele (26 October - 10 November 1917), a phase of the Third Battles of Ypres 1917
The action of Welsh Ridge (30 December 1917), subsequent to the Cambrai operations
1918
The Battle of St Quentin*(21-23 March 1918)
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The Battle of Bapaume*(24-25 March 1918)
*the battles thus marked are phases of the First Battles of the Somme 1918
The Battle of Albert (21-23 August 1918), a phase of the Second Battles of the Somme 1918
The Battle of Drocourt-Queant (2-3 September 1918), a phase of the Second Battles of Arras 1918
The Battle of the Canal du Nord# (27 September - 1 October 1918)The Battle of Cambrai 1918# (8-9 October 1918)
# the battles thus marked are phases of the Battles of the Hindenburg Line
The passage of the Grand Honelle (5-7 November 1918), a phase of the Final Advance in Picardy
This unique Division was demobilised in France by April 1919.
Roll of Honour - February 22
Representing their comradesWW1
+MORRISON, ThomasRMLI. Private. 17545. Plymouth Division. 2nd RM. Battalion. RND. Died France 22/02/1917. Enlisted 03/11/1914. Served
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in the Dardanelles. Embarked Royal Marine Brigade 18/08/1915 and joined Battalion at Cape Helles 02/09/1915. Served with Royal Marine Brigade 18/08/1915 - 22/02/1917. Born Belfast 29/01/1896. Son of Robert Morrison, Tobergill St., Belfast. Dernancourt Communal Cemetery, Somme, France. IMR. ADM 159/161/17545
WW2
+DARRAGH, Thomas Foster #UN
RAFVR. Sergeant (Air Gunner). 1902840. Died 22/02/1945. Aged 20. 218 Sqdn. Son of Robert and Elizabeth Mary Darragh, of Ballymagorry, Co. Tyrone. Reichswald Forest War Cemetery, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
+TURNER, Dilworth Norman #UNRoyal Artillery. Gunner. 6979670. Died 22/02/1946. Aged 34334 Battery, 33 (19th County of London Regiment) Searchlight Regiment. Son of William and Annie Turner. Moy (St. James) Church of Ireland Churchyard
On this day - February 221940
Two IRA bombs explode in London; 12 people injured.
In North Sea, Luftwaffe accidentally sinks German destroyer Leberecht Maass; during rescue,German destroyer Max Schultz is sunk by mine.
1941
The first mass round-up of Jews in Amsterdam; 430 deported in reprisal for murder of Dutch Nazi party member.
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Bread ration in Jewish ghetto in Warsaw reduced to 3 oz per day.
The Afrika Korps, newly arrived in Libya, launch their first probing attacks against the unpleasantly surprised British Army at El Agheila.
1942
Air Marshal A. T. (Bomber) Harris is appointed C-in-C of Bomber Command.
British forces in retreat less than 100 miles from Rangoon, the capital of Burma.
President Franklin Roosevelt orders General Douglas MacArthur to leave the Philippines.
New car sales in the United States end for the duration of the war
1943
Churchill is said to be ‘on the mend’ after a severe fever.
Army Group Centre begins a counterattack in the area between the Dnieper and Donets.
Allied commando raid on Myebon, South of Akyab in the Arakan, western Burma.
Norway, Nazi collaborationist Quisling orders conscription of 35,000 Norwegian men for military construction.
Battleship USS Iowa is commissioned, New York Naval Yard, first of four Iowa class battleships, the last US battleships.
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�An American MP examines SS-Untersturmführer Kurt Peters from the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division at Notre Dame de Cenilly, 1944.
1944
Malinovsky completes the capture of the mining area around Krivoi Rog.
Heavy Japanese losses as the U.S. Navy bombards the Marianas in the Pacific.
1945
Allied Air Forces launch Operation Clarion, a concerted effort to wipe out all forms of transport available to the Germans in 24 hours. Nearly 9,000 aircraft, operating from bases in England, France, Holland, Belgium and Italy attack over 250,00 square miles of territory, targeting railways, bridges, ports and roads.
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After a heavy four-day battle, the U.S.Fifth Army takes the Upper Reno Valley in northern Italy between Bologna and Florence.
Acknowledgments
ADM - Admiralty Record
CWGC
IMR - Irish Memorial Roll
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