Lives of the First World War

The Battalion next went into the line on 15/04/1917 near Peronne with orders to attack the German strong point known as Tombois Farm, an outpost in front of the Hindenburg Line. Zero hour was fixed for 23.30 hours on 16/04/1917. In atrocious weather conditions of gales, heavy rain and total blackness, the Battalion encountered a thick belt of barbed wire and heavy enemy rifle and machine gun fire. “C” and “D” companies suffered heavy casualties and withdrew by 00.30 hours to reform for another attack. “B” Coy on the left, had attracted less enemy fire and had succeeded in entering the German trenches, unknown to Battalion command. A company of 1/5th Gloucesters, sent up in support, were surprised to find “B” Coy in possession of the trenches at the farm, and by dawn on 17/04/1917, the 1/1st Bucks Battalion was holding four hundred yards of trenches on either side of Tombois Farm. The German counter attacks failed and they withdrew. Four Bucks officers were wounded, one mortally, and eighteen men were killed and forty-eight wounded in the assault. In the early summer of 1917, the 1/1st Bucks was involved in pursuing the German Army eastwards from Peronne capturing Tincourt, Hamel, Roisel and Ronsoy, before finally meeting fierce resistance at Gillemont Farm as the Germans carried out their planned withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line using scorched earth tactics. In the summer of 1917, the 1/1st Bucks were transferred to the Ypres Salient in preparation for the forthcoming offensive which became known as the 3rd Battle of Ypres. On 16/08/17, the Battalion carried out an almost suicidal attack against the German blockhouse Mon du Hibou to the north-west of St Julien without the planned support of tanks which had become bogged down in the muddy terrain. On 17/08/1917, Private Shanks was admitted to 1/3rd South Midland Field Ambulance with a gunshot wound to the leg. He was transferred to the 3rd Australian Casualty Clearing Station which had moved on 21/07/1917 from Grevillers to Brandhoek, near Vlamertinge, Ypres. According to the Bucks Battalion Casualty Book, he was found to have compound fractures of the right femur and right humerus as a result of gunshot wounds. Private Shanks died of his wounds in the Casualty Clearing Station on 17/08/1917, aged twenty-one years. He is buried in Brandhoek New Military Cemetery No.3, grave reference I.A.15. Brandhoek is located four miles west of Ypres town centre. The New Military Cemetery was opened in August 1917 to bury the dead from the three Casualty Clearing Stations in the Vlamertinge area that resulted from the major Allied offensive which began that month. We are attaching a photograph of Private Shanks’ grave and his CWGC honour certificate. Oddly, his gravestone is marked with the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry bugle horn badge, rather than the correct Buckinghamshire Battalion Maltese Cross cap badge. This was a common error on the part of the War Graves Commission. Private Shanks’ Medal Index Card and Medal Award Rolls show that he was entitled to the following campaign medals: The 1915 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal. The Army Register of Soldiers’ Effects tells us that his back pay of £4-16s-4d was awarded on 12/11/1917 to his mother Annie, his sole legatee, and later in 1919, a War Gratuity of £14. We attaching some pages from the 1/1st Buckinghamshire Battalion Regimental War Chronicles of the time of Henry Shanks’ service, a map of the 1916 Somme campaign, the 1917 Ypres campaign, a copy of Private Shanks’ entry pages in the 1/1st Bucks Battalion Casualty Book, his Medal Index Card and Medal Roll, his CWGC certificate and grave photograph, and some other photographs.

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