Lives of the First World War

The records at the PRO are a representative selection of the original collection; selected to illustrate the diversity of diseases and injuries and the treatments prescribed. MH 106 - pieces 1 - 2078 are admission and discharge registers from selected hospitals, casualty clearing stations, field ambulances, an ambulance train and a hospital ship. 2079 - 2129 and 2158 - 2384 are medical sheets which have been selected to show the common diseases and injuries of individuals e.g. one piece is a sample of bayonet wounds. Pieces 2130 - 2157 are medical cards relating to individuals in selected regiments, e.g. all the cards for the Leicestershire regiment. I didn’t know what Jack’s injuries were. I decided to take a chance and spent a couple of days going through the medical sheets for injuries relating to the leg (as I had been told by relatives he had been injured in the leg). I found nothing. During 1994/1995, I visited the National Army Museum and the Imperial War Museum. Yet again, I gained a greater insight into the Bucks Battalion life in the trenches and the war in general but nothing definite about Jack. I was at a very low point and I considered giving up. I decided to revisit Ieper. I had a trench map of the Bucks Battalion’s Operations in August ‘17. At the very least, I could see Cheddar Villa, see the general area as it is today, revisit Jack’s grave and I also hoped to find a cemetery with a concentration of Bucks Battalion graves. This would put me close to the area of activity. I had high hopes. Maybe, a ‘feel’ for distances or even a psychic experience would help me. We found a hotel, rented bicycles and headed towards Vlamertinghe. I visited a number of cemeteries and stood at the Menin Gate for the Last Post. I cried. To quote a cliché, it was a “terrible beauty”. Thousands of young men marched through this gate on the way to the line, never to return. Jack came back, dying, but never got further than the 3rd Australian C.C.S. (casualty clearing station). I don’t think either of us will ever forget the 54,800 names on the Menin Gate. Jack was ‘fortunate’. He has a grave. ‘What are you guarding Man-At Arms? Why do you watch and wait?’ ‘I guard the graves’, said the Man-At-Arms, ‘I guard the graves by Flanders Farms, Where the dead will rise at my call to arms, And march to the Menin Gate.’ ‘When do they march then, Man-At-Arms? Cold is the hour and late.’ ‘They march tonight’, said the Man-At-Arms, ‘With the moon on the Menin Gate, They march when the midnight bids them to, With their rifles slung and their pipes aglow, Along the roads - the roads they know, The roads to the Menin Gate.’ ‘What are they singing, Man-At-Arms, As they march to the Menin Gate?’ ‘The marching songs, said the Man-At-Arms. That let them laugh at fate; No more will the night be cold for them; And their souls will sing as of old, for them, As they march to the Menin Gate.’ (Anonymous) On my return, I had a clearer picture of the battlefield. I had located the Steenbeek River, Kitchener’s Wood and Cheddar Villa. I still did not know much, but I had a revived eagerness. I decided to take things slowly, organise which facts I needed to draw some conclusions (without too many assumptions) and so, set about finding some long-buried answers. My first was to confirm Jack’s date of birth. As I have discovered since I started, the search for a simple fact, while difficult, opens up many questions but also many new avenues for me to search down. I went to London to look up Jack’s birth in St. Catherine’s house. This is a straightforward exercise. I found the entry, paid my £6 for the certificate, and went to leave. On the way out, I was waylaid by a sign leading towards ‘Deaths Overseas Section’. I knew Jack’s date of death, but I decided to look it up. I couldn’t find it. The closest entry, for that day was : - Pte James Shanks 267515 O + B L.I. Bks Bn 1917 Was this Jack? I was confused. The CWGC records and medal rolls record Jack as having the number 265855. I called the OPCS (Office of Population and Census Surveys) in Merseyside and explained my dilemma. Unofficially, they confirmed that a Private James Shanks 267515 of Bucks Battalion, Ox and Bucks L.I. died of wounds 17th August 1917. (Aged 22) in France. They suggested that I gather as much information as I could to prove an error, so that it may be amended. Was this the reason why I am following Jack? Is it a message saying “I died for my country. I suffered for over two years in the trenches, bled to death, but I’m not registered as being dead? This needs changing.” I had a lot of evidence but not enough. My mother warned me that, unless sure, I could be tampering with the record of another young man. I re-checked my sources.

Created by: , Mike11837