Submitted by John H Mills – who wanted to tell the story of his grandfather.
Herbert Mills was born on 16th May 1879 in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, four months before his parents were married. Shortly after the marriage his mother and father separated his father got into trouble with the Law, abandoned them and departed for America. Herbert and his mother went to live with her parents.
In 1891 he was still living with his grandparents and in 1911, age 31, he was living with his Aunt (his mother’s sister). He married in 1913 and had a son in 1914. His son went on to join the RASC in 1939.
Herbert, age 35, volunteered in Lord Kitchener’s “Volunteer Army”. He had been married less than two years and had a one year old son. He was a Power Loom Weaver in a woollen mill. He enlisted in Huddersfield on 4th June 1915. His Attestation puts him in the Royal Army Medical Corps as a Mental Assistant and posted to RAMC 92nd Field Ambulance Unit, Crookham, Aldershot.
He was posted to the, 15th Northumberland Fusiliers in August 1915.
From August to September 1915 he was stationed at Hamersley, Physical Training Base Aldershot, and from September 1915 to March 1916 at Rugeley Camp, Cannock Chase. Rugeley Camp was a training camp which replicated the trenches in France and was used for training soldiers prior to embarking to the Front Line. He was promoted Corporal in November 1915.
In March 1916 he was posted to France where after only three weeks he was returned home to the Reading War Hospital where he spent twelve days, having suffered a detached retina of the right eye and diagnosed with myopic astigmatism.
After leaving hospital he rejoined the 15th Northumberland Fusiliers at Aldershot. He was promoted Sergeant in May 1916. In September 1916 the 15th Battalion was absorbed into Training Reserve Battalions of the 1st Reserve Brigade. He was appointed Provost in October 1916.
In December 1917 he was transferred to the 6th Battalion Yorkshire Regiment. The transfer was annotated “compulsory” on his service record.
His service record also records that he was embarked for “Syren” [the code name for the British North Russia Expeditionary Force sent for service at Murmansk, Russia] on 16th October 1918 and disembarked Murmansk 28th November 1918.
He returned to England from Archangel in June 1919.
In the same month he was put on charge for being absent without permission from midnight to 11.00 hrs the following day. [He was probably out celebrating his release from the Hell of Russia and the sea voyages, and his imminent release from the British Army]. For this misdemeanour he was “Severely Reprimanded”.
He was Demobilised 2nd August 1919 and transferred to Class Z Army Reserve.
He was awarded the Victory Medal and the British War Medal in respect of his service with the Yorkshire Regiment (The Green Howards).
Explore more memories from the ribbon
-
Gertrude Berry
Gertrude was born in 1891, She spent the war as a nurse in the Other Empire Force, Voluntary Aid Detachment, QAIMNS. She was sent straight to France upon joining the Red Cross and from the 9th November 1915 – 8th June 1916 and then 1st July 1916 – 1st August 1916 she was stationed in France. In 1917 she married Harry O ‘Baines. Gertrude was posted from March 1917 until April 1917 at Military Hospital Havant before moving to Catterick Camp in March 1918. This information has been drawn from the Imperial War Museum’s ‘Lives of the First World War’ archive.
-
Betty Stevenson
Betty was born on the 3rd September 1896 in Clifton in the Bootham area of York. She came from a well off middle class background and was educated at home until she was 14 whereby she was despatched to boarding school at St Georges Wood in Haslemere Surrey. From school she went to Brussels to study music. In 1913 the family moved to Harrogate where Betty’s father, Arthur, established himself as a leading estate agent. Betty had a younger brother born in 1901, James Arthur Radford, in which in her letters referred to him as JARS. Both Betty’s parents were active supporters of the YMCA. Her mother Catherine served throughout the war as chair of the YMCA’s Women’s Auxiliary. Betty appears to have acquired early in her life a high sense of civic duty. Betty and her parents were part of the group that travelled to London to help with the Belgium Relief Fund after the outbreak of WW1. They would be involved in the transferring of refugee families to the Harrogate area from their encampment at Alexandra Palace. In January 1916 one of Betty’s aunts went to France to manage a YMCA canteen and Betty was determined to join her. She set off on February 11th, aged 19, to join her in the St Denis Hut outside Paris. She completed her time at St Denis, took some home leave and returned to France to become a driver at Etaples in April 1917. Betty was extremely young at the time…
-
Walter G Barker
Walter Gorner Barker was born in Richmond on 2 August 1889. For a time he lived with his family at 71 Frenchgate. He worked as a footman for Sir Mark Sykes at the family seat, Sledmere House near Driffield. Sykes was Commanding Officer of the 5th (Territorial) Battalion of the Yorkshire Regiment before the war. It seems that Walter may have served as a territorial soldier before the war (he has a low early regimental number 2274 which is then revised later to 240643). He enlisted at Scarborough and became a Private in the 5th battalion. Walter died on 27 May 1918, south of Craonnne. Prior to this, the battalion war diary records several days as ‘day quiet in trenches’ before the ominous entry for 26th May – ‘”Stood to” at night owing to information received that enemy attack was to be delivered on morning of 27th May’. The diary records that the bombardment began at 1 am with the enemy attacking at 4.30am. The battle lasted for four days. Walter Gorner Barker is commemorated on the Soissons Memorial in France.