The Military Service of Pte Clyde Heron

15 April 2024
By David

On 9 December 1903, Clyde enlisted into the 4^th Yorkshire Regiment, a militia battalion. He was given service number 5766 and described as 5 feet 2 inches tall with a fair complexion, light blue eyes, and fair hair. He gave his aged as 18 years and one month, which we know is three years younger than he actually was. He served for six years and was then discharged at the termination of his engagement, on 8 December 1909.

Following the outbreak of war with Germany, Clyde once again volunteered for the army. It is not known where or when he enlisted but was eventually posted to the 13^th (Service) Battalion (Forest of Dean) (Pioneers) of the Gloucestershire Regiment with serial number 18560. The 13^th had been formed at Malvern in December 1914 by Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Harry Webb. The job of a pioneer unit included digging trenches, wiring, and building encampments for other troops, as well as ordinary infantry work. They were paid an extra tuppence a day. The call went out to miners, labourers, and transport workers, anyone used to hard manual labour, who enlisted in large numbers originally from the Forest of Dean, but later from South Wales, the North East, and Birmingham.

The battalion moved to Malvern in the spring of 1915, where from an encampment above the railway line on Peachfield Common they drilled and trained. In August they were sent to Winchester to join the 39^th Division.

They sailed for France the following year, disembarking at Le Havre on 4 March 1916. They were assigned to a quiet sector to serve their apprenticeship in the trenches. They were employed daily under their instructing units in constructing strong points, reclaiming old trenches, building dugouts, and making breastworks in the rear of the front line. On 26 March they moved to Belle Rive about 5 miles north of Béthune, where they began construction of a barbed wire entanglement from Gorre-Le Hamel-Les Choquaux to the La Bassee Canal. On 14 April the Battalion moved to nearby Essars and began draining, making, and reclaiming trenches in the rear of the Festubert-Givenchy-La Bassee Canal line, and also connecting up the ‘Islands’ on the same line. They were subjected to poison gas bombardments, but there were no injuries. May and June saw this work continue.

On 16 June, the battalion moved a couple of miles to La Couture, which received several direct hits in a bombardment on 25 June. On the night of 29/30 June, the battalion supported a trench attack against the German lines on either side of the Boars Head, when parties dug out communication trenches in the rear of the assaulting infantry. The action turned into a disaster with several casualties. Men from D Company formed a party to connect the front line and the captured German trench by a breastwork. However, in the chaos that ensured no work was possible and the men were used to deliver ammunition in urgent need by the attacking infantry, and to bring in wounded.

On 6 July the battalion moved to take over the Keeps and Village Line in the Auchy Section. They were now responsible for building and repairing roads and trenches in the forward areas, which enemy bombardments and weather made an unending task. They also supplied men for wiring parties and following raids would build new strong points and communication trenches at night between the old front line and the captured German lines. They served there until withdrawn from the front line on 10 August.

They then moved about 80 miles south to Le Quesnel near Amiens. The Battle of the Somme was raging nearby, but the Battalion was initially employed making a rifle range, before digging an exact replica of a portion of the German and British line for a flame flower demonstration on 20 August.

Between 23-26 August the battalion marched to Mailly-Maillet Camp, where D Company began work on a new trench between Prospect Point-Pottage. On 31 August, the camp and vicinity were bombarded intermittently and only the Lewis gunners were ordered to work on the line, with the remainder making a shelter trench at the bottom of the camp. Unfortunately, Clyde was one of the three men killed during the bombardment. He was just 33 years old. He was buried in the Mailly-Maillet Communal Cemetery Extension, about 9km north of Albert in Flanders.