Robin Scott-Elliot: Band of brothers ... A tale of war, loss and remembrance on the killing fields of France
The sunken road that rises from Hardecourt-aux-Bois up to Montauban in the Somme valley curves gently through brown fields before starting its climb towards the ridge, its destination the crossroads that lie on the edge of the upper village. At its beginning, the road dips low enough to hide a man, and it was here, on 25 March 1918, that 36-year-old Bertie Anderson began the final hour of his life.
William Herbert Anderson was an acting lieutenant colonel, the novice commander of the 12th Battalion, Highland Light Infantry. It was a world away from his peacetime life as an accountant and father of two young children. That misty spring morning, he and his men found themselves facing almost certain destruction, ordered to resist to the last man and pitched into the path of the largest German offensive since the opening year of the First World War. It was a devastating assault that threatened to strike a decisive blow in Germany's favour after four wearying, bloody years.
From first light, Anderson had shepherded his heavily outnumbered men through a series of increasingly desperate actions to keep the enemy at bay. By late afternoon, the weight of casualties began to tell, and the few that remained were battling merely to survive. Around 5pm, he gathered every last exhausted man – clerks, cooks, servants and signallers – and led them up the road towards the German-held brickworks factory.
As the road rises, so the banks on either side fall away, and Anderson and his men were soon exposed. Many were killed within moments as heavy fire rained down from the brickworks, but Anderson ran on, his remaining men gathered behind the tall, leggy figure who urged them forwards with a revolver in one hand and swagger stick in the other. The brickworks were taken after a brief, bitter struggle. On he went, leading his men into the adjacent field and on towards the village where the next German position lay. He never reached Montauban.
"He was cheering me on, his face wreathed in smiles at the way the counter-attack was progressing," wrote one of his colleagues to Gertie, Bertie's wife, a few days later. "His last words to me were, 'Carry on with those on the left, Cox', and the last I saw was the swing of his stick going on."
There are areas on the Somme that possess a subdued beauty, hidden valleys and flower-filled copses given a breath of life by the happy whistle of birdsong, and every handful of miles, a collection of identical gravestones, arranged in neat rows with curved tops, white sheen and brief details of the men who lie below. The Peronne Road cemetery lies just outside Maricourt, on the way to Albert. Unlike many of the war cemeteries that dot this undulating area of northern France, it is small and rarely visited. Bertie Anderson is in grave II.G.36. There lies the last of the Anderson brothers. There lies my great-grandfather.
When I visited his grave, carved with the Victoria Cross awarded posthumously for his actions on that last day of his life, I was the same age as he had been when he died. Great-grandfathers should grow into old men, lives trailing out, part-forgotten behind them. Bertie never grew old, neither did his brothers, Charlie, Ronnie or Teddie. To study their pictures is to see the young lives of a lost generation, four among millions of victims of the Great War, the war of ultimate futility and waste. The war that, as the historian John Keegan wrote, "ruined Europe as a centre of world civilisation". The war that was supposed to end all wars....
Read entire article at Independent (UK)
William Herbert Anderson was an acting lieutenant colonel, the novice commander of the 12th Battalion, Highland Light Infantry. It was a world away from his peacetime life as an accountant and father of two young children. That misty spring morning, he and his men found themselves facing almost certain destruction, ordered to resist to the last man and pitched into the path of the largest German offensive since the opening year of the First World War. It was a devastating assault that threatened to strike a decisive blow in Germany's favour after four wearying, bloody years.
From first light, Anderson had shepherded his heavily outnumbered men through a series of increasingly desperate actions to keep the enemy at bay. By late afternoon, the weight of casualties began to tell, and the few that remained were battling merely to survive. Around 5pm, he gathered every last exhausted man – clerks, cooks, servants and signallers – and led them up the road towards the German-held brickworks factory.
As the road rises, so the banks on either side fall away, and Anderson and his men were soon exposed. Many were killed within moments as heavy fire rained down from the brickworks, but Anderson ran on, his remaining men gathered behind the tall, leggy figure who urged them forwards with a revolver in one hand and swagger stick in the other. The brickworks were taken after a brief, bitter struggle. On he went, leading his men into the adjacent field and on towards the village where the next German position lay. He never reached Montauban.
"He was cheering me on, his face wreathed in smiles at the way the counter-attack was progressing," wrote one of his colleagues to Gertie, Bertie's wife, a few days later. "His last words to me were, 'Carry on with those on the left, Cox', and the last I saw was the swing of his stick going on."
There are areas on the Somme that possess a subdued beauty, hidden valleys and flower-filled copses given a breath of life by the happy whistle of birdsong, and every handful of miles, a collection of identical gravestones, arranged in neat rows with curved tops, white sheen and brief details of the men who lie below. The Peronne Road cemetery lies just outside Maricourt, on the way to Albert. Unlike many of the war cemeteries that dot this undulating area of northern France, it is small and rarely visited. Bertie Anderson is in grave II.G.36. There lies the last of the Anderson brothers. There lies my great-grandfather.
When I visited his grave, carved with the Victoria Cross awarded posthumously for his actions on that last day of his life, I was the same age as he had been when he died. Great-grandfathers should grow into old men, lives trailing out, part-forgotten behind them. Bertie never grew old, neither did his brothers, Charlie, Ronnie or Teddie. To study their pictures is to see the young lives of a lost generation, four among millions of victims of the Great War, the war of ultimate futility and waste. The war that, as the historian John Keegan wrote, "ruined Europe as a centre of world civilisation". The war that was supposed to end all wars....