Royal Field Artillery
First World War Diary with Anecdotes
The diary and anecdotes of John Price Nunn who was a Driver and Signaller for the 2nd East Lancashire Division.
The diary and anecdotes of John Price Nunn who was a Driver and Signaller for the 2nd East Lancashire Division.
According to my knowledge we must have settled in Ossogne about the beginning or during the first week in December. The village was only small but very pretty and untouched by the war. I can remember it well enough to draw a sketch plan.
When we arrived here billets were found by most of the Battery with the villagers but for some reason, I know not why, quite a few of the men were housed in the stables building at the end of the cul-de-sac. There were about 10 horses on the ground floor and we were on the upper floor which was approached by an inside staircase.
Three of us, Shuttleworth, Marcott and myself did not like this place, which was very dirty and cold, but apart from this there was at night the smell of the horses below and their shuffling, snorting and kicking; so we decided to find better accommodation and we called on one or two of the villagers who had not already had anyone billeted in them. Emile and Marie Gruslet took pity on us and let us have an upper floor room which was quite empty and there for a time we slept on bare boards. Of course all the other peasants on whom the army had inflicted the billeting of troops, would be paid for this service but Emile and Marie would not get any pay at all, nevertheless they wanted us to stay with them.
Word soon got round that we were there and in the course of a few days a relation of theirs, a young man about 18 years old, supplied us with a double mattress which he carried from his mother’s house about 4 miles away. It was a tight fit for three of us on this mattress but we took turns sleeping in the middle so as to be sure of comfort at least one night in three.
The house itself was in a row with 3 or 4 similar, built of stone and having one large and one small room on the ground floor and two in the first floor. The sanitary accommodation was crude and consisted of a small enclosed earth closet at the edge of the road in front of the house (see map).
[typists note: this photo could well be the house is Ossogne- at the time could have been 3 individual houses. Ossogne is a very small village that appears to have seen little development.
The village like all other villages and towns had been in German hands since the beginning of the war and food was rationed to all the occupants in them.
Of course they had plenty of land on which to grow their own vegetables and this they did but meat of any kind was very strictly rationed. They had learned to use what meat they did get to use at the fullest extent. During our stay with them and on nearly every day they would early morning put cut up potatoes in a large pan on the stove, mix it with chives and cut up a very small portion of their meat ration and mix the shreds with the potatoes. This concoction would be on the stove all day long until about 7pm when Emile returned from his place of work. They would always ask us to have a portion of it and it was very tasty. Since we never refused we would in turn give them part of our own rations, particularly porridge and rice pudding which they were very glad to have. The stove by the way in most of these cottages served also as a heating appliance and was a very good one too.
I show a sketch of the type of stove from which it can be seen that from the actual stove, which stuck out in to the room about 5 feet, there is a sheet of metal flue duct (heated from the gasses and smoke from the stove) carried across horizontally to the flue in the wall. On this every day and all day was a coffee pot from which black coffee could be served at any time. The centre hole on top of the stove was removed for cooking when required. With the stove projecting into the room everyone occupying the room would sit around it, especially at night and in the coldest of weathers it was most efficient.
During our stay in Ossogne military discipline slackened off. In point of fact although we knew that some kind of occupying army would have to remain in France and Belgium, there were already may of the troops clamouring for demobilization. Any decision regarding demobilization would naturally come from High Command, and therefore until their minds were made up the army had to be kept happy and one of the easiest ways of achieving this was to relax discipline.
Nevertheless the horses still had to be groomed, watered, fed and exercised daily and every week there was a medical inspection. This was always on the upper floor of the brewery, which was some 50-60 feet long by 20-25 feet wide. It was apparently not in use for any purpose and was quite empty. There was long row of louvered openings on the road side of the building to admit some measure of light. For inspection purposes we had to line up in single file close to the louvered openings and in turn as we reached the medical officer drop our trousers and lift up our shirts. This was the customary medical inspection. The villagers seemed to know when the inspections were on for we could, by looking down through the louvers, see congregations of them on the far side of the road looking upwards.
Gaston and his friends shown below. They also formed the Concertina Band that played on a Saturday night at “Collignon’s” Estaminet , Ossogne. Gaston is top right.
Below is shown myself at the left, Fred Shuttleworth (centre) and Bill Marcott? (right), The three of us found ourselves billets at the home of Emile Gruslet and his wife Marie at Ossogne.
The name Marcott could be Marriott, the writing is unclear
Now that we were settled in Ossogne the horses too were inspected more closely and their condition brought up to scratch. I remember one horse that had been suffering from what appeared to be suppurating sore on the fleshy part of its chest. I was exercising this horse one day when the vet decided to cut this open to find the cause. In order to stop the horse from rearing I put a snitch on its nose. This was done by putting a looped rope around its nose which tightened if the horse moved. Then the vet cut open the sore and putting his fist and second finger into the flesh brought out quite a sizeable piece of shrapnel, This operation caused a good deal of bleeding which I was forced to watch but to my amazement I was able to observe it without fainting.
Night time in a village right out in the country would be a bore but the central attraction in the evenings was the estaminet owned by Monsieur and Madame Collignon. They had three daughters, Antoinette, Sylvia and Helene. Their ages were difficult to guess but I show photos taken about that time of Sylvia and Helene and leave the reader to guess.
Antoinette was the oldest and Helene the youngest. We used to spend our evenings at the estaminet drinking brandy which was obviously adulterated with water before sale, since none of use seemed to become inebriated however much we drunk. On a Saturday evening Gaston and a few of his pals, all of whom played concertina, attended and provided a concertina band for dancing to, and so the three sisters were never without a partner on these nights.
I show photos of them below. These are as they were when we were at Ossogne.
Emile Gruslet
Baby Mimile Gruslet
The three Collignon Sisters
Besides the three sisters Collignon there were two other mademoiselles, Mourrie and Clara who attended the dances. The latter could speak and write English write well. None of the others could. I knew sufficient French to be able to make them understand me although their native tongue was “Wallon” a mixture of Belgium and French. At that time I could sing to “La Marseillaise” in French reasonably well, having learnt it at school before going to Cherbourg on a school camp and I used to amuse both the Gruslet’s and Collingnon’s by singing it.
Antoinette was a good sport, full of fun and we all got on very well with her. She used to invite the three of us to afternoon tea whenever it was possible for us to go, and we would go into her parlour for this and have bread, butter and jam (the bread being cut chunks off a loaf about 2 feet long).
Of course the girls very soon picked up phrases from the sort of talk common amongst soldiers and many times they would repeat them not really knowing what they meant.
Emile taught me to swear in Wallon and I have remembered some of these phrases ever since such as “sacre nom de Dieu” and “Gott vor Dom”.
Sylvia rather took a fancy to me and engaged me in conversation as best she could whenever we were in the estaminet. She took our playful remarks rather too seriously and I remember one night outside the estaminet saying good night when she indicated by signs that she would be ready anytime to go to Namur with me to purchase an engagement ring.
We were also taken around to meet friends of Emile and Marie names Jean-Baptiste Camille and Julie Furnimont (Julie was Emile's sister) who also lived at Ossogne and we also met Marie’s father and had dinner with him. I remember him giving me a Boche rangefinder as a souvenir.
Everyone of our new friends were so good to us that the three of us along with one or two others that frequented the estaminet decided to throw a party and invite our new friends to it. Inviting them was easy but carrying it out was quite a tall order. We decided that we could use the room above the stables which was about 30 x 20 feet but this was so filthy that it had to be cleaned out. Whilst my mates were doing this I set about on an idea for decorating the room. First with the aid of charcoal which I procured from the cookhouse I drew on the end wall of the room, on the plaster, a replica of the artillery badge, the size of it being about 6 feet wide. Then on all the other walls I hung our sleeping blankets which were a grey/brown in colour, and draped over these on a kind of festoon, the traces which were used to couple together a six horse team.
Both the leather work and metal links of the traces were burnished and glittered against the background of the blankets. About 20 people had to be accommodated for the meal and we managed to fix up part tables and part planks for this purpose. I can not remember now what the meal consisted of but I do know we managed somehow a 4 course meal, but more particularly I remember being extremely short on cutlery. After each course the plates and dishes had to be hurriedly washed in preparation for the next course. It was a great success and a very happy event and to finish the evening off we made our way to Collingnon’s Estaminet.
Above I refer to the use of charcoal from the cookhouse; so I would explain that fuel for the cookhouse cooking utensils was wood from a nearby small forest and every day or so men were detailed to go and cut a tree down and saw it up in to logs. I remember being one of a party to do this. Although we selected the right kind of tree we did not select one in the right position and after we had axed it at the bottom until it was actually cut right through – we could not get it to fall because it was being held in vertical position at its top by its own branches and those others adjacent. It is possible it is there to this day because we left it and started on another.
As Christmas Day approached our C.O. decided to give us a good dinner on that day and to this end obtained a couple of young pigs. Bill Marriott who had been a butcher in Civvy life offered to kill them (or as he called it ‘steak them’) a few days before they were to be roasted. The pigs were placed in a small stone building at the end of the cul-de-sac and Marriott was provided with a sharp knife. He asked me to be his assistant and though I first agreed to do this, when we got to the stone building I could not face up to this kind of murder, since he told me beforehand it was necessary to split their throats and bleed them. So I remained outside the building and he did the job single-handed. I shall never forget the shrieks and squealing that came from the slaughterhouse during this operation. And after they had been killed they were placed on a bed of burning straw to burn off all their body hairs and on Christmas Day the Battery had a real good feast.
Following Christmas, New Year was soon upon us and I cannot recollect now whether the Batter C.O. provided us with anything special for New Years Eve.
Thurs 16th Jan: I was summoned to the Battery Office and was informed by Capt. Loma that I had been selected for the Educational course at Namur. Actually I later found out that selection was not the right word. I was indeed the only one out of the whole Battery who had volunteered. No doubt they had misgivings about sending me on the course due to my army record but they had no option. I was to leave for Namur 4th Army on the following day. When I told Emile and Marie I was leaving them for a month they were very miserable but hoped I would come back to them. Because they knew I had sore gums and knew I would have trouble eating they set to that night and made me a whole pile of griddle cakes (a kind of pancake). They made me about 24 in all, a pile about 18 inches high and I had some difficulty packing them into my haversack.
The following day I set off. It was fortunate that on the day before I left a parcel came for me containing boots for baby Emile. Marie had told me sometime previously that she had difficulty in buying substantial footwear for the baby; so I had written to my Mother and asked her to buy some for Emile and they had arrived before I left for Namur. Also on that same day before leaving Ossogne a parcel of 500 Players Cigarettes had arrived from the makers in Nottingham. The 3 of us (Fred, Bill & myself) had sent for them specially as the army issue were most distasteful. I remember the names of the army issue “Red Huzzar”, “Ruby” and “Flag”. These names of cigarettes I had never seen in civilian life and I now think they must have been made for army issue only.
So I was now well supplied with food and tobacco to go on the Army Course.
It is not mentioned in my diary but on the last two days of the course examinations were held and on Friday Feb 14th the whole of us gathered together in a large hall in the Convent and the results of the examination were given out. I was named as top of my syndicate and was presented with a certificate (shown below) and a silver medal which on one side was inscribed “4th Army Musketry Course” and on the other side a space to have my name inscribed. To enable me to have this done I was also presented with 15 francs. It was not convenient to have this carried out so I spent the 15 francs along with my friend R. Faulkner in a local Entainment and as a result my name was never inscribed on the medal.
At the beginning of the New Year 1919 everyone in the Battery was hoping to be demobilized very soon. Naturally I did not expect to be demobilized before others who had joined up before me and I also realized that firms wanted their old employees back as soon as possible. I was now in my 22nd years of age – having joined up in 1915 when I was 18 years 5 months. I had no trade or professional experience in my hands to return to and like others because of the war’s duration I had lost what might be termed the vital years of my life.
Early in January 1919 I had been in correspondence with my eldest brother Harry who was in business with a man named Nicholl in Bradford, Yorkshire as a Consulting Engineer. I did not know Harry very well since he was 19 years older than me and had married when I was 8 years old and I only saw him about once a year from then, mainly at Christmas time when the family all got together. I also know that my father was very worried about what sort of career I should enter when I was free of the army. It was really essential that I should get out a soon as possible and for my part I certainly did not want to go back to Hall Higham & Co selling ladies hats – nor was it the kind of job the army would consider to have priority.
So I wrote to my brother Harry seeking his advice and I append replies received from him at this time.
Harry certainly did what he could, as will be see from the letters, but nothing ever came of it and I did not get ay discharge until 14th May 1919 which meant that I had lost four and a half valuable years of my life.
The troops in France and Belgium were getting impatient and day by day the impatience was magnifying and we were hearing rumours from time to time of tendencies to mutiny. The relaxation of army discipline was not enough in itself a prevention to the ever growing tendency of restlessness and dissatisfaction of the troops because nothing seemed to be done about their release. You will read later that what was done with our Battery was to split us up and send us to different places. This was one way of delaying a climax and I presume now that something of the same sort of separation was put into effect with most other units of the Army in France.
The above is my very last diary entry for the war period,
Saturday March 15th, the day I left Ossogne for Dore, was sad day for the Family Gruslet and friends Fournemont and also the Collignon Family. It was sad for me too but I was dying to get back to Blighty so that thought tempered my sadness.
Not all the Battery left Ossogne on that day, only part, but I cant remember whether Bill Marriott or Laurence Pollard or any other of my friends were with me. We were sent to Dore, just outside Namur and according to my diary I was now with the 73rd Battery of the 5th Army. I remember it was called a “Cadre Battery”, another strange army term which understood to be a “loose battery” or “floating battery”.
Nor do I remember any incident (excepting one) which happened all the time we were at Dore and I was there 6 or 7 weeks. I know that we were able to get frequent evening and sometime day passes to go into Namur, and though I took advantage of these I have no recollection of any part of Namur.
The incident referred to above, concerned one of the drivers, whose name I cannot now bring to mind, but whose nickname was ”Gravy Eyes”. This name applied to him because his eyes were almost continually watering and his eye lid top and bottoms were red rimmed.
He was a simple type of chap and did not take umbrage at being called his nick name. One day he got an afternoon and evening pass to go into Namur and when he got back at night he regaled us with the following story which I have no reason to disbelieve.
Having arrived at Namur mid afternoon, he walked around for a time, then when he began to feel hungry he looked around for a place to eat. He was by then in the less salubrious part of Namur and although he did not expressly say so, I think he was really seeking a brothel to spend the time in the evening before returning to camp. However he suddenly espied a dingy café displaying a notice “Chips and Eggs, one and a half a francs”, and so he entered this place and ordered this meal. Whilst eating he chatted as best he could to the proprietor and expressed his desire in other fields of physical enjoyment and to his great surprise was informed that his wants could be accommodated on the premises for a very small fee. So after finishing his meal a young lady appeared and conducted him upstairs to a bedroom, wherein his desires were satisfied.
After leaving, he walked around the town and came across a hut known as a Blue Lamp Establishment. These were set up by the army medical authorities, within which one could obtain some measure of protection against veneral disease. Since during his walking around the town he ha been given some considerable thought to the low cost of his meal and after experience, he thought it would be a wise move to seek advice at this Blue Lamp place and as a result of enquiry was give some ointment to put on his genitals and this he did straightaway.
It was now early evening and getting a bit bored continued walking around he went to an estaminet and had a few drinks. These not only assisted in restoring his apprehensive thoughts of the afternoon but also stimulated physically, to such an extent that he favoured a return visit to the Chips and Eggs Café. Again after his meal he was invited upstairs by the self same young lady. But this time things took a very different turn.
The young lady, seeing the ointment on his genitals would not permit him intercourse and when he remonstrated and tried to explain what it was, she consented provided the ointment was washed off. The only means of washing was from cold water from a jug and bowl in the bedroom. So this is what he used. The cold water on his genitals had quite the opposite effect to that of the intoxicating liquor which had recently stimulated him. With all his trying he could not become excited and since also the girl’s time was a limited one, poor “Gravy Eyes” gave up and returned back to camp.
Of all other occupations or happenings at Dore I can remember nothing. In fact the next recorded item in my life was that of Demobilization, which took place on May 14th 1919.
About the beginning of May I must have left Dore along with others and arrived at a camp about 3 or 4 miles outside Dunkirk. This time we had no horses with us and it was fairly certain that we were on our way to Blighty. In fact, a day or two after arriving at this camp (which was a big one and housed many more men than our own party)quite a large section of troops were marched to the Dunkirk quay and sailed away to England. While we were in this camp about only one thing that happened was a thorough medical inspection. Fortunately by this time I was completely de-loused, but I remember on of the men examined was found to be in a shocking lousy state and he was ordered to have all his hairy parts shaved off and to cleanse himself thoroughly. He was a married man and realizing that his hair would not have re-grown by the time of his demobilization he was almost demented, for he was certain that his wife would not understand the reason for his hairlessness, however much he claimed that the reason was lice.
At last came the day when we were paraded and marched to the quayside, on which stood at ease but still in columns for about 3 hours. The weather was extremely windy, everyone was very excited. But instead of boarding the boat we had orders for a round a bout turn and were marched back to camp. The reason we got for this was the ship’s captain considered it too wind for sailing. As I write now my memory tells me that this happened again on the following day, but I may be exaggerating this. I do remember however quite clearly that on the day we did sail it was equally as windy as the first day and after standing on the quayside for some time we began to get in a mutinous state at the delay and reason given against us embarking. As far a I was concerned (and others too) I could not care less however rough the weather was, I was quite prepared to sail if the Captain would take us. At last however we embarked in the early afternoon and started our journey. No sooner than we were in the Channel than the proof of the Captain’s unwillingness became apparent. I have never at anytime at sea experienced a more exciting as well as frightening journey.
Outside the harbour as the boat gathered speed, the wind set up through the rigging and masts to a terrific and continuous screech and the boat began to roll and heave in all direction and the sea came over the sides at regular intervals. The journey could not have been dangerous otherwise we should not have been allowed on the open deck at all. Nevertheless the excitement of looking over the side and seeing the sea some distance down from the deck and the next moment seeing a tremendous wave sweeping towards us gave us the feeling that at any minute the ship would be swamped and at times some of the wave would belt the sides of the vessel and cause us to stagger and shudder.
And when we reached the entrance to Dover harbour the sea was still so turbulent that we thought we should hit the end of the jetties, but no we were or appeared to be carried into the harbour on top of a big wave. Quite frankly my thought, during the crossing, of ever seeing England again were at a very low ebb.
I do not remember but I think that night was spent in a camp at Dover and the following day we were given railway warrants to travel to our inspection places for demobilization. In my case I was directed to go to Heaton Park outside Manchester and there after handing in certain items of equipment I received my demobilization certificate.
What a strange manner the army has of describing the release of an employee as being “Disembodied in Demobilization!”
Also see day to day diary entries