Passport to Hell

by Hyde, Robin

  Page 100

  ‘two hundred and eighty men’. ‘The personnel of the raiding party, all told, comprised six officers and 175 other ranks’ (Byrne, p.101). The casualties were:- killed: 4 officers and 31 other ranks; wounded: 4 officers and 118 other ranks; reported missing: 6 other ranks, Byrne, p.103.

  Page 101

  Jimmy Peters. Petrie, MS Notes.

  Alec Payle. Bayley, MS Notes.

  Norman White. Black, MS Notes.

  Page 102

  ‘Baldur the beautiful is dead’. The closest I can find to this line is from Sydney Dobell’s poem on Balder: ‘My Beautiful, my Beautiful/Thou art slain, Thou art slain’, Poetical Works, 1875, vol.II, p.278.

  Pages 103–104

  Death of Jackie MacKenzie. ‘saw a white face looking at the sky. Found his little pal, Jackie. Searching for his wound, find he has a bullet through the heart—dead. Carried him back & left him in his dugout. Another maxim took up the song—got it for Jackie […] Took Jackie on shoulder & walked the seven miles to Armentières to an old French undertaker. Had him put in a coffin, taken to the public cemetery & buried. Borrowed camera & took photograph of grave. Arrested for being in possession of camera …’, MS Notes.

  Pages 105–106

  Starkie’s part in raid after disappearance of Jackie. Aitken had also been part of the raid—in 10th Company—and had observed Starkie: ‘Private S——, a more or less permanent inmate of the clink (not for moral faults but from a congenital recalcitrance to discipline), had asked to be given some remission of punishment by taking part in the raid. He was wounded, but went back over the parapet at least a dozen times, bringing in a wounded man each time, and at dawn had to be restrained by main force—a hot-tempered and impulsive man—from going out again. His sentence was remitted; a decoration, in the circumstances, would hardly have been appropriate, but he received mention in Divisional Orders’ (Aitken, p. 104). Starkie remembered bringing in 16 (MS Notes). Another account put it at 11: ‘Then came the high-light of the raid. As we entered the trench midst a hail of bullets came Jack Stark with a badly wounded man on his shoulder. He laid him at the doctor’s feet as gently as a kitten. Backward and forward he continued carrying them so easily. We were too busy at the time to note how many he brought in, but later we ascertained that it was eleven. Jack did not return to us that night but cleaned up a machine gun crew that had caused a lot of casualties’, ‘J.H.’, Ranui (letter cited by Moreton in A Parson in Prison, by Melville Harcourt, p. 227). Downie Stewart also remembered the raid: ‘The events recorded as having happened in the trenches in front of Armentières are substantially correct, and the present writer can testify to the signal bravery displayed by Stark in carrying in the wounded under heavy fire on the occasion of a disastrous raid. But Stark has evidently merged together in one chapter events of different dates, as he was not on this occasion recommended for the V.C., but only notified that his bravery had wiped out a prospective imprisonment of five years, which he had at that time been sentenced to serve after the War’, Review of Passport to Hell, Otago Daily Times, 4 July 1936.

  Page 107

  ‘a Major’. Major Carew (MS Notes). Can this be Major D. Colquhoun, commanding 14th (South Otago) Company? I cannot find Major Carew.

  Page 108

  ‘In the afternoon Colonel Chalmers tramped’. ‘8 a.m.’, MS Notes.

  Mention of the raid in N.Z. papers and reactions of Starkie’s schools. The raid did get into the papers, with some of Starkie’s actions, but no mention of his name or V.C. recommendation: ‘A private under suspended sentence of five years’ penal servitude, behaved with great heroism. He was seen boldly standing up under heavy fire, and repeatedly lifting wounded men over the parapet. His sentence was remitted’ (Otago Daily Times, 20 July 1916; Southland Times, 21 July 1916). Starkie only mentions four schools, not five: ‘Claimed by Gladstone School, Park School, Waikiwi and Marist Brothers all claimed him—Belonged to none’, MS Notes.

  Page 109

  ‘back to the estaminet again …. Preparations had started’. Ten lines cut from MS B-10 depict Starkie continuing to drink and Colonel Charters telling him to forget about the V.C.

  ‘Preparations had started’. The British launched the Somme offensive on 1 July 1916. The activities of the New Zealanders and other troops of the Second Army were to keep the Germans occupied and prevent them from withdrawing troops to strengthen the line in the Somme.

  Page 110

  ‘They got their kits together’. The Second Battalion Otago was relieved by the Black Watch on 17 August and the Regiment was clear of the line after a three-month occupation of the Armentières sector. On 2 September after a period of training, the Regiment moved off toward the Somme.

  ‘Morval in the lower Somme’. Starkie’s memory is at fault. Morval, at this stage, was in the hands of the enemy and indeed was the object of a proposed Fourth Army attack (leaving Armentières and moving to the Somme the New Zealand Division had passed from the Second Army under General Plumer to the Fourth Army under General Rawlinson).

  ‘the crack of the guns …. Somme became’. Seventeen lines cut from MS B-10 deal with the meeting between the ‘Tommies’ and the New Zealanders, an inspection by General Godley resulting in three days’ C.B. for Starkie for being unshaven, and an addition by Hyde where Starkie asks to join the Maori pioneers and is refused by Colonel Charters who wishes to retain his ‘black sheep’.

  Page 111

  ‘rotting corpses’. Aitken does not mention rotting corpses.

  ‘carried his own cross’. No mention of this in MS Notes.

  Pages 112–113

  Time spent with George. ‘saw George for the last time…. Couple of days together … All right untill leaving. Broken up when going away’, MS Notes.

  Page 114

  ‘the Donkey Mob’. Veterinary Corps.

  ‘the first warning of the Somme offensive’. ‘On September 16th a dirty grey dawn. Drizzling rain—Trenches full of thousands of men. At 6 a.m. the guns break out in the first stages of Somme’ (MS Notes). As Hyde corrected it, it was 15 September, but it was fine (Byrne, p. 118). It was certainly not the ‘first warning of the Somme offensive’; that had commenced in July, but it was the beginning of the ‘second phase’, marked by technical innovations like the tank (John Buchan, The Battle of the Somme: Second Phase, Nelson, N. D. pp. 10–11). The tanks were not ‘gifted with uncanny swiftness’: ‘Their pace was not more than on average 33 yards per minute, or 15 yards per minute over badly shelled ground’ (Stewart, p.72). The men themselves endowed the tanks with mysterious powers: ‘About noon [13th September] a curious rumour began to circulate, of armoured cars with caterpillar wheels; such marvellous powers were attributed to these that at first the matter was dismissed without consideration. Scepticism was shaken when a few officers, N.C.O.s, and men were given permits to visit a group of these “tanks’”, Aitken, p.130.

  Page 115

  ‘advance fifteen minutes after’. Starkie does not provide this detail. ‘The 8 companies moved abreast in 4 waves about 50 yards behind each other. Each wave was made up of 8 platoons in single rank, some 3 yards separating man from man. The advance was marked by admirable direction pace and alignment…. Trudging up the hill, the men hugged the barrage which lifted 50 yards a minute. They twice knelt down in the shellholes to let it precede, firing as they knelt at the machine guns in Crest Trench’, Stewart, p.73.

  Pages 116–117

  Discovery of George’s body. ‘Worked and cried at the same time. Had him buried. Closed paybook in the breech of his rifle stood rifle at grave’ (MS Notes). Starkie could have had a shovel: ‘Fastened down the centre of every other man’s back was a shovel or pick’, Stewart, p.72.

  Page 118

  ‘Starkie emptied his revolver’. Starkie does not mention a revolver and as a private he would not normally have possessed one.

  Pages 119–120

  ‘the Otago bombers’. ‘The work accomplished on this morning b
y our bombers … was of a very gallant order. The enemy resorted to volley firing, and in addition to being more liberally supplied with bombs, had the advantage of position on the high ground. However, our party succeeded in accomplishing its task of establishing and maintaining a block, notwithstanding the fact that every bomber of the Battalion who had been engaged had become a casualty’ (Byrne, p.125). It is no doubt the struggle of 20 September in which the Black Watch were involved that Starkie remembered: ‘The handful of Black Watch bombers, who had not yet been reinforced, were driven back down Drop Alley, and the enemy swarmed round and in rear of our left flank…. In this soldiers’ battle many gallant deeds were done of which no record survives’, Stewart, p.94.

  Page 121

  ‘the Scotties had been twenty-one’. It is clear that the ‘twenty-one’ are Otago reinforcements: ‘21 went along—Started to bomb the Hun … Scotties down to a very few men’ (MS Notes). Starkie wrote out another account of this incident for Hyde, which is slightly different: ‘along Comes a Black Watch Colonel. he looks at us. and says. Good work men. for 7 long Hours we had been Holding Him: we started with 14 Bombers of our own. and 12. Black watch we finished with 4 men. Charles Frew, the Drone or Sleepy Charlie was His Handle amongst the Boys. & 1 Black Watch Bomber. The Colonel now takes are names & Regiments. A Kelleher. C. Frew, A McGregor, BW. & my own. and tells us we will be Releaved Right away as we need Food & Rest. & He is going to see we get. it He Had not gone far. when we all Ducked and Whish Bang He got the Colonel, that one Screaming Shell, and killed Him. He said you will all be Recomended & Some one Sang Tell me the Old Old Story’, Stark MS with MS Notes.

  Page 122

  ‘first Somme took up twenty-four days’. Not the first Somme offensive. ‘On 3 and 4 October the New Zealanders were relieved and went back. They had been fighting for twenty-three consecutive days’, Burton, p.179.

  The attack of September 25. The attack of the 25th went smoothly and successfully (Byrne, p. 129). Starkie seems to be remembering the disastrous attack of 27 September.

  ‘three quarters of a mile advance’. A map (Aitken, p.150) indicates an advance of about 700 yards. Three-quarters of a mile would have been a considerable advance.

  Death of ‘Bill Howard’. Lieutenant Bill Howden (Stark MS), died of wounds, mentioned in despatches (Byrne, p.406). This was also the attack (27 September) in which Aitken received the wound that took him out of the War. His comments on the horror as he crawled back show the difficulty in writing of war: ‘The road here and the ground to either side were strewn with bodies, some motionless, some not. Cries and groans, prayers, imprecations, reached me. I leave it to the sensitive imagination; I once wrote it all down, only to discover that horror, truthfully described, weakens to the merely clinical’ (Aitken, p.171). ‘The 1st Battalion’s attack against the Gird system of trenches and along Goose Alley on September 27th unquestionably represented the Regiment’s most bitter and costly experience on the Somme. When the Battalion marched out of the line on the night of the 28th it was reduced to a strength of 113, which was considerably below that of a company’, Byrne, pp.132–3.

  Sergeant Mason. The gold-mining detail is Hyde’s. Sergeant James Mason, Sixth Reinforcements, Otago Infantry Battalion.

  Page 123

  ‘a New Zealand Colonel’. Presumably Captain James Hargest who commanded the 10th Company and assumed command of the remnant of the four shattered Otago Companies. He was awarded the M.C. ‘Harcus got a military cross. Mason about 6 foot 1—good athlete, wrestler, never got a mention’, MS Notes.

  ‘marched back to Mametz Wood’. The first Battalion of Otago was moved to Mametz Wood on 29 September. ‘Forest blown to pieces—not a decent tree standing up … In the wood thousands of dead, Germans, Australians, Tommies of all brigades. Death had taken the wood’, MS Notes.

  ‘Mametz Wood …. For a while’. Thirteen lines cut from MS B-10 concern a lecture from Colonel Charters to the few survivors on the Otago tradition of bravery. There is a cynical suggestion that calling for cheers for the Colonel earned a sergeant the military medal.

  Page 124

  ‘Starkie’s company was moved’. The Otago Regiment marched out of the Somme Battlefield on 3 October 1916, the 1st Battalion moving to Pommiers Redoubt and the 2nd Battalion to Base Camp at Fricourt. After a few days the 1st Battalion and the 2nd Battalion were both moved on by stages, the 1st to billets near Bac St Maur and the 2nd to Armentières, Byrne, pp.142–3.

  Pages 125–126

  Discovery of the underground field hospital. ‘Everyone dead—Red Cross nurses, doctors, sitting & lying, just as if asleep—all dead—all dead, all dead, all dead, all dead’. MS Notes.

  Page 127

  ‘how they had died…. He gathered up’. Nine lines cut from MS B-10 has Hyde describing a dead German nurse and her luxuriant hair, a piece of gratuitous horror.

  Huie Goodyear. Goodlet, MS Notes.

  Page 128 ff.

  Incident of hitting Canterbury corporal. ‘Starkie punched corporal returned to billets’, MS Notes.

  Page 129

  ‘tunnelling below Messines Ridge’. It had been decided by the Allies that the capture of the Messines-Wytschaete Ridge was necessary for the overall strategy of the Western Front in the early part of 1917. ‘Along the original Second Army front there were 24 mines, which had involved the driving of 8,000 yards of galleries’ (Byrne, p.170). ‘So far did individuals become removed from their own units that it is related that on more than one occasion, a Canadian tunneller emerging after a relief had taken place on the surface, was suspected by the relieving troops of being a deserter’, G. W. L. Nicholson, Canadian Expeditionary Force 1914–1919, Ottawa, 1962, p.501.

  Page 130

  ‘Y.M.C.A. near Green Camp’. I have been unable to trace Green Camp as an aerodrome. Starkie’s account to Murphy calls it ‘the Canadian Headquarters’, but I have no evidence of this. Perhaps Starkie confused it with ‘Green Dump’ a large supply dump in the rear of the Longueval-Bazentin road, Stewart, p.89.

  Page 131

  ‘a handle of beer …. One evening’. Eight lines cut from MS B-10 deal with the man in charge of the tunnelling job, Captain Bevis, and the advantages of Bailleul for relaxation.

  Page 132

  ‘twisted flesh …. Birthday farm’. Eighteen lines cut from MS B-10 deal with Starkie’s account of the capture of a large German prisoner and the destruction of the man using him as a screen to snipe from.

  ‘Birthday Farm … where Sam Frickleton got his V.C.’ About 700 yards ahead of the British lines towards the Messines-Wytschaete road (map, Byrne, p.161). ‘The “London Gazette” of August 2 announces the award of the Victoria Cross to 6/2133 L.Cpl. Samuel Frickleton, NZ Infy. Although slightly wounded Frickleton dashed forward at the head of his section, pushed into our barrage and personally destroyed with bombs a machine gun and crew which was causing heavy casualties. He then attacked a second gun, killing the whole of the crew of twelve … Lance Cpl. Frickleton who is a miner in civil life, gained his V.C. at the capture of Messines on June 7 last’, Chronicles of the N.Z.E.F., vol.II, no.24, 8 August 1917, p.277.

  Page 133

  ‘ten years’ penal servitude’. The acount Starkie gave to Murphy has only ‘two years Hard Labour’.

  Page 134

  ‘automatic lying about’. Not in the account to Murphy.

  ‘aerial free-for-all’. ‘At this period enemy night-flying aeroplanes were active and frequently dropped bombs over the billeting area’, Byrne, p.249.

  Page 135

  Ginger Crombie. Riley, MS B-10.

  Page 136

  ‘shot drill’. ‘An obsolete form of military punishment in which the soldier punished had to carry a cannon-ball’, O.E.D.

  Sergeant Jackson. Johnson, MS B-10.

  ‘early Victorian gaols …. When Starkie’. Ten lines cut from MS B-10 deal with the fact that the treadmill and the crank were used on the dregs of London while the men oppressed here were fine
soldiers.

  Page 137

  ‘The chance never came …. The men’. Eight lines omitted from MS B-10 concern a visiting General who, when he learns Starkie is a New Zealander orders that he be taken from solitary confinement and put back with his fellow prisoners.

  Page 138

  ‘world his enemy …. “I’m going’”. Nineteen lines cut from MS B-10 concern colour prejudice, which exists in New Zealand in spite of not being supposed to, the Maoris being treated as domestic pets, and whites’ continuing oppression of blacks.

  Page 139

  Starkie smashing thumb with hammer. In the Murphy version Starkie slashes his hand with a piece of glass.

  Page 140

  ‘twelve-foot wall’. ‘8 ft wall’ in Murphy.

  ‘sprained ankle’. He twists his ankle prior to climbing the wall in Murphy.

  Page 141

  ‘eighteen francs’. ‘10 francs’, MS Notes.

  Page 142

  ‘helped himself to … automatic’. ‘never took automatic pistol or money but took tobacco’ (MS Notes). Took ‘A big automatic fully loaded’, Murphy account.

  Page 143

  ‘The Negro Labour Corps’. ‘African Labour Corps’, MS Notes.

  Pages 144–145

  Escape by swimming incident. ‘Frozen & frightened—Lay on back, took a blind guess at boat’s direction. Swam there for ½ hour—finally struck the other boat’, MS Notes.

  Page 146

  ‘Apaches’. ‘a band of robbers and assassins in and around Paris and other European cities’ (O.E.D.). Not in MS Notes.

  ‘superfluous cop problem …. There were some Yankees’. Ten lines cut from MS B-10 deal with living in Paris on the run.