The journey from the 29th CCS was a bit trying as I could only lie on one side and was 9 hours in the train.
I expected to be in Blighty for Christmas and so did the nurses here, but the doctor thinks otherwise.
Your letters will come in less than two days now so I expect a reply for Christmas. Don’t send any cigs at present as I cannot smoke.
On a clear day one can see England from here. So near and yet so far!
Well, Merry Christmas
With best love Norman
Editor: Within days of arriving at the Base Hospital, Norman was on his way home. Soldiers often hoped for a Blighty wound, one serious enough to instigate a return to England, but not serious enough to impair future long-term prospects. Norman’s injury, although considered ‘slight’, was serious enough to effect a transfer across the Channel where, on landing, he was taken to Brighton and to a workhouse that had been converted into a hospital by the Australians. ‘There was a song at the time, “Christmas day in the workhouse” recalled Norman later, ‘and I was literally there!’
Kitchener’s Hospital ‘H’ Block, Brighton, Dec 22nd/16 7pm
Dear All
I Left the Base at 5am 21st and arrived at Calais about 12 noon the same day. We were put on board the boat (the Brighton) but did not sail until 7 in the morning (22nd). It was very rough crossing and I was about the only one in the ward that wasn’t sick, but I did feel bad!
The people in this hospital are all Australian (God’s own people as they
say).
Wounded soldiers are carried from an ambulance train to waiting hospital ships at Calais.
You will have received my telegram from Dover. I sent it from the Hospital train. I do not expect to be long here. It is time I was getting up. I am still on milk diet and am getting anxious for Christmas! I will get about three weeks leave after this… All my kit is at the Front near Courcelette (nr Pozières) and I will not get it for months probably. All I have is what I was wearing when I was hit.
I haven’t a hat at all as I left my steel helmet at the Casualty Clearing Station and my hose-tapes were lost somewhere. My helmet had a big dent in it where it stopped a piece of stone. (At the time I hardly felt the crump). I see that the name of the officer of our lot who was captured by the Bosche the day after I was hit, is in the casualty list today. The C.O. here says I will be on full rations for Christmas so that will be A1.
With best love Norman
Dec 23rd
Dear All
I got up today for the first time and I was jolly glad. I’ve been sitting beside the fire all day reading and having occasional ‘40 winks’. With a bit of luck I should be home in a week. I had a high fever with the wound in France so I had to stay in bed. It was funny being bundled about on a stretcher all the way from the Front (we are all ticketed to say who and what we are etc and this is tied onto our pyjamas).
Hope you have a merry Christmas wherever you are.
With dearest love, Norman
Editor: Norman’s positive attitude no doubt calmed any fears that his parents might have had, although in reality he was not as ‘chipper’ as he wished to make out. Years later, he recalled that he was ‘in bed and pretty sick too. I was very feverish. The nurses tried to get me on my feet for a Christmas party, but I’m afraid I was too far gone for that, but what they did, these dear Australian nurses, they pushed a bottle of whisky under the bed for me to help myself if I felt like it, but of course I couldn’t think of touching whisky and I just listened to the festivities going on amongst the patients and the nurses.’ His recovery was swift, nevertheless.
Dec 26th Brighton
Dear Father and Mother
I hope you had a jolly time yesterday. I was allowed to go down to the Dining Room and tuck in at the turkey and plum duff. It’s the first Xmas dinner I’ve eaten in pyjamas and a dressing gown. In the afternoon I went to bed and had a sleep. I may be allowed out tomorrow or the next day as I can walk alright now.
Best wishes for a happy new year. Your loving son Norman
Norman
Within a week or so, I was much improved, to the extent that I thought I would take a trip to London, although I wasn’t really fit for it. I didn’t ask anybody’s permission and I went and caught the Southern Belle, the special train from Brighton to London. I had a walk around and felt a bit better. Later, I went to a music hall and even managed to pop into a restaurant for a snack. Despite the rationing, it was possible to eat as much as you liked in the restaurants; they didn’t seem to be short of anything from memory, and the population knew very little about the war. I made my way back to hospital where I got an old-fashioned scolding from the nurses for taking the liberty of walking out.
Editor: As Norman recovered, he continued to write home, although his letters contain little of interest at this time. He noted that his kit, left near Pozières on the day of his injury, had duly arrived, ‘almost complete’, including his revolver. He also notes that he received several ‘shoulder epaulets of departed Fritz’s and Karl’s’ which he forwarded to home. His slightly glib comment, as a nineteen year old, masked the fact that for the rest of his life these were highly personal artefacts.
Such was the speed of Norman’s recovery that by 17th January he had already received word from the War Office that a Medical Board was being assembled at Ripon. On the 24th, the Board pronounced Norman fit for General Service, after which his Commanding Officer granted him leave. He returned to Ripon in early February for a week’s course of physical training and then musketry while he waited to be placed on a draft for France. Norman’s enthusiasm for war was, understandably, waning: in a letter in February, he writes anxiously that ‘A new War Office order states that no fit men from France are to be kept in England more than four weeks’, adding, ‘I do not know if this applies to officers.’
Norman recuperating in England. Note the heavy strapping on his left leg.
Norman lighting a cigarette with two off-duty nurses, proudly displaying his wound strip on his left forearm.
A Vest Pocket Camera (VPK) similar to that bought by Norman in March 1917 and with which he took his first snaps some of which are shown.
Captain Harris (centre) before his departure to France to join the 4th Battalion Seaforth Highlanders in 1915. He later became Norman’s company officer.
In the end, Norman remained with the reserve battalion at Ripon for three months. His apparent return to full health hid the fact that inside his body undetected shell casing remained. In due course an abscess began to form at the top of his thigh, which grew and grew before, as Norman noted, ‘finally out popped another piece of shell and also a piece of kilt which had been rotting away inside my leg. I discovered that the shell fragments had scraped the main artery, a doctor telling me afterwards that if they had been closer by the thickness of a cigarette paper, I would have bled to death.’ The medical problems necessitated a further operation, ‘opening up the left side of my abdomen and removing a number of veins and debris that I had collected.’ An undated and hastily written note to his parents followed the operation’s success.
‘I didn’t want to tell you I was going through an operation as I thought you might worry about nothing,’ he assured them. ‘I will be out of bed and able to walk in a few more days.’
Norman
Apart from my operation, my stay at Ripon was uneventful. I waited to return to France along with other officers, some who had been convalescent, others who were awaiting their first time up the line. I met quite a number including one, Otto Murray Dixon, a Lieutenant and artist who I think was related to the Duchess of Sutherland. I shared quarters with him and I got to know him very well. He was a charming man, not a very efficient soldier, and could never remember to step off with the left foot on parade.
Otto was a good artist and I remember watching him draw as we sat in a Nissan hut. He got a jam jar and put some clover in it and drew a rabbit peeping out of the top; he called it ‘In clover’ and i
t appeared on the front page of The London Sporting and Dramatic Magazine. Later, in France, he did a sketch of a rat eating food out of a machonochie tin, and that also appeared in the magazine.
Another officer with whom I became friendly was a man called AA Pitcairn and he was a London solicitor and he was the oldest officer in the battalion; I think he was almost old enough to be my father. But I admired him for his pluck for joining the PBI when he could so easily have avoided it altogether. I don’t think he ever went over the top but he didn’t shirk anything either.
Pitcairn, I was lucky to meet on many a long weekend after the war; Otto, sadly not. He was a very brave officer and led his men over the top on the opening day of the Battle of Arras. As he attacked, he had his belly blown out and he died a day or two later. I went to his grave about seventy years later at Arras. Now, I had only known him a very short time, probably not more than three weeks or a month, but I knew him so well – because in that war you never got to know people for very long, but if you did get to know anyone you got to know them intensely.
‘A hunting we shall go’ A group of recuperating officers with trusted shotguns.
In mid March I purchased a little Vest Pocket Kodak camera (VPK) and proceeded to photograph several of those waiting to go back to France. The weather was good and I took many pictures of my brother officers who were later killed, Balantyne, Robson among them. In a letter home, I enthusiastically wrote, ‘Yesterday I got my first lot of photos. They are splendid. I will keep a print of every one I take in an album. They will be very interesting after the war.’ Owning a camera at the front was against all regulations, so I carried it in a pocket in my khaki apron worn over my kilt. Nobody ever suspected that I had it and, in time, I took pictures of my troops before and after the Battle of Arras and shortly before 3rd Ypres. It was difficult to get film so I had to be very sparing. Even so I very quickly ran out.
I bought the camera partly because I knew that, this time, I would be sent to my own battalion, the 4th Battalion, and would therefore be an officer amongst the men with whom I had enlisted. I think I certainly found it much more homely to be with people I knew.
AA Pitcairn, a friend and fellow officer, who accompanied Norman back to France in April 1917.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Back in the Frying Pan
Editor: On 9 April, the 4th Seaforth Highlanders took part in the successful attack on Vimy Ridge. The storming of one of the Western Front’s few heights has gone down in history as primarily a Canadian action. However, the 51st Division played an integral part. Attacking at 4.45am, the Battalion took all its objectives, managing to link up with the Canadians on their left. In the process, the Battalion captured 167 prisoners, seizing two German machine guns and six trench mortars. The attack cost the Seaforth Highlanders dear. Five officers were killed, including Norman’s friend Otto Murray Dixon, and four wounded, while 210 other ranks were killed or wounded and seven were missing. The rash of casualties ensured that, by the end of the month, Norman would be on a draft back to France.
A group of soldiers pause for breath shortly after a successful action at Arras.
4th (Res) Seaforth Highlanders
North Camp, Ripon
18/4/17
Dear all
Thanks very much for your nice presents, needless to say the Grey’s chocolate etc have joined their forefathers.
The weather is very bad today. As I expected it was the Highland Division that took Vimy Ridge. We have had letters from the colonels of the 4th and 6th Battalions and they say that the Canadians on our left had a much easier time and yet there wasn’t one word in the papers about our crowd.
The 6th had 400 casualties out of 420 in one day and every officer killed or wounded. This means that the 4th 5th and 6th must have lost at least 1,000 men and 30 officers and we have to supply them. At the most I don’t think we could raise 400.
Yesterday I applied for my Draft Leave so I may be home before this letter.
With best love Norman
Editor: The losses had to be made up by a new draft of men and so it was that Norman was among ten officers who travelled to France two weeks later. These officers would be badly needed, for the day before the draft’s departure the Battalion took part in a second attack, on the 23rd April, around the village of Roeux. More casualties were sustained; indeed of the thirty-one officers serving in the Battalion at the start of the month, only fourteen remained at the front. In total, the 4th Seaforths had lost 368 men killed, wounded and missing, about 40% of its fighting strength
Above, a first sight of France, second time around. Below, having just landed, Norman snaps his friends including Pitcairn on the right.
Going up the line to ‘find’ the battalion.
Editor: Norman joined the Battalion on the 29th April at the village of Maisières, where he began taking photographs almost immediately. The Battalion diary notes that on the 29th, ten officers arrived: Second Lieutenants G Robson, J Davidson, WN Collins, WS Dane, A Brodie, JN Macdonald, J Bain, M Murray, DBM Jackson and RC Spence. Of these, Norman Collins and Davidson were sent to B Company, along with two other friends from Ripon, AA Pitcairn and Ballantyne, both of whom arrived at the Battalion on the 3rd May.
Monday
29th April
Dear All
I am at present staying at a farm. Not like Bairnsfather’s but quite a good one.
The Division is recuperating after its hard work.
As usual the Battalion has covered itself with glory.
The 7th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders as you would see in the papers also distinguished itself. I believe one of ours is getting the VC. [Ed. Lieutenant Donald MacKintosh, 2nd Seaforth Highlanders, was awarded the VC posthumously]
The weather is beautiful at present. I have met a lot of boys I knew at Fort George in 1915. My Platoon Sergeant enlisted the same day as I did at Dingwall. I won’t be in the line for a few days at least. You need not send much out. About the only things we need are cigarettes and toffee and such things as preserved dates.
We left about half of our draft at the base.
There is no more news and I have to get on parade.
Best love
Norman xxx
2/5/17
Dear all
How are you keeping?
I am in the ‘Pink’ as usual. Today I am orderly officer whose only duties are to inspect the Guard and the billets.
We are having a very quiet time at present and having splendid weather. Tonight we are having a bit of a concert. Of course we are the artistes. Someone has unearthed an old piano. More or less in tune.
The Divisional General [Harper] is coming to hear our band.
We have a fine pipe band (sporrans, spats and dyed hose tops)
I will write again tomorrow
Best Love
Norman
6/5/17
Dear Bolton
…We are having it very hot, it’s like July or August.
Give my love to all the wee lassies, the little darlings.
Old Pitcairn (another little drink) is with me in my Company. It was lucky that we should get to the same battalion.
Just had tea with JD Pollock VC. Cameron Highlanders. He is a top hole chap.
I had a letter returned to me that I wrote to Henderson of the Argylls when he was in France. He must have been wounded before receiving my letter. The letter was sent back from France to Ripon and then back to France!
The fighting is terrific at present. There is no trench warfare. It is all going over the top, one Division after another, until we break through. Fritz is putting up a great fight.
Men of the 4th Seaforths practising musketry.
Our Division was in action on the 9th and 23rd and will be ready for another turn in a few days I expect. As usual I will come through all right.
There is no more news so ta ta
Best love to mother and father.
Norman
Editor: While out o
f the line at Maisières relations with local people could often become strained; indeed, one unfortunate incident might have marred relations straight away. The diary for 154 Brigade describes extensive training 7 May, as ‘not very successful’. The Seaforth Highlanders had used live ammunition and, as the diary noted, had forgotten ‘to clear the countryside with the result that they nearly killed several civilians and their horses who were working in the fields. Naturally the General Officer Commanding was somewhat annoyed. However, they were stopped before any damage was done.’
The Seaforths remained at Maisières until 12 May; they then marched to Etrun on the Arras-St Pol road, where they were housed in huts for two days until sudden orders arrived sending the Seaforths up the line.
16th May 1917.
Dear all
Just a note to let you know I am ‘all correct’ so far.
We are in the line at present and of course enjoying it.
Going to get on the move in a few minutes.
Au Revoir
With best love
Norman xxx
Editor: There was good reason for the brevity of Norman’s note home. During the night there had been a bombardment, several large calibre shells falling near the Seaforths’ billets. At 8am that morning, it was reported that the enemy had attacked and were holding the Chemical Works near Rouex. The Chemical Works had been the scene of so much bitter fighting over the previous weeks, finally falling to the 4th Division. News that the Germans had reoccupied the Works was a serious development, so the 4th Seaforth Highlanders were ordered to move up at once to the Arras-Lens Railway embankment, north of the River Scarpe, to await further orders.
At 2pm, B and D Company were led forward to relieve the 8th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in the front line. The Germans were shelling the trenches heavily and it wasn’t until early evening that the Seaforths reached the support line known as Corona Trench. Believing that in all likelihood the front line was now held by the Germans, the men were led forward in an attack. Just as the order was to be given to charge, Scottish voices were heard, averting at the last moment a full scale assault on their own positions.
Last Man Standing Page 12
