by Ian Uys
The small one-man business which Ernest Barlow had founded in Durban in 1902 grew into the giant Barlow Rand Group, a multinational company and the largest industrial conglomerate in South Africa. There is an oil portrait, showing him in uniform, in the boardroom of Barlow Rand Limited at Sandton, Transvaal.
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Cyril Barnes emerged from the wood unscathed. He was wounded near Hill Farm in April 1918. The Germans were sending coalboxes over them when one fell short and exploded 30 yards away. He felt the blast which shattered his eardrum, but felt no pain. A friend who helped stop the flow of blood from his ear pointed out that the shovel which protruded from Barnes’s kitbag alongside his head had been holed.
A mortally-wounded friend, Harry Ayers, once gave him a letter for his wife. Much later when Barnes handed this to her in Kimberley she said that she had known the morning that he was killed, as her young son had cried and said that he had seen his daddy in uniform and that he wouldn’t ever be coming home again.
Barnes was promoted to sergeant and selected to accompany the Baghdad party to Persia. This was composed of men from all Allied nations. After the war he studied assaying at the Royal School of Mines at Kensington, then returned to SA to do a book-keeping course and entered the building industry in 1934. He married Catherine Reid and had a son. After her death he married Phyllis Thaw. Barnes retired in 1955 and today lives in Durban.
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Cron Bate spent the rest of the war as a POW. He was transferred to Holland then repatriated on 17 November 1918, after which he spent two months at the Richmond Hospital. Bate was promoted to captain before he was demobilised in June 1919.
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Arthur Betteridge spent five months in hospital then was granted leave to visit Aberdeen. He returned to France in January 1917 and, as a signaller, was flown over their lines. During the battle of Arras he met his brother who was wounded. Captain Ross was killed by a whizzbang near to him.
Betteridge applied for a transfer to the RFC which was approved in July 1917. Two months later he began his flying training. He studied aeronautics at Oxford and came 17th out of 300 pupils. He was trained to fly at Beaulieu, near Southampton, and commissioned in February 1918. There he met Gladys Juniper, his future wife.
In August Betteridge was posted as a fighter pilot to No 3 Squadron near Doullens, France. He and Makepeace are the only Delville Wood veterans to have fought over the wood. This occurred in August when he straffed the German front line in his Sopwith Camel. In error he dropped dummy practice bombs on them. Soon afterwards his engine was hit at low level but he managed to glide over the British lines before crash-landing.
He was involved in a number of dogfights and saw many of his friends go down in flames. On one occasion he had a wheel shot off yet managed to land safely. On 29 October 1918 he buzzed a football match being watched by 20,000 troops. On his last dive his wheels hit the goal post and he crash-landed. Air Vice-Marshal Sir John Salmond had to rescue him from the irate troops. His madcap flying included flying through a Zeppelin hangar.
Betteridge remained in the RAF after the war. He was married to Gladys on 9 April 1919. In October he was demobbed and returned to South Africa with his bride. Aboard ship was Capt Stuart Cloete and his first wife. Neither couple were to have any children.
Betteridge rejoined the SAR and remained with them for 44 years. In 1921 he was a pallbearer at Capt A W Proctor VC’s funeral. During the Second World War he served at Air Force HQ and overseas. He was involved in a car accident in Algiers and after a spider bite was hospitalised for four months.
Major Betteridge recruited for the SAR after the war, then became staff officer to and ultimately sales manager of SA Airways. He retired on 26 August 1956, his 60th birthday. He thereafter represented UTA Airlines in South Africa. Gladys died on 5 July 1966. Arthur Betteridge wrote his unpublished war memoirs Combat in and over Delville Wood in 1974. He lived in Pretoria where in November 1982 he fractured his hip. After some operations Betteridge died on 31 January 1983 and was cremated.
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Rudolph Blom was evacuated to Boulogne and then to England. He lost his right eye, so was declared permanently medically unfit and discharged at Wynberg on 11 November 1917.
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Hermann Bloom’s reaction on reaching London was typical of other Springboks.
“When we arrived at Charing Cross the people went mad, and threw flowers in our motors. Why, goodness only knows.”
The compound fracture in his leg didn’t heal properly and he was discharged as unfit in October 1916.
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Hugh Boustead was sent to the London General Hospital and after recuperating was commissioned to Sec-Lieutenant. He rejoined the 4th SAI at Arras in October and was wounded in the thigh during the battle, for which he was awarded the MC. In September 1917 he was posted to the 4th Gurkhas, Indian Army, and was sent to India. There he won the all-India boxing championships.
He returned to France at his own request in September 1918 and rejoined the 4th SAI. After the armistice Boustead volunteered to serve in the Russian White Army and spent a year there, then captained the British modern pentathlon team at the 1920 Olympics.
He spent the next four years with the Gordon Highlanders in Turkey and the Mediterranean, later commanding the Camel Corps in the Sudan until 1928. Boustead became the district commissioner and OC the Frontier Battalion. In 1933 he accompanied the Mt Everest expedition.
During the Second World War Boustead served with Wingate in Ethiopia. Thereafter he became the resident adviser to the Sultan at Mukalla, Aden. His next appointment was as development secretary in Oman and finally as political agent to Abu Dhabi in the Persian Gulf. He wrote an autobiography called The Wind of Morning. Col Sir Hugh Boustead KBE, CMG, DSO, MC visited South Africa in September 1975. He died aged 85 March 1980.
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Duggie Brice-Bruce was reported missing as a “sergeant” and later discharged as such. He recalled being transported to POW camps in cattle trucks, “It reminded me of my farming days, sending cattle off to slaughter. We were packed so tight that we had to stand up. Our destination was West Germany and then on to Poland. I tried to make a break for it in Luben. They caught up with me and gave me a bad time, but I managed to survive.”
After the war Brice-Bruce returned to farming near Ixopo in Natal and in 1924 married a local girl. He became field manager for a large farming enterprise until he retired at the age of 65. Bruce remarried five years after his wife’s death and at present lives in Pietermaritzburg.
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After lying in the shell-hole for two days Wilfred Brink was rescued by the relieving forces. By then gangrene had set into his left bicep. He was invalided to England where surgeons joined up the nerves and cut away the dead flesh. He was at a Southampton Hospital for the next two years. Brink returned to a civilian job in South Africa. He married a Miss Farmer and had a daughter, Colleen. After his wife’s death he married a Miss Tromp, and had a second daughter, Carol (Carole Charlewood of the SATV).
In 1927 Brink became one of the first members of the MOTHS. He joined the Intelligence Corps during the Second World War and was commissioned, later being promoted to captain. Brink studied law and became Registrar of Mining Titles in Johannesburg. In 1937 he accompanied the South African coronation contingent to England.
In 1973-4, aged 80, Wilfred Brink visited Easter Island and went on an expedition to Antarctica. After his retirement and the death of his wife he moved to the Johannesburg Country Club where he lives at present.
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Syd Brown remained with the 3rd Battalion until it was disbanded, then joined the 2nd SAI. As a bugler he recalled that Padre Hill had called on him hundreds of times to sound the Last Post at burials. In three years of fighting Brown had two Blighty leaves of six days each. After being demobbed he returned to Johannesburg. At the age of 80 he wrote a short account of his wartime experiences.
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Claude Browne was awarded the MC as well as an OBE. H
e was promoted to major and fought at Ypres on 20 September 1917 and Marriere Wood on 24 March 1918. The following year he served in Russia against the Bolsheviks. In 1920 Browne married Gladys Johnstone, the daughter of a Johannesburg doctor. In 1921 he studied at the Inner Temple in London, then the following year went to Nigeria as a district commissioner where they lived for the next 18 years.
Browne returned to England in 1939 where he did intelligence work during the Second World War, attaining the rank of colonel. He transferred his family treasures to a bank in Hull, where everything was lost in the blitz.
Browne then went to Palestine. By chance he had just left the Hotel David when it was blown up. They returned to South Africa where they lived with his sister-in-law, Lady May Lister, widow of Sir Spencer Lister, former director of the SA Institute of Medical Research. They then moved to Howick. While visiting Mbabane, Swaziland, Col Browne died and is buried there. His decorations and medals are on display at the Transvaal Scottish Regimental Museum in Johannesburg. Gladys Browne died in 1973.
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Although not a Delville Wood participant, as the writer of The South African Forces in France John Buchan did much to preserve the story of the brigade. He was born in the late 1870s as a son of the Manse. Buchan won high honours at Oxford and Glasgow universities where he studied law and then became one of Lord Milner’s young men, the brilliant group that set about reconstructing South Africa after the South African War.
He entered publishing in 1906 as a partner in his friend Thomas Nelson’s firm and was elected to Parliament in 1911. In 1914 he was hospitalised after an accident and fretted so at not being at the front that he began writing The Thirty Nine Steps, being an early success.
Buchan served in various capacities in the First World War, then was commissioned to write the history of the 1st SAI Brigade. He returned to the House of Commons in 1927 and in 1935 was appointed Governor General of Canada and became Lord Tweedsmuir. When Buchan died in 1940 he was a renowned biographer, historian and writer of adventure stories.
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Frederick Burton was admitted to hospital on 18 August 1916 for a week on account of general debility. He was promoted to lieutenant and in June 1917 was awarded the MC for the operations on the Somme in October 1916. In February 1918 Burton was transferred to the 5th Army Signalling Coy RE, then to the 24th Division Signalling Company. Burton was demobilised at Maitland in April 1919.
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Kekewich Calder, 18, ran messages for two days at Bernafay Wood and was promoted to acting-corporal on 24 July and awarded the MM. On 20 August he was commissioned as a temporary second-lieutenant. He was killed in action on 12 October 1916 at the Butte de Warlencourt.
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Clive Canning returned to his company after his wound healed. He was taken prisoner at Marrieres Wood on 24 March 1918 and repatriated on 30 November 1918.
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James Charles Victor Casson used the name Vic Clark during the war. He obtained an affidavit from Gerard Saunders, a Durban auditor who had served in the 2nd SAI, to verify this. Although he was reported as missing Capt Jenkins wrote to his mother and said that he believed him to be a prisoner. Casson was taken to Dulmen Camp and then to Sprottau Camp in Silesia.
After the war Casson returned to De Beers in Kimberley. In 1920 he married May Roberts in Johannesburg and they moved to Durban where he became a health inspector. They later returned to the Reef where Casson was a health inspector for 25 years. Casson retired in 1962 then returned to Durban where 13 years later he bumped into Geoff Lawrence who was holidaying there.
After 58 years of marriage May Casson died in 1978. Victor Casson lives in Pietermaritzburg where his hobby of genealogy has resulted in his tracing his maternal family back to the 14th century.
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Chapman was taken prisoner. He wrote home on 31 August 1916 from Ohdruf Camp that he had been in five hospitals, four motor ambulance journeys, one horse ambulance, two train journeys and one in a wagon … and was still going strong.
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Allen Chase recovered from his gunshot wound in the chest. He returned to South Africa on furlough during his convalescence, visiting his parents in Uitenhage, however returned to the firing line shortly afterwards. On 15 September 1917 he sprained his left ankle badly, thereby missing the Third Battle of Ypres. Chase was killed in action on 17 April 1918.
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Maurice Cistel served until the end of 1917 when he was wounded at Arras. He returned to South Africa where he joined the Yardley perfumers. In 1938 he went to England on a training course and because of the war remained there. He married Dorothy Misell and had two daughters. He retired in 1978 and returned to Cape Town two years later. After his wife’s death Cistel moved to Johannesburg.
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When the fury slackened Connock was taken to a field hospital and then to England for four months’ convalescence. His brother, Sec-Lieut Joseph Connock was killed on 19 July and is buried in the Delville Wood cemetery. Connock was commissioned in November 1916, and in April 1917 he attended a Lewis gun course.
In September 1917 Lieut Connock was wounded in the head at Ypres, for which action he received the MC. After the armistice he was transferred to the 46th Bn Royal Fusiliers with which he served in Northern Russia in 1919.
After the war Connock was employed by the Forestry Dept. He studied at Grootfontein and was sent to Australia to study sheep farming for a few years. He returned to Potchefstroom and was then transferred to Port Elizabeth. After he retired from government service Connock joined the Farmers Co-operative Union at Stutterheim.
He finally retired to East London where he was a keen administrator of sports at the Buffalo Club and took a keen interest in ex-servicemens’ organisations. He represented East London at the 50th Anniversary celebrations in 1966. His wife died two years later. Major Connock died early in 1982.
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Henry Cooper and seven other stretcher-bearers were recommended for mentions in despatches by Capt Liebson.
After the disbandment of the 3rd SAI Cooper was transferred to the 4th. He was demobbed on 2 March 1918 and returned to South Africa. In 1970, aged 73, he lived at the Red Cross Ex-Servicemen’s Home in Sandringham, Johannesburg. His reminiscences were published in The Star of 11.7.1970 and the Springbok of September 1972.
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Arthur Craig wrote to Faulds from hospital, thanking him for having saved his life, enquiring about others of his platoon and asking that Lieut English salvage his kit.
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Archie Dagnin was promoted to lance-sergeant. At Arras on 13 April 1917 Dagnin was with his friend, Domingo Balini, who had been wounded at Delville Wood. At 5.30 pm they came under machine-gun fire. Balini was hit by eight bullets in the chest and arm but survived because of the heavy greatcoat he was wearing. Dagnin was hit in the right hand. He was evacuated to Richmond Hospital.
Dagnin then served at the SA Discharge Depot at Bordon and in 1918 at Penham Down. Dagnin was demobbed at Maitland in June 1919. He returned to his removal and storage business at Cape Town and since 1920 nurtured the 1st SAI Brigade (Overseas) Association. He was the chairman, then the secretary/treasurer for 28 years. In addition he organised the annual get-together of D Company. Archie Dagnin died in July 1974 aged 81 and was cremated.
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Douglas Davey managed to get out of the wood early on the morning of the 17th. His 19th birthday came five days later. Davey served for the duration of the war and was demobbed in June 1919. He returned to work at the gold mine reduction plant at Germiston. He is at present living in London, aged 85 years.
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Lieut (temp Capt) Francis Madesfield Davis was recommended for the MC for his courage at Bernafay and Delville woods. In each he had been slightly wounded yet continued to display an excellent example from 8 to 19 July 1916. After Delville Wood Davis commanded B Company. He was killed on 21 September 1917 at the Third Battle of Ypres.
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Lieut-Col Dawson commanded the 1st SAI Regimen
t at the Butte de Warlencourt. He was promoted to temporary brigadier-general in December 1916 and thereafter commanded the 1st SAI Brigade at Arras, Third Ypres and in the Somme Retreat. In May 1917 Dawson was appointed as additional ADC to His Majesty King George V. He was captured on 24 March 1918 when the brigade was overrun at Marrieres Wood. For his services he was decorated with the CMG and the DSO and bar.
After his release on Christmas Day 1918, Dawson returned to South Africa where he relinquished his imperial commission. He served as district staff officer of No 1 Military District and commanded the Returned Soldiers Battalion, however declined an appointment to the Permanent Force staff.
General Dawson took leave in July 1920 and went to East Africa where he contracted enteric fever and died on 26 October 1920.
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Robert Deane remained with the brigade and was acting lieutenant-colonel from 10 August 1916 to 11 January 1917, then commanded the discharge depot. He was mentioned in despatches on 13 March 1918 and awarded the MBE three months later. Deane was commandant of the SA concentration camp from January to April 1919.
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William Stanley Dent lost his right arm. He was promoted to captain and returned to Port Elizabeth where he worked in his family’s business. He at present lives there in a hotel, aged 92.
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Charles Dixon was recommended for the MM by Capt Ross. Major Hunt added, “This incident was also brought to my attention by an officer of another regiment of 9th Division, whose name I do not know.” The MM award was gazetted on 21 September 1916. His medals are today on display at the Transvaal Scottish Museum. His brother, Pte Frederick James Hannon Dixon was killed in action at Arras.
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Emanuel Doitsh’s almost severed foot bled for 30 hours. A German doctor dressed his wound then he was taken to Le Cateau and from there to Ohdruf near Cologne. His right leg was amputated above the knee. As a limbless prisoner of war Doitsh was repatriated to England with 118 others. He returned to South Africa in October 1918. Doitsh wrote a book of his experiences entitled The First Springbok Prisoner in Germany.
