#37298 Private Frederick Emery
15TH ROYAL WELSH FUSILIERS
DESPITE THE DISAPPOINTMENT OF THE opening endeavours on the Somme, the battle could not be abandoned. It was the defining action of 1916, supposed to bring about a crushing end to the German Army on the Western Front. The situation regarding how to carry on was complicated. The advance had progressed to the south, but had got absolutely nowhere in the north.
Private Frederick Emery. (Authors’ collection)
At noon on 4th July Haig called on General Rawlinson. It was not feasible, in terms of ammunition to say the least, to continue attempts to smash the entire German line at once. The British Army needed to make a stand at one point while progressing at another. The choice was whether or not to press in the north to bring the advance into line with the success achieved around Montauban, or to take advantage of that success and continue pressing on there. Eventually Haig decided on the latter.
For the troops on the battlefield, this meant that the next week or so would be about establishing positions for the next major advance, taking German strong points and local objectives in order to give them an advantageous start line when the main advance resumed. Then Haig’s plan would be enforced, pushing forwards to try to seize the original German second system of defences that stretched along the ridge running between Bazentin and Longueval.
One of the localised objectives that would be beneficial to the main advance was Mametz Wood, the seizure of which would prevent a salient protruding from the British line and secure the left flank of the force that would make the next large-scale attack in the south. The wood consisted of ‘hornbeams, limes, oaks and a few beech trees’. The undergrowth was a thick, unruly mess of hazel and bramble. Artillery had already gone to work on it all, shells ripping down trees, and some guns had even been rolled inside. German machine gunners had crept among the foliage too. Their equipment was painted green and they lurked within, positioned over clearings and ready to repel British troops that may venture inside. In some areas barbed wire had been strung from tree to tree to keep out invaders. Nonetheless, preparations now gained pace to try and snatch it from them.
On 10th June, while holding the line near Neuve Chapelle the 38th (Welsh) Division received orders to proceed south to take part in the Somme fighting of 1916. Mametz Wood was to become synonymous with Wales. Welshmen enlisted in droves at the onset of the war, including recruits who volunteered to serve in a London Welsh contingent. The men lived at home until the organisation of the battalion could be set up at the Inns of Court Hotel, Holborn, and the Benchers of Gray’s Inn lent their garden squares as drill grounds. This unit had since been designated the 15th Battalion of the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and among their number was 28-year-old Frederick Emery, who worked as a barman. The son of a butcher and originally from East London, Fred had since relocated to Birkenhead, Merseyside. He had enlisted late, in November 1915, when the battalion had long since left London behind. He joined as the finished unit was already being inspected by the King in slight drizzle on Crawley Down. Two days after his future comrades had formed up for George V’s inspection, Fred married his sweetheart Maggie before going off to train.
He joined his battalion in France, where the division was undergoing its induction into trench warfare. The 15th Royal Welsh Fusiliers proved themselves to be brave trench raiders and were mentioned in despatches. Having travelled south, on 1st July Fred and his comrades were in reserve, tentatively told to stand ready to follow the cavalry in the event of a breach being punched into the German lines. When this failed to transpire, their orders changed and they were ordered up to relieve some of the initial attackers in the line.
Fred marched up through the old front line to Mametz Village, which had already been taken, and then entered the former German communication trench that ran along the front of the wood, struggling through the damp lines which were not fitted with wooden boards to pave the way. The Royal Welsh Fusiliers relieved a battalion of Warwickshire men and took up residence in easy range of the German guns. Here they began accumulating casualties immediately, and on 5th July Frederick Emery was struck down before he ever had a chance to advance on the wood. His wife, Maggie, was heavily pregnant when he died and his only child, a boy named after him, was born just two weeks after he became one of the first Welsh casualties at Mametz Wood. There were to be thousands more. Fred’s body, if recovered, was never identified and he is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Pier & Face 4a.