#144716 Lance Corporal Percy John Lee
ARMY SERVICE CORPS
FIGHTING THE GREAT WAR WAS not just about manning trenches and assaulting German positions. A huge effort was needed to be able to supply the attacking troops with everything they needed to be able to function in battle. By the latter part of 1916, labour employed on the Lines of Communication topped more than 45,000 men.
Key in providing for these soldiers was the Army Service Corps. Formed in 1888 it was a corps trained for combat, not a mere logistical department, and was capable for defending its own convoys in attack. In 1914, the ASC consisted of seventy-one companies. The fact that this number was to expand to more than 1,100 throughout the course of the Great War was indicative of how vital they were to the army in a multitude of different roles and how significant would be their contribution. At one point, there were more than 325,000 men serving in the corps. Transport companies accounted for hundreds, motorised, horse-drawn and even led by donkeys in some theatres. The ASC provided men to work in supply parks, ammunition depots, ambulance convoys, labour, water and petrol supply companies, motor boats, workshops, and mobile repair units. Men worked as labourers, mechanics, bakers, drivers, postmen, even cinema projectionists. The list was almost endless.
In the latter part of 1916, almost 320 men of the Army Service Corps were killed in France alone. Serving on the southern fringes of Rawlinson’s sector, where it met the French front, was a 19-year-old orphan from Northampton named Percy Lee, a labourer when he enlisted in November 1915. After just three weeks of training he embarked for France with the ASC. Percy was experienced with horses and so moved around various companies working as a driver on their wagons. Since June 1916 he had been placed with a reserve supply park with one of the Indian Cavalry divisions, but at the beginning of November had been attached to another unit nearer to the front lines. On 8th November, Percy was mortally wounded by a shell, with severe injuries to his head and right hand. His left leg was also severed. The 20 year old died later in the day at a casualty clearing station. His brother, Edward, serving in the Northamptonshire Regiment, died at home in October 1918 while working at a depot. Percy Lee was laid to rest at Grove Town Cemetery, plot II.C.13.
Horse transport attempting to move supplies through the mud on the battlefield in autumn 1916. (Authors’ collection)