How I Survived the Great War

By John Handley and Michael Pantlin

Jack Handley was kicked out of home by his father when he joined the Territorial Force at the age of twenty-one in 1912. Jack didn’t regret joining the army and going to war, at least not initially. When the Great War started, he and his Liverpool Rifles comrades were sent over to France and Belgium to fight the Huns whom he hated.
He was involved in some of the major battles at Ypres and the Somme, and lucky to come out alive.

How I Survived the Great War is his story — the story of an ordinary man from Liverpool who joined the Territorial Force as a volunteer for home defence, signed up for professional service, and climbed the ranks from Private to Commissioned Officer.
His memoirs show his courage and humour, and the trust amongst comrades.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Strawberry Tree Publishing
• Release date: Feb 11, 2022
• ISBN: 9789083222943

Book preview

How I Survived

the Great War

John ‘Jack’ Handley

Edited by Michael Pantlin

Copyright © 2022 Michael Pantlin except where otherwise mentioned.

All rights reserved. This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

Parts of these memoirs have been previously published in The Making of a ‘Tragedy’ — the Royal Navy and the Battle of Passendaele (Greenwood Press) and in Letters from the Past — An English Family in the 19th & 20th century by Michael Pantlin.

First published 2015 by Lulu.com

Revision published in 2022 by

Strawberry Tree Publishing,

Betsy Perkstraat 49,

2135 HM Hoofddorp,

Netherlands

Chamber of Commerce Amsterdam number 34328361

ISBN: 9789083222943

In memory of John ‘Jack’ Handley

Also in memory of all others who fought in the Great War:

The 65,000,000 men who fought on all sides

of whom 8,538,000 were killed

and 21,205,000 wounded.

The British Empire lost 908,000 men,

12% of the adult male population.

Editor’s preface

This book would never have been completed without the dedicated work of John Handley’s daughter, Gladys, or Lizette as she preferred to be called in later years. Lizette typed out her father’s notes, made annotations, kept all the records and pictures, and tried to publish his writings at an earlier stage.

Amongst her records, I found the following comments she had made:

My father was twenty-three at the time. His humanity, artistic appreciation and adventurousness shine through, I think. I have only altered odd words and punctuation here and there. I don’t know when he wrote it in pencil, fairly soon I’d think by the detail, but he inked it all in on 7 March 1962. No doubt he meant to write more to link the stories.

As an editor, I have added further notes, pictures and maps to clarify context.

Who was John ‘Jack’ Handley?

John Starie Handley was born on 17th December 1891, in Shrewsbury, England. The family moved to Liverpool so that his father could find work as a carpenter. Jack went to Technical School and worked as a sales agent for a building company. He voluntarily joined the Territorial Army on 13th February 1912, when he was twenty-one, and was assigned to the Liverpool Rifles, ‘H’ Company. After volunteering to join full regimental employment, he was sent to France when the Great War started.

His regimental employment:

Company Range Finder: 24 February 1915 – 1 May 1915

Platoon Sergeant: 1 May 1915 – June 1915

Machine Gun Sergeant: June 1915 – August 1916

Platoon Sergeant: August 1916 – May 1917

Company Sergeant Major: May 1917 – 7 June 1918

Officer Cadet: January 1919

Discharged: 6 February 1919

Jack fought in the major battles of:

Ypres, second battle, April 1915

Guillemont, Somme, June 1916

Ypres, third battle, Passendaele, July1917

Givenchy, April 1918

He was demobilised in January 1919 and married Gladys ‘Glad’ Emily Grime on 21st August 1920. She gave birth to a daughter, Gladys Lizette Augusta, on 23rd June 1921. Glad died of childbed fever only days after giving birth.

Jack earned a living as an agent for German, Czech and Austrian firms that provided displays for advertising. He re-married to Beryl Flower on 6th January 1945 and they lived in a cottage in Droitwich, England. On 27th November 1970, he passed away at seventy-eight.

For more about his life, read Letters from the Past — An English Family in the 19th & 20th century by Michael Pantlin.

CHAPTER ONE

Why I joined the Territorial Force

PRIOR TO THE '14/18 war, as a reader of the Sunday Chronicle, I read the Awake England articles by a trio of writers — Lord Roberts, Admiral Fisher and an ex-regimental soldier and socialist writer and M. P. whose name I forget. I read books they suggested e.g. Erskine Childer's Riddle of the Sands, Van Bern-Hardi's Der Tag¹, and others, and was convinced of the build-up to war and that the youth of Britain should ‘Be Prepared’.

To this was added my hate for the only German I had contacted - a partner called Hirsch in the firm Kleine Fireproof Flooring Co. Ltd., for whom my employers Hutchison and Weston, Builders’ Merchants of Dale Street, Liverpool were agents. Visiting principals of other firms we represented would tender their cards at the enquiry desk and await their call into the private office, but not so our German, Hirsch. He was a stiff soldier-figure with the ‘Kaiser’ moustache — arrogant, ruthless, mannerless. He would crash into the office, lift the counter-flap and walk straight into our principal's office — unheralded and unsung — and we in the outer office would hear his staccato stentorious broken English, apparently ‘laying down the law’. Our Mr Hutchison, an ex-army officer, was Colonel commanding a Territorial Army Artillery Unit in Harrowby Road, Birkenhead. We wondered how he took it. I hated this German and was determined to get my own back.

I joined the Territorial Force when I was twenty-one, on 13th February 1912. I had to wait till I was ‘of age’. When I joined up, my father kicked me out. I went into ‘digs’ with the aunt of George Pickles who was in the 6th Liverpool Rifles, First Line Battalion.

My father kicked me out because he was a socialist and believed wars were engineered by the capitalists. No son of his would serve in any army to keep the country safe for them. Labour was, he believed, so organised that every man would ‘down tools’ and prevent any future war. So, I was kicked out, but it was one of the best things to happen in my life. I served three years and one month to the day, 23rd March 1918, in France and Belgium and never had a scratch, in spite of eighteen months in the Ypres Salient and the rest in the Somme-Festubert area. Had I joined later, would my history have been so packed with Good Luck? Ah! That is the question. I would certainly never have gone to France as a Lance Corporal, been a Company Sergeant Major and missed the last battles of 1918, by being home at No.8 Officer Cadet Battalion, Lichfield, getting my commission in January 1919, prior to being demobilised.

In the 1930’s, I was an agent for German, Czech and Austrian firms in display advertising, when I had an inside view of history repeating itself. Maybe it will even again happen.

My father lived to be bombed out by the Germans in 1940.

CHAPTER TWO

How I started in the 1914-18 War

SUNDAY AUGUST 2ND 1914 was the annual camp parade day. Parade for camp was always a grand and memorable thing for me. The huge muster of men, the rattle of the kettle-drums and shrill clarion of the bugles thrilled me. It still does as I write after having heard so much kettle-drum and bugle and seen so many big parades. As a territorial, to see six hundred men out was a truly precious sight when my blood would fire in absolute delight.

The customary standing about in the drill shed — then at last the regiment was called up by Colonel Spencely. Liverpool Rifles, tell off by companies, he orders. In reply, company commanders shout, No.1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, Sir. The Colonel gives the final moving order, Advance in fours to right of companies, and we are off at last.

Little did I think, when I took my first step to camp, where it would land me. Great care was taken to march correctly when we got into the street before the populace. We marched at attention to Lime Street Station and waited there about an hour before boarding the train. Crowded eight in a carriage, a deuce of a pack