Messines Ridge in 1917

Report: Cliff Caswell
Picture: Graeme Main

ALBERT Skinner probably lived long enough to see something of the shock and awe that smashed through the German lines in the early hours of the morning on June 7, 1917.

The Territorial Army volunteer with the 8th Battalion, The City of London Regiment would have been advancing when a series of enormous mines detonating beneath Messines Ridge in Belgium suddenly turned the night to day.

The pillars of fire tore through the fabric of the landscape like an enormous volcanic eruption, immediately creating a mass grave of 10,000 German defenders and sending a seismic blast wave rolling across the continent towards London.

Serving with 1st Post Office Rifles [part of 140 Brigade under the command of 47 (London) Division], Skinner didn’t live much longer after that apocalyptic moment. But like the earthquake that tore through
Messines, the death of the young soldier rippled through his family for a generation.

Albert Skinner, my great grandfather – the man “blown to pieces” in the war to end all wars – resonated well into my early years. His widow Gertrude often visited us towards the end of her life in the 1970s. I was too young to understand the significance of the dog tags and faded letter of condolence she kept with her. And she had apparently never said much about her husband after receiving the awful telegram at London’s Victoria Dock where she worked.

Before I was old enough to ask more, the last family players in the events of 1917 had passed on. The young rifleman now only exists in the immaculate walls of the Menin Gate at Ypres – one memory, in a sea of memories, with no known grave.

However this year, with the 100th anniversary of the TA marked, my 76-year-old father David began thinking again about the volunteer in the family. Like those serving today, Skinner had bravely put on a uniform and left civilian life to fight.

So when Richard Frost, an historian and former member of The Royal Green Jackets, agreed to take a closer look at the battle of Messines and the life of the young rifleman from London’s East End, my father keenly accepted his invitation.

Frost’s research provided a remarkable snapshot of the early TA volunteers who took part in the organisation’s first mass mobilisation between 1914 and 1918. Far from the “weekend warriors” reputation that volunteers would earn during the Cold War, this was a conflict that firmly required the full involvement of the Territorials.

“There were so many people from all walks of life who joined up from the East End of London during the First World War,” Frost told my father during a tour of the Rifles Club near Bond Street in London. “They included several Jewish people who had fled from Russia during the revolution and names such as Solomon, Silver and Rose were a very common feature of recruiting offices at that time.

“In many ways this still applies today – all kinds of people join the TA, serving in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. And although the Army is far smaller now than in 1917, the proportion of volunteers is probably quite similar.”

Skinner, who had two young children by the time he enlisted, joined a battalion that was already well established. Its history went back to 1868 when 1,600 Post Office employees signed up as special constables. The Post Office Rifles was officially formed following the creation of the modern Territorial force in 1908.

Hill 60, the location near the town of Ypres where the 28-year-old rifleman was dispatched after mobilisation, had already been the scene of fierce fighting. In 1915, Lt Geoffrey Harold Woolley of Queen Victoria’s Rifles became the first TA soldier to win the Victoria Cross on operations there.

By early 1917, scores of men from the civilian mining industry had also been drafted in to dig beneath the German trenches, laying ordnance packed with 600 tonnes of explosive that would be used as the prelude to the huge attack.

At 0310 on June 7, 19 mines were detonated in an explosion that was heard in Downing Street. But it was not revealed at the time that not all the ordnance went off on schedule, and several British troops were killed by friendly fire.

“It is well documented that some of the explosives did go off late, killing a lot of our own troops who had been told to attack regardless. It is entirely possible that Albert Skinner was one of those caught up in the blasts,” said Frost.

“As part of X Corps, the Post Office Rifles would have moved 300 yards to take surviving Germans prisoner, before heading to secure a rubble heap that was the remains of a chateau. Fighting there went on all day before they broke the line on June 8.”

For Skinner, the battle was probably over very quickly. Sketchy reports from the front at the time that he was “blown to pieces” or “bowled over” suggest that he was probably the victim of a late mine detonation or German mortar attack.

As with so many of those lost in the Great War, the circumstances of his death will forever remain unclear. But the extraordinary bravery he and the thousands of TA volunteers showed in stepping forward during that era, is something that is still demonstrated today.

From Iraq to Afghanistan, the civilians who are willing to leave their jobs to serve six months in the world’s most dangerous places have again become a reserve of first choice. And now, as in the First World War, the job could not be done without them.