Source: File: Royal Navy Handymen To Fight On Land And Sea.jpg.
[online] An original image is Available at: <http://www.ww1propaganda.com/ww1-poster/royal-naval-division-handymen-fight-land-sea-men-wanted>
[Accessed: 5 January 2016]
On the cusp of a
year to another,
With the fabric
of time's clock
Poised, to tick
across times zones,
A vicious howling
gale, marked
Out the pace on
a western front.
Drenched fields
and the hiss
Of wind, echoed
fact that there
Lacked peace of
earth for men -
One reporter Philip
Gibbs, gave
Witness along an edge of France.
A countdown was
beaten over
Tops of wrecked miners cottages,
Squatting on a
battlefield's edge.
Reporter Gibbs
walking a road,
Flinched at flashes of
allied barrels.
Such light lit many pathetic sights
Of half destroyed,
squat, brick
Homes, where he
gave witness
To see a ghost
like face beyond
A cracked pane,
to peer back.
Briefly alone in
crowded fields
Gave witness to
jagged heaps
Of Hullich and
Huisnes - under
The beaten rain's
mist, stood out
Ridge of Notre Dame de Lorette.
Ridge of Notre Dame de Lorette.
Therein concealed rot
of human
Lives - Gibbs
looked out across
Sterility from a
shell hole shelter,
Over to a skeletal
tower bridge
Of Loos, to echo London home.
That stark iron framework -
A landmark to rear of Loos -
Shaped as London’s tower
Bridge - had passed between
Hands as observation post.
In odd proximity
to encounter
Land locked naval
fighters
Jolly Jacks of
stoker’s rating's
And petty
officers, emerged
From ditches of
dead fields.
Incongruous and
at home
In the wet, the
Jollies came
In hurried provisions of khaki,
From Union Jack
Club stores -
Almost as if fallen from a ship.
Clean-shaved,
ships ribbons
On their caps,
Gibbs' quarrel
Led to friendship, after fleets
Idea of Tommy
making out
A softer time
than Jolly Jack.
With perspective
corrected,
In total respect to witness
For themselves,
endurance
Of hardships in
determined
Cheer and
soldierly spirits.
Jolly Jack
Bluejackets taken
From 30 grand
fleet ships,
Met the humoured ability
Of landsmen, to
fire as well
As any grand ship
at sea.
Being there to work Bluejackets
Set to tasks, as in one marine,
Over four hours, with wide grin
To tell of his bomb
slinging;
As another fired
rifle grenades.
A sergeant and
petty officer had
Disagreed in
periscope's use;
In orders to look
over parapet,
This he did to
see movements;
Jack held his gun
in a shake.
With bayonet fixed he readied
For attack at coming Germans -
To look again - that in fact what
Was moving were the swarms
Of rats across the sodden fields.
by Jamie Mann.
Gibbs, P., 1916. Bluejackets in the Trenches -
New Year's Eve Visit - The Heroes of Loos. The Daily Telegraph,
[online] 3 January 1916.
P.12. Col.3. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ww1-archive/12072929/Daily-Telegraph-January-3-1916.html
[Accessed: 5 January 2016].
Source: File:
Loos 1915: Tower Bridge – A Symbol of Loos. Online. Available at: <http://greatwarphotos.com/2012/09/26/loos-1915-tower-bridge-a-symbol-of-loos/> Accessed 5 January 2016
Mann, J., 2016. 100 years Ago - Poems by Jamie Mann. [letter] (Personal
communication, 5 January 2016).
#WW1 #WW1centenary #GreatWar #WW1poem #GreatWar #WW1centenary
#worldwarone #worldwaroneremembered #WW1Loos
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