206517 Pte. James Henry Hartley British Army 46th MG Coy. Machine Gun Corps (d.20th Apr 1918) The Machine Gun Corps in Kentucky - The Story of James Henry Hartley
Earlier this year, I visited Cave Hill National Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky, located within the much larger and quite beautiful Cave Hill Cemetery. It is the largest cemetery in Kentucky's largest city. The remains of notables are buried there, including 19th Century baseball great Pete Browning and Colonel Harlan Sanders.
I was there to visit the grave of Great War Medal of Honor Winner, Sergeant Willie Sandlin of Devil's Jump Branch, Hell for Certain Creek, Leslie County, Kentucky. Sergeant Sandlin was buried at the Hurricane Creek Cemetery, Leslie County, upon his death in 1949 but, when his widow moved to Louisville to be near a daughter, she took his body with her. I learned that day that he is not buried there, but in Louisville's other National Cemetery, Zachary Taylor National Cemetery. Zachary Taylor National Cemetery and Camp Taylor, Kentucky were named after Mexican War hero and President of the United States, Kentuckian Zachary Taylor.
Within Cave Hill National Cemetery, there is a headstone which is considerably larger than the headstones which surround it. It's about 4 feet tall and 2½ feet wide, weighs at least 400 pounds, and is made of marble. On both sides at the top corners are carved Union Jacks. It reads:
Private James Henry Hartley,
Machine Gun Corps, British Military Mission.
Died at Camp Zachary Taylor April 20th, 1918
- If I should die think only this of me that there's some corner of a foreign field that is forever England.
These are the words at the grave on the Island of Skylos, Greece, where the famous English poet, Rupert Brooke, died while preparing for action at Gallipoli. They are from his poem, The Soldier.
The reverse reads: Erected by the Officers of the United States Army Camp Zachary Taylor, Kentucky May 30th 1918.
James Henry Hartley's Commonwealth of Kentucky Death Certificate reveals that he died at Camp Taylor Base Hospital, that he was a married, white male, born in September of 1880, and that his occupation was soldier. He was born in England and his wife's maiden name was Elizabeth Ellen Hartley of R.F.D. 11, Box 8, Darwin, England. It states that he died of lobar pneumonia of eight days duration with a secondary contributing cause of emphysema of six months duration. This leads me to believe that he had been exposed to gas on the Western Front. He was buried April 25, 1918. There was no obituary in the Louisville or Camp Taylor papers. There were no obituaries at all in the camp paper.
Private Hartley had been a member of The King's (Liverpool Regiment) No. 31922. He was No. 3389 of the Machine Gun Corps and, since the numbers began at 3000, he was an early member of that Regiment indeed. His brother, Lawrence, formerly of the Prince of Wales' Own (West Yorkshire Regiment) was number 3390. He survived the war.
Pictured with this article is Boy David, the Memorial to the Machine Gun Corps in Hyde Park, London. Beneath David are the words "Saul has slain his thousands but David his tens of thousands." This memorial has a commemoration panel which reads: The Machine Gun Corps, which his Majesty King George V was Colonel-Chief, was formed by Royal Warrant dated the 14th day of October, 1915.
The Corps served in France Flanders Russia Egypt Palestine Mesopotamia Salonica India Afghanistan and East Africa.
The last unit of the Corps to be disbanded was the Depot at Shorncliffe on the 15th day of July, 1922. The total number who served in the Corps were some 11,500 officers and 159,000 other ranks, of whom 1,120 officers and 12,671 other ranks were killed, and 2,881 officers and 45,377 other ranks were wounded, missing or prisoners of war.
At the outbreak of war in August 1914, the tactical use of machine guns was unappreciated by the British Military. Consequently, the Army went to war with its infantry battalions and cavalry regiments each having a machine gun section of only two guns each. This was added to in November by the forming of the Motor Machine Gun Service, administered by the Royal Artillery, consisting of motorcycle mounted machine gun batteries. A machine gun school was also opened in France.
A year of warfare on the Western Front proved that to be fully effective, machine guns must be used in larger units and crewed by specially trained men. To fulfil this need, the formation of the Machine Gun Corps was authorized in October 1915 with infantry, cavalry, motor and early 1916 a heavy branch. A depot and training center was established at Belton Park in Grantham, Lincolnshire and a base depot at Camiers in France.
The Infantry Branch was by far the largest and initially formed by the battalion machine gun sections transferring to the M.G.C., and grouping into Brigade Machine Gun Companies. New companies were raised at Grunthal. In 1917 a fourth company was added to each division. A further change in February and March 1918 saw the four companies of each division form battalions. The Cavalry Branch consisted of Brigade Machine Gun Squadrons.
The Motors Branch after absorbing the M.M.G.S. formed several types of units, i.e., motorcycle batteries, light armored motor batteries (LAMB) and light car patrols. As well as motorcycles, other vehicles used included Rolls Royce and Model T Ford cars.
The Heavy Section was formed in March 1916, becoming the heavy branch in November of that year. Men or this branch crewed the first tanks in action at Flers, during the Battle of the Somme in September 1916. In July 1917 the heavy branch separated from the M.G.C. to become the Tank Corps.
In its short history, the M.G.C. gained an enviable record as a front line fighting force, seeing action in all the main theaters of war. At the end of hostilities, the M.G.C. was again reorganized in a smaller form as many of its soldiers returned to civilian life. However, the Corps continued to see active service in the post war campaigns of Russia, India and Afghanistan until being disbanded in 1922 as a cost cutting measure.
Some 170,500 officers and men served in the M.G.C. with 62,049 becoming casualties, including 12,498 being killed. Seven men of the Machine Gun Corps earned the Victoria Cross. Captain Kermit Roosevelt, Military Cross, son of President Theodore Roosevelt, was at one time attached to the 14th Light Armored Motor Battery.
Hartley's Service
Private Hartley's records were destroyed by World War II German bombing, as were the records of most British Great War soldiers, including his brothers. We do know that he was entitled to the British War Medal and Victory Medal. We know from Soldiers Died in the Great War, that he was born in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, and enlisted at Darwen. He served in France and Flanders. The conditions of award of the British War Medal were that the soldier enter the theater of war on duty as a member of the British, Dominion, Colonial or Indian forces. The Victory Medal was authorized in 1919 to commemorate the victory of the Allies over the Central Powers. It was granted to those who actually served on the establishment of the unit within a theater of war between 1914 and 1919.
Since his records have not survived, we do not know with particularity in what actions Hartley served. We do know however that he was a member of the 46th Machine Gun Company and that company joined the 15th (Scottish) Division February 12, 1916. It was moved to another division March 17, 1918, but we must assume that before then Hartley came to the United States.
In the spring of 1916, the 15th Division suffered a German gas attack near Hulluch, 27-29 April. During the Battle of the Somme, it participated in the Battles of Pozieres and Flers-Courcelette and captured Martinpuich. It participated in the Battle of le Transloy, including the attack on the Butte de Warlencourt, which is owned by the WFA. During the Arras fighting, it participated in the first and second battles of the Scarpe. It participated during third Ypres or Passchendaele, at the very beginning in the Battle of Pilckem Ridge and the battles of Langemark during the second phase of Passchendaele.
Other units composing the 15th Division were the 1/9 Royal Scots, 1/4 Suffolks, 7th King's Own Scottish Borderers, 8th King's Own Scottish Borderers, 10th Cameronians (Scottish Rifles), 4/5 Black Watch, 9th Black Watch, 10/11 Highland Light Infantry, 12th Highland Light Infantry, 1/4 Seaforth Highlanders and the 46th Trench Mortar Battery. It is interesting that the Highland Light Infantry was composed largely of Glaswegians, and Glasgow is certainly not in the Highlands!
In my attempt to find our more about Private Hartley, I was given considerable assistance by Andrew Fitton of the Lancashire and Cheshire Branch of the Western Front Association. Andrew has written the following account of his attempt to discover more about Hartley's life.
Andy's Account
I first saw Paul's request for information regarding James Hartley in the summer, on the WFA website forum. As he was born in a town not far from me, I volunteered to see if there was any information available. The search has carried on for five months or so and has taken me to several towns in the area.
I will describe where the towns concerned are. Rawtenstall, the town where he was born lies about 15 miles north of Manchester. Darwen is about 8 miles west of Rawtenstall, across the moors which are a common sight in the area, and where he enlisted. Darwen lies a mile south of the City of Blackburn, indeed they are so close they now form one large administrative area. The local government is run from Blackburn. Bacup is about 5 miles east of Rawtenstall. All are in the county of Lancashire and were a large recruiting ground for the Lancashire Regiments during WWI.
Being an amateur historian, not an expert, I thought I would conduct my search for information using the methods I have picked up over the last couple of years. These methods have almost always worked in the past and there was no doubt they would work in the case of Hartley. How wrong can one be!
Taking the information from Soldiers Died and the C.W.G.C. website, the first visit was to the War Memorial at Rawtenstall. Unfortunately were no names on the memorial due to the large number of dead. In such instances, books of remembrance are compiled. A good friend from the area has the same Great War interest as me. He was contacted and recommended a visit to Bacup library as they hold files on local casualties, also a scan through the local paper for 1918 may find an obituary or an article regarding his death. After an evening of reading the paper and talking to members of the local Historical Society, I was informed that Rawtenstall had its own newspaper and filmed copies were held at the library in that town. Off I went.....
The same search was carried out at Rawtenstall with the same result, nothing, not a sausage.
Looking through the Rawtenstall telephone directory, I found one person with the surname Nerney. This was the family name taken by his widow when she remarried after the war. A phone call found me talking to a very nice but confused elderly lady. While I was trying to explain the story of his dying in WWI, she could only remember a relative who died in Africa in WWII. I sent her a letter asking her to contact me if she or her family had any information that would be helpful. No reply to date.
My next course of action was to contact the local paper in Rawtenstall, "The Rossendale Free Press". An interview was arranged with a reporter and an article appeared in the paper the next week. Same negative response, very disappointing.
I then turned my attention to Darwen, the town where he enlisted. What if he moved there after getting married? My wife Wendy was pleasantly surprised one evening when I asked if she would like go out for a meal rather than cooking. When I told her we had a little detour to make to look at a war memorial in Darwen I was rumbled (Lancashire speak for found out! PFG ). We went over to Darwen and found another memorial with no names on it. While we were in the town, I booked myself in at the library to take a look at the local paper, this I had to do a few days later due to work commitments. The meal on the way home was a delight...
An entire afternoon was spent at the Darwen library, again searching the local paper, and also trying to locate the memorial book for the Great War. Nobody in the library knew where it was, or indeed if it still existed. I called at the local town hall which closed in 1974 after local government reorganization and it was empty. A sign told people to contact Blackburn Town Hall for help. A phone call to the local paper did not help as they did not know where the memorial book was held. Just before I left the library, I noticed a book in which a man from Blackburn had compiled all the names of men from the Blackburn area who had died in the Great War and were mentioned in the local press. In the book was a James Hartley! Was this our man?
Blackburn Library was visited a few days later and a search through the papers found that this James Hartley was an officer in the East Lancashire Regiment and his address at the time of death was in Rochdale, the town I live in, 15 miles from Rawtenstall. This is not the man we were looking for. The wasted trip was compensated by a visit to the East Lancashire Regiment's chapel in Blackburn Cathedral. To see the battle honors on the standards was a very humbling experience indeed.
On the way home Rawtenstall library was visited again. After a chat with a man in the library, I was directed to the local cemetery because, as the man told me, "If he's from 'round here, his name will be on the memorial." What memorial? I had to take a look. In the cemetery is indeed a memorial. It is quite unique. It was started in 1915 and was one of England's first. As men became casualties, their names were added. I was pleased but a little annoyed that the library staff, who work only half a mile away, did not know of this stone. A slow search of the names produced the same result, no Hartley.
Along with the search, several friends and a relative helped me with some other details, many of which applied to him after his death. My brother (in Australia) found him on the recently released 1901 census. At this date, he was living on Hope Street, Rawtenstall with his two brothers and mother. His occupation was a quarryman, and his mother's birthplace was Musk, Ireland. Also, the certificate of his 38 year old widow's marriage to James Nerney , 58, (of Prospect View, Rawtenstall) in 1920 was found. When the then Imperial War Graves Commission (as C.W.G.C. was known then) were given his details, his widow was by this time married to Nerney, hence her address in Rawtenstall. The fact he was not on the "unofficial" war memorial, coupled with the fact that he was not mentioned in the local press of 1918, probably means he did not live in that town.
James Nerney was also caught up in the tragedy of the war. James, Jr. died in 1917 while serving with the East Lancashire Regiment and is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial.
Breakthrough
As the deadline for completion of this article was nearly upon us, Wendy and I decided on a last chance tour of all the local towns and villages to see if there was any reference to James Hartley on any of the smaller war memorials, lunch in a pub, of course!
We made an early start on a dismal Saturday morning and duly did a tour, starting south of Rawtenstall and working our way through towns with such names as Ramsbottom, Holcombe Brook and Belthorn, all old towns with their own beautifully kept memorials. However, by mid-afternoon it was becoming obvious his name was not going to be found and, with the light fading, we went back to the Darwen Library. This visit found us talking to a different librarian who really knew her stuff. Right next to where I had sat on the previous visits, was a shelf full of information on Darwen's war effort in WWI and WWII. One of the books listed all the Darwen men who died in WWI and were mentioned in the local press. In there was a J. Hartley of Pilkington Street. A quick search in the 1912 electoral register showed this man to be John Hartley who was a shopkeeper, not our man.
I was busy reading when Wendy came over casually with a book compiled by the library listing all the men of Blackburn who died in WWI. There he was! J. H. Hartley!
We found out the original Book of Remembrance was held at Blackburn Town Hall, but we would have to wait a little longer as the town hall only opens Monday to Friday. I made a little detour while at work on Monday, November 18, 2002 and called at the town hall to take a look at the book. His name was there. Paul's fear of his name not being recorded anywhere in England was put to rest . A man who died so far from home was remembered back home.
From the few facts gathered, I will try and put together his story before he went to America.
He was born in 1880. He lived on Hope Street, Rawtenstall in 1901 with his mother and two brothers. He found work in one of the many quarries that littered the hills in this area. His mother's birthplace was in Musk, Ireland and I would take a guess, that as Musk is on the west coast of Ireland, he was probably Catholic. He probably married Elizabeth Ellen Kelshaw before the war. They must have made a home somewhere in the Blackburn area, but Elizabeth moved back to Rawtenstall after his death and married again. This would explain her surname of Nerney and the Rawtenstall address on the C.W.G.C. website. He joined the Liverpool Regiment and trained as a machine gunner before being transferred to the newly formed M.G.C..
It is safe to say though that, after seeing heavy combat, this 38 year old soldier, upon learning he was being assigned to train American soldiers in the United States, believed that he would unquestionably survive the war. He was wrong. I had feared that no one had cared enough to have him memorialized. I was wrong.
It's been quite a pleasant search and I've learned a few new ideas for researching WWI casualties. I'll use some of them on my search into my Grandfather, Harry Wellens, 7/Kings Shopshire Light Infantry, Military Medal and Order of St. George (Russia), died of wounds September 5, 1916, age 34. He is buried at Abbeville Communal Cemetery. I started researching him five years ago..... but that's another story.
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