237386 Cpl. Michael White British Army 2nd Battalion, A Coy. Royal Dublin Fusiliers from:Naas, Co. Kildare, Ireland Michael White was born in Naas, Co. Kildare, Ireland on March 16th 1882. In April 1900 he enlisted as a private in the 2nd Battalion of the RDF at the battalions depot in Naas. His Service record for the RDF shows that at some stage previously he had joined the Royal Irish Regiment but had been dismissed for being under age. Michael served with the RDF during the second Boer war in South Africa and was awarded both the Queen's and King's South Africa medals with clasps. After the Boer war he also served in peacetime at Malta, Crete and Egypt with his regiment.
In April 1908, when his 8 year's service was up, he transferred to the army reserve. With the outbreak of WW1, as a reserve soldier, he was called up to the RDF and mobilised on 6th of August 1914. With the rest of the second battalion he sailed from Southampton for Boulogne and then travelled by train to Le Cateau. His regiment, along with the rest of the British Expeditionary Force, was hurredly thrown into action in an attempt to stop the German advance through Belgium into France.
The battalion first engaged the advancing German forces during the retreat from Mons on August 26th, suffering many casualties and loosing many men as prisoners of war. Michael White was wounded twice during the chaotic fighting and retreats during the battle of Le Cateau. He was sent home to Naas to recover and during his recoevry there he was interviewed by the local Kildare Observer newspaper. The article is below:
Extract from Kildare Observer Sept 1914:
Wounded at Cambrai - Naas Soldier Back From the Front 19th September 1914.
Private Michael White, "A" Company, Royal Dublin Fusilier, was in the firing line at Cambrai in the retreat from Mons on August 26th and was in the fighting line three days before he was rendered Hors-De-Combat by two Germans bullets. His wounds have now healed and he has been granted 14 days' Furlough. He is at present in his home at Rathasker Road, Naas, none the worse for his wounds. "I was one of four platoons of the 'Dublins'," He told me, "sent to hold the hills at Cambrai at all costs, but ten times our number could not have performed the task, as we soon found out when we saw the numbers against us. I was in the fourth platoon under Lieut. Mackey, who was afterward captured by the Germans and is now a prisoner, I believe. I tasted the lead of the German twice. The first wound I believe was here" - holding up his right hand, the third finger of which bore a recently healed scar. - "I paid no heed to that. It was nothing, and I got back into the ranks and fired away after I had got a bandage tied around it to keep the blood from bothering me. We were retiring all this time, and I asked Captain Clarke where I could get me hand bound up when the blood was troubling me. He told me to go back to the village - Cambrai - and I would find No.2 Red Cross Hospital there.
"I had got my finger bandaged when a German aeroplane buzzed right over the Church, which had been turned into a temporary hospital. The people in the aeroplane dropped a black disc suspended by a cord over the church for the purpose, I suppose, of giving the range to the artillery. A few minutes' later the steeple of the church came tumbling down and some French doctors and nuns were killed amongst other. This is not hearsay, as I saw it with my own eyes. We - some wounded - were told to clear out, as the place was about to be shelled and we lost no time in going, those of us who could look after ourselves.
"As I have told you, I re-joined my comrades, who were at this time retreating and some four or five hours' later, while we were fighting on our retreat some miles from Cambrai I got another bullet - this time in the groin that knocked me over, and I was sent to the field hospital at Rouen.
That night we had to clear off from there and got on board a ship which came through the Seine. We disembarked at Southampton, and a lot of us were sent to Plymouth Hospital, which was in charge of civilians and territorials. They fed you well and looked after you but did not bother to enquire further about you. That was the reason why, although I was wounded on August 26th, my name did not appear in the casualty list until a couple of days ago. It's the same with hundreds of others. They do not bother about reporting you as being wounded or in the hospital until you are fit to leave, and then they inform the authorities and you are sent to Naas or wherever you regiment may happen to have come from. I was discharged the day before yesterday - on Tuesday - and was the only one of the wounded sent to Naas.
"Yes" he said replying to a question I asked him as to whether he had seen any of the German brutality we hear so much about. "I saw two of our bands men - Private Flannery and Ives Flannery was from Tipperary and we called him "Tipp", and Ives is an Englishmen) go out with the stretcher from them and turned them back. I met them on the road and Flannery's hand was bleeding. He told me the Uhlans had broken his fingers with a slash of a sword. The Germans are all right now to our fellows when they are being forced to retreat themselves, but when they were marching on us they murdered all before them. I believe they are told if they meet a British soldier to shoot him or he will shoot them.
"Yes, I'm feeling quite fit again now", said the private. "When my fortnight is up I'll go back to my regiment, and hope to be sent to the front again. I want to get some of my own back off those fellows".
Michael returned to France in January 1915. On 21st of March 1918, the German Army made its final major push in an effort to end the war. The RDF was heavily engaged during the German spring offensive and suffered significant casualties. At some point, Michael's company (A Company) was isolated and Michael was taken prisoner. He spent the rest of the war a POW. Michael was finally repatriated after the war had ended in December 1918. He was demobilised in February 1919.
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