AN EARLY 1914 STAR & BAR CASUALTY TRIO.
To:
9086. Pte G. BLACKMAN. "A" Coy. 1st Bn WILTSHIRE REGT.

KILLED-IN-ACTION 18th October 1914.

With 'A' company at The Battle of La Bassee (Ligny-le-Grand)
Enlisted underage at 15/16. Killed Aged 17.

Young George Blackman was born in 1897 in Yatton Keynell, near Chippenham in Wiltshire. In 1911 he is shown as a 14 year old Domestic Gardner living with his father Henry a Traction Engine Driver and his mother Annie and three sisters at Fallow Row, Yatton Keynell.

[GEORGE's UNDER AGE ENLISTMENT...at just 16 ! ]
At the time of his "Under Age" enlistment at Devizes (at age16) in December 1913 he was residing in Frome Road. He & his unit landed in France on 14th August 1914, one of earliest arrivals. He was killed in action on 18th October during the assault on the German positions at Ligny-le-Grand. The records give him as being 19 but in reality he was only just past his 17th birthday and like many thousands of our brave boy soldiers he had lied about his age when he volunteered and should not have been in France at all.

Recruitment rules were simple. To enlist and fight abroad, you had to be nineteen or over. If you were eighteen, you could enlist but you had to remain in the UK until you were nineteen before being posted abroad. No one could join the army under the age of eighteen, but never the less, it is thought that over 250,000 underage boys were recruited and fought in France.

The war diary records that the enemy were strongly reinforced and that about 200 to 300 yards were gained by our advance. Heavy firing continued until 22:30hrs that night and battalion casualties amounted to one officer mortally wounded, three other ranks killed, one being George Blackman and 21 other ranks wounded.

GEORGE BLACKMAN HAS NO KNOWN GRAVE & IS COMMEMORATED WITH ETERNAL HONOUR on THE LE TOURET MEMORIAL TO THE MISSING.

An emotive and powerful group to a brave young lad who today would still be at school, but while still a child gave his Iife for the freedoms we all enjoy today. LEST WE FORGET.

A POEM FOR YOUNG GEORGE

“What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty horisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds”.


EF + on mint original ribbons with original AUG-NOV 1914 Clasp ....
Superb.....£595

*NOTE" We now PAY £50 each for genuine AUG-NOV 1914 clasps !!!