The name Passchendaele brings to mind one of the most horrific and terrifying battles of the Great War. It was fought by young men who were recruited from towns and villages across the entire allied territories. By the time of Passchendaele most of the youthful population from around Galway were already fighting on the Western Front. Many of them had also paid with their lives in this so-called war for Civilisation. In July 1917, just prior to Passchendaele, Captain Stephen Gwynn, a recruiting officer with the British army addressed a meeting of Galway Urban Council. It was a bid to gain support for yet another recruiting campaign. He informed the meeting that the British Government was under extreme pressure to enlist more fighting men and that Ireland was expected to provide another 50,000 recruits or face conscription. He also said that in addition to these men, between two and three thousand recruits would be required monthly to support those already in the field. However, times had changed since the early years of the conflict when the army was given full support for the war effort. The appalling causality list was now having an alarming effect on the minds of the people. Gwynn was challenged by Councillor James Redington who pointed out that the male population was already depleted and Galway could not send any more troops.
The Battle of Passchendaele (also known as the third battle of Ypres) was fought between July and November 1917. It was an Allied offensive launched by Field Marshal, Sir Douglas Haig and was an attempt to capture the Belgian ports being held by the Germans. The battle was long and bitter and fought in the appalling conditions of driving rain and waterlogged trenches. The weather forced the fighting to cease temporarily, but only after thousands of men had been killed. The thunderstorms continued until mid-August giving the troops some reprieve. The battleground was a vision of bloody mud. Soldiers trudged along dangerously wet duckboards, bent over by the weight of the equipment. Movement at night was more dangerous as one wrong step could mean being trapped in a mud-filled shell hole where an agonising and silent death often awaited them. The allied offensive resumed as weather conditions improved.
Jack King from Bohermore was one of the young Galway soldiers who saw action at Passchendaele. His father was also a soldier and had served in the Zulu and Bore Wars in Africa. In 1979, Jack was interviewed by Jim Fahy of RTE about his experiences on the Western Front. During the interview, he gave a graphic insight into the brutality of the war in an honest and factual manner. There was a huge recruiting drive in Galway following the declaration of war and many of the young men and teenagers who enlisted in the army did so mainly for financial reasons and adventure. One source mentions that Jack enlisted after attending a recruiting meeting at Eyre Square. According to the story, the crowd were horrified when two ‘heavily pregnant nuns’ were brought on stage by the military. The people were told that they had been raped by German soldiers. The announcement shocked all those present and they became even more concerned when the recruiting officer said that many Irishwomen would suffer the same fate if the Germans were not stopped. The announcement had the desired effect as Jack and a number of other young men decided to enlist. Many years later, a wiser and older Jack remembered how easily they had been misled by the sight of the two ‘bogus pregnant nuns’ of as he said ‘two queer wans stuffed with pillows’. Jack was just sixteen in 1916 when he made his way to Renmore Barracks and joined the Connacht Rangers. He was just one of an estimated 250,000 under-age soldiers who fought in the Great War; some were as young as fourteen years of age. After a short time in training, Jack and the others were sent to England. Crowds turned out at Galway Railway station to see the troops leave for the front but were disappointed as the train pulled off without the soldiers on board. The military had made arrangements to stop the train at Renmore Barracks where the soldiers boarded without having a chance to say goodbye to their families. Sometime later Jack was transferred to the Royal Irish Regiment as they had suffered horrendous casualties. After additional training in England, he was sent to France and soon found himself on the Somme. He survived the horrors of the Somme and just over a year later he was sent into action in the blood and mud-soaked fields of Passchendaele. His initial memory on the way to the front was of seeing people lying dead along river banks after drinking water that had been poisoned by the enemy. In the trenches, soldiers had to follow strict instructions and anyone who disobeyed orders could face being shot. The vermin and lice were dreadful and the bodies of the dead often attracted rats. While some sources mention that soldiers were issued with rum, Jack said they were never told what was in the drink that they were given. He described it as looking like castor oil or half-set jelly. He never discovered the nature of the drink despite making numerous inquiries. It must have been very strong as he mentioned that some men were capable of facing any action shortly after taking the drink. In some cases, men were driven to the extreme of killing themselves. To put your head above the parapet was virtual suicide, not alone could a soldier be hit by one bullet, but several. Hand-to-hand combat was more deathly as it meant a personal fight for survival. Jack remembered that sometimes when the firing ceased, they were allowed time to remove and bury the dead. This was important because of the smell of dead flesh that hung in the air.
The entire earth at Passchendaele was pockmarked with shell holes as bombs continually exploded in the same area. There was no safe place to shelter from the terrible shelling. There was nowhere to go, except forward towards the German lines against a wall of continuous fire. There was no rest, not even for the dead as the shells unearthed the bodies of soldiers who had only recently been buried. This was horrific as many bodies were literally torn apart and absorbed into the war-torn landscape. Jack witnessed all of this carnage and it was something he never forgot. It is little wonder that so many bodies were never recovered and are listed among the missing. The only military evidence of their existence is a name on a war memorial. Jack also mentioned that even the simple things like the laundry caused problems as there was always a chance of being given clothing belonging to another soldier. Apart from 1914, Christmas Day didn’t make much difference at the front as it was not really celebrated. Once in the trenches, soldiers had to remain there until they were relieved. They were then free to explore any nearby town provided they were back in time for roll call. One night while visiting a local village, Jack and a friend were set upon by a group of men and one of the items stolen during the encounter was a gold Claddagh Ring that his mother had given him. Jack never intended to talk about the war as he felt that children should be sheltered from such events. Only those who experience war can fully understand its horrors. He felt that even the soldiers themselves don’t fully realise the horrors of the war until afterwards. Once over, he never wanted to see such sights again and put his survival down to someone’s prayers and ‘God’s Blessing’. Jack King died on 27 December 1985 and is buried in the New Cemetery, Bohermore.
