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11th (1st South Down) Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment    11th (1st South Down) Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment was raised at Bexhill on the 7th of September 1914 by Lieut-Col. Lowther, MP and Committee. After initial training close to home, they moved to Maidstone in July 1915 and were adopted by the War Office. They moved to Aldershot in September and then to Witley to join 116th Brigade, 39th Division in October. They proceeded to France, landed at Le Havre in March 1916, the division concentrating near Blaringhem and receiving five battalions from other divisions to replace those of 118th Brigade who had remained in England to complete thier training. On the 30th June 1916 they were in action in an attack near Richebourg l'Avoue with the Sussex battalions suffered heavy casualties. They were in action during the Battles of the Somme, including, the fighting on the Ancre, The Battle of Thiepval Ridge, The Battle of the Ancre heights and the capture of Schwaben Reddoubt and Stuff Trench as well as The Battle of the Ancre. In 1917 they fought in The Battle of Pilkem Ridge, The Battle of Langemarck, The Battle of the Menin Road Ridge, The Battle of Polygon Wood and The Second Battle of Passchendaele. In 1918 they were in action at The Battle of St Quentin, The actions at the Somme crossings, The Battle of Bapaume and The Battle of Rosieres before moving to Flanders. They took part n The fighting on Wytschaete Ridge, The First and Second Battle of Kemmel and The Battle of the Scherpenberg. The Division had suffered heavy losses and they were reduced to a cadre on the 23rd of May. On the 30th of June they transferred to 75th Brigade, 25th Division and crossed back to England, going to Aldershot. In July they absorbed the 13th Royal West Kents to return to strength. On the 9th of September the Brigade was renamed 236th Brigade and left the Division. On the 17th of October they sailed from Dundee for service in North Russia. 1st May 1916 Reliefs 30th Jun 1916 Trying Circumstances 3rd Jul 1916 Congratulations 3rd Sep 1916 In Action 28th July 1917 Chinese Attack and trench relief 25th Sep 1917 11th Sussex Relieve 9th York & Lancs 24th Sep 1917 In Action   If you can provide any additional information, please add it here. Want to know more about 11th (1st South Down) Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment? There are:5237 items tagged 11th (1st South Down) Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment available in our Library   These include information on officers, regimental histories, letters, diary entries, personal accounts and information about actions during the Great War. Those known to have served with 11th (1st South Down) Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment during the Great War 1914-1918. Abbott James. Pte. (d.31st July 1917) Ager Allen. L/Cpl. (d.3rd Apr 1918) Atkins Ernest William. L/Sgt. (d.3rd Sep 1916) Ide Harry. A/Cpl (d.24th September 1917) Lower Roy. Cpl. (d.1st Aug 1917) Mason Charles Henry. A/Sgt. Mercer Alfred Sidney. Pte. (d.29th Apr 1918) Mills MM Thomas Alfred. Sgt. Mordle Thomas. Pte. (d.6th Aug 1917) Mordle Thomas. Pte (d.6th Aug 1917) Pettigrew Donald Stewart. Pte. (d.25th Sep 1917) Sambucci Albert. Pte. (d.3rd Jun 1916) Smart William Henry. Pte. Smith James Amos. Pte. (d.6th Nov 1917) Walters James. All names on this list have been submitted by relatives, friends, neighbours and others who wish to remember them, if you have any names to add or any recollections or photos of those listed, please Add a Name to this List Records of 11th (1st South Down) Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment from other sources. The Wartime Memories Project is the original WW1 and WW2 commemoration website. 1st of September 2023 marks 24 years since the launch of the Wartime Memories Project. 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Announcements 18th April 2024     Please note we currently have a massive backlog of submitted material, our volunteers are working through this as quickly as possible and all names, stories and photos will be added to the site. If you have already submitted a story to the site and your UID reference number is higher than 263925 your submission is still in the queue, please do not resubmit. Wanted: Digital copies of Group photographs, Scrapbooks, Autograph books, photo albums, newspaper clippings, letters, postcards and ephemera relating to the Great War. If you have any unwanted photographs, documents or items from the First or Second World War, please do not destroy them. The Wartime Memories Project will give them a good home and ensure that they are used for educational purposes. Please get in touch for the postal address, do not sent them to our PO Box as packages are not accepted. We are now on Facebook. Like this page to receive our updates, add a comment or ask a question. If you have a general question please post it on our Facebook page. World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great battalion regiment artillery Did you know? We also have a section on World War Two. and a Timecapsule to preserve stories from other conflicts for future generations.   A/Sgt. Charles Henry Mason 11th Btn. Royal Sussex Regiment Charles Mason joined up in August 1915 and went to France in March 1916. He survived the Battle of The Boars Head on 30th June 1916, but was injured twice in the Somme Battles of 1916. At the second injury, he was sent home. He then returned to service and was sent on secondment to the King's African Rifles, arriving in Africa in November 1917 and returning home again in April 1919. I have his dog tags and medals. He was my great-grandfather and I had the privilege of knowing him for a short while. Adrian Derry Add to this record.   A/Cpl Harry "Bluffer" Ide 11th (1st South Down) Battalion Sussex Regiment (d.24th September 1917) Harry "Bluffer" Ide was my father's grandfather, so my great grandfather. He died at the battle of Menin Ridge Road having been made acting corporal. It is believed that he knew the poet Edmund Blunden, and that the "bluffer" referred to in the poem Pill Box is Harry Ide, although I cannot confirm this as fact. I have an image of Harry that I will send via email. Gillian Ide Add to this record.   Pte. James Abbott 11th (1st South Down) Btn. Royal Sussex Regiment (d.31st July 1917) James Abbott served with the 11th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment in WW1. He was killed in action 31st of July 1917 aged 19 years on the 1st day of the 3rd Battle of Ypres. James is buried Buffs Road Cemetery in Belgium. He is also remembered in St Peter's Memorial Book. His is the first name on Brighton's War Memorial 1914-1921. Add to this record.    James Walters 11th Btn. Royal Sussex Regiment My Grandfather, James Walters enlisted in Hastings in September 1914. He was wounded in action on the the 3rd or 4th of June 1916 in Cuinchy, recorded in Sussex Daily News on the 3rd of July 1916. He was then wounded in action in March or April on the Somme. Recorded in the Sussex Daily News on the 3rd of June 1918. He was wounded again when serving with the 16th Royal Sussex. Recorded in the Sussex Daily News of the 30th of November 1918. Although 16th Battalion diary does not record it. His next of kin was given as living at Hadlow Down Sussex. He was in Roehampton Hospital in the war where he had his fingers amputated through injury. He eventually lost the battle to live after the war due to shrapnel injuries and died of haemorrhage to the brain through injury. David Walters Add to this record.   Cpl. Roy Lower 11th Btn. Royal Sussex Regiment (d.1st Aug 1917) Roy Lower was a baker living in Eastbourne and joined up in 1914, and very sadly died in Belgium in 1917 aged 25. All it says on his death log is H/blow. His name is on the Menin Gate as there is no known grave. We are extremely proud to be related to him that he laid down his life for us. Sadly we are unable to locate a photograph of him. Maxine Rigby Add to this record.   Pte Thomas Mordle 11th Btn. Royal Sussex Regiment (d.6th Aug 1917) Not a lot is known, except that Uncle Thomas Mordle had been detached to 112th Infantry Brigade HQ as a runner. He was either wounded by shellfire or by a German sniper whilst going about his duty. Most likely he was taken to Dozinghem Field Hospital where he died of wounds on 4th of August 1917, and was buried at Dozinghem War Cemetery,at Poperinge West Vlandren (Flanders). He left a wife and two young sons back in Midhurst, Sussex. She went on to remarry in 1919 to Leonard William Lewis. He was the stepson of her sister who had married his father in 1908. They went on to adopt a girl in 1927/28 who had been born illegitimate to one of Leonard's sisters. Even though no one ever knew Thomas, he is not forgotten. Add to this record.   Pte. William Henry Smart 11th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment My grandfather William Smart is a World One soldier from Hull. He fought in the lesser known campaigns of the War. The Macedonian Campaign in Greece 1916-1917 and in the North Russian Intervention in 1918-1919 before being finally demobbed in September 1919 nearly a year after the Western Front Armistice. This is his story. The story is cobbled together from desk research, online records and my mother’s memories William Henry Smart was born 1895 in Hull. At the start of the hostilities in 1914 William was working as a groom and joined up in May 1915, just before his 20th birthday, joining the East Riding Yeomanry. His training took place on the Beverley Westwood and he was transferred into the 2nd Battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment becoming a lance corporal in August 1916. The 2nd battalion of the East Yorkshire Regiment was in India at the start of the war but returned to serve with gallantry in France at the Battles of Loos and Ypres in 1915 as part of the 28th Division. At the end of 1915 it was shipped, firstly to Alexandria in Egypt and then to Salonika, Greece at the start of 1916. My grandfather set sail from Davenport in September 1916 and arrived in Salonika in October where he was almost immediately transferred to the 2nd Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment. The Regiment took part in the Macedonian Campaign. After preparing the port of Salonika for defence, the troops moved up country to Lake Dorian and The Struma Valley. Whilst the lines were steady and little fighting took place, the conditions, however, were terrible. Boiling hot in the summer and freezing in the winter. Malaria proved to be a serious drain on manpower during the campaign. In total the British forces suffered 162,517 cases of the disease and in total 505,024 non-battle casualties. William Smart was one of these statistics and he was hospitalised firstly with malaria and then a serious ear infection and anemia. He was finally invalided, to be sent, home in late November 1917. He set sail from Itea in Southern Greece, arriving in England in March 1918. Although he stated on his record he was past fit to service in France or Italy. He made it back to Hull and in on 12th of September 1918 he married my grandmother Catherine Witty. If he thought his war was over he had to think again! In July he was posted to the 13th Battalion of the East Surrey Regiment and transferred once more into the 11th Battalion East Sussex in September 1918 for one more final adventure. On 18th of September 1918, as part of the 236th Brigade, he set sail from Leith to Murmansk, for Northern Russian Expedition. This was part of the Allied Intervention in Russia after the October Revolution. The intervention brought about the involvement of nearly 30,000 Allied troops in the Russian Civil War on the side of the White movement. While the movement was ultimately defeated, the Allied forces fought notable ending defensive actions against the Bolsheviks in the battles of Bolshie Ozerki, allowing them to withdraw from Russia in good order. The campaign actually lasted from 1918, during the final months of World War I, to 1920. My grandfather survived the campaign returning on the SS Toloa, landing back in the UK on 26th August and was finally demobbed on on 4th September 1919. He lived until 1974, having two sons, one of whom, Roy Smart, served in WW2 and is also a D-Day veteran and twin daughters, Margaret and Patricia, who is my mum. Jonathan Leafe Add to this record.   Pte. Donald Stewart Pettigrew 11th (1st South Down) Btn. Royal Sussex Regiment (d.25th Sep 1917) My great uncle Donald Pettigrew was born 7 September 1892 in the village of Horton cum Studley, Oxfordshire. He enlisted with the 9th Surrey Regiment on 8th of September 1914. He later served with the 11th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment. He died on 25th of September 1917 during the Battle of Menin Road Ridge. Roger Weaver Add to this record.   Pte. Alfred Sidney "Sonny" Mercer 11th Btn. Royal Sussex Regiment (d.29th Apr 1918) Alfred Mercer was not yet 16 when he enlisted in Aldershot or Guildford in September 1916. He was the eldest of seven children born to a working family in Farnham which had its roots in Dorset, Kent and the Surrey-Hampshire borders. The 11th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment were quickly in the thick of things on the Western Front. Their involvement in the Battles of the Somme in 1916 included: fighting on the Ancre (Hamel); Battle of the Thiepval Ridge; Battle of the Ancre Heights; capture of the Schwaben Redoubt; capture of Stuff Trench; Battle of the Ancre, and in 1917: Battles of Ypres (3rd Ypres); Battle of the Pilckem Ridge; Battle of Langemarck; Battle of the Menin Road Ridge; Second Battle of Passchendaele. In 1918 the 11th were at the Battle of St Quentin; part of action on the Somme crossings; at the Battle of Bapaume and the Battle of Rozieres; the Battles of the Lys including fighting on the Wytschaete Ridge; the First Battle of Kemmel Ridge; the Second Battle of Kemmel Ridge. On 29th April Sonny fought in the Battle of the Scherpenberg, where he was killed, aged just 19, along with many hundred other men in the battalion. His name is on the memorial at Tyne Cot Cemetery, and on a more modest, but certainly heartfelt, memorial in Gostrey Meadows in the centre of Farnham, only 500 yards or so from where he was born and raised. We have no portrait of him; therefore our only photographic memories are of these two memorials. It is almost beyond our modern comprehension to understand what this young man, like so many others, would have endured in his short but fiercely-lived life. His family remembers him with love and respect. Mercy for Sonny Mercer Barbed wire buried deep in the fields I am grown in, enmeshed roots, sods, earth, bound tight, scented loam holding light and rain and warmth, rusting the wire, burnishing... Sap rising Sap quenched BarbBitingFlesh Devouring Me. by Julia Birch, 1916 Julia Birch Add to this record.   Pte. Albert Sambucci 11th Btn. Royal Sussex Regiment (d.3rd Jun 1916) My grandad Albert Sambucci was just 23 when he died near Cambrin, France. He is buried in Cambrin Church extension cemetery. Prior to enlistment he was working in the family ice cream business in Brighton. His family had come from Italy in the early 1800s. He was married and had a son, Loreto, who was only two when his dad was killed. He also had a baby daughter, Philomena, who was born after his departure for France so he never saw her. His letters speak of the cold and lice-ridden blankets. He also mentioned being made a bomber and trench raids. He said on one occasion it took him 2.5 hours to cover 120 yards from no mans land back to his trench. His last letter written just two days before his death said he was in the pink and hopeful of some leave. On the day that he was killed the Battalion diary states that three other ranks were killed when Sap15 was blown in, then an hour later two other ranks were shot by sniper fire, so we do not know the circumstances of his last moments. Linda Add to this record.   Pte. Thomas Mordle 11th Btn. Royal Sussex Regiment (d.6th Aug 1917) My uncle Thomas Mordle served with the 11th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment and was acting as a runner to Brigade HQ. He was more than likely wounded by gunfire or a German sniper. He died of his wounds at the Military aid station at Poperinge Flanders Belgium in August 1917, and is buried at Dozinghem Military Cemetery.. He left a widow and two young sons aged three and five. His widow remarried in 1920. Kevin Mills Add to this record.   Sgt. Thomas Alfred Mills MM 11th Btn. Royal Sussex Regiment Thomas Alfred Mills was born on the 24th of Nov 1895,(his birth was registered 2 Jan 1896) at 13 Mill St. U.D. Walsall, he was the aon of Alfred Thomas Mills, a railway drayman and Hannah Mills, formerly Lowbridge. During the Great War, Thomas A. Mills, served as No 1739, 39th Division, Army Cyclist Corps. and later 3905 11th Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment, as an Acting Sergeant. Thomas was wounded in action, 2nd Battle of the Somme, in April 1918 (exact date unknown). He was awarded the Military Medal, which was gazetted 18.10.1917 in the London Gazette. These details were sent to me by my sister but we can find no further reference to him. I would of course be very interested to learn more about his service. Steven Mills Add to this record.   L/Cpl. Allen Ager 11th Btn Royal Sussex Regiment (d.3rd Apr 1918) I have just recently found out about my Uncle Allen Ager. He died in The Great War. I have no living relatives to tell me anything but I am trying very hard to get as much info as I can about him. He, along with my father Arthur and their siblings, were all born in the vicinity of Haughley which is near Stowmarket in Suffolk. My Dad was born in 1888, he was 63 when I was born and we never spoke much about WW1 but when another uncle died a few photos came my way and a little info to say that Allen had died on the Somme. I hope to get the military history of Allen, and also of my Uncle Hugh who was wounded and lost his left arm in 1917. Linda Houlden Add to this record.   Pte. James Amos Smith 11th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment (d.6th Nov 1917) James Smith is my great grandfather. I know he was one of a band called `Lowther's Lambs`. He was mortally wounded possibly with head injuries at the Second Battle of Paschendale, shipped back to the UK and died in Southern General Hospital, Birmingham. Christopher Nice Add to this record. Recomended Reading. Available at discounted prices.

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