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World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great 1914 1918 first battalion regiment
W/O2 Joseph Henry Hughes MM
British Army 24th Batt (2nd Sportsmen's) Royal Fusiliers
from:Hackney, London
Joe Hughes, my grandfather, was one of just six men of the original 24th, or 2nd Sportsmen's, battalion, raised at the Hotel Cecil in late 1914 and early 1915, remaining with the 2nd Sportsmen at the end of the war. He was a specialist in grenades, explosives and bombing raid training and leadership from 1916 to 1918, when he was promoted to CSM, I believe in B Coy., after the final German offensive in March 1918. He had refused the offer of a commission because it would have meant leaving the battalion, and he was determined to see the war through with his friends and comrades. Apart from being awarded the MM for his part in taking a heavily defended quarry at Rumilly, Cambrai, in 1918, his other distinction was that he was probably the first man to fire a Bangalore Torpedo (an explosive charge on a long rod, designed to blast gaps in barbed wire entanglements) in action. He was an enthusiastic member of the regimental association between the wars and in the post war years, and kept a fascinating collection of documents, photographs and artefacts, which are now with the Museum of the Royal Fusiliers at the Tower of London. He also left a fascinating collection of stories, some of which I recorded for the Museum, about life in the Battalion, through training in England - when the men went on strike over the quantity and quality of their food, and were threatened with cavalry and machine guns before returning to duty - and the three years on the Western Front that followed. Cross checking his accounts with the Battalion War Diary, I found a remarkable degree of accuracy - although the strike took place at Tidworth Camp in England, before the battalion was shipped to France, and did not therefore appear in the diary (I wonder whether this type of incident would have been recorded at all!)
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