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Able Seaman Robert Foster Brown
Royal Naval Division Drake Battalion
from:64 Ford Street, South Shields
The assassination on the 28 June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by a Serbian nationalist activated a sequence of alliances. Within weeks the major European powers were at war. At the outbreak of World War One in 1914, the British government had no hesitation in appointing Lord Kitchener the Secretary of State for War. At the same time, Kitchener was used on the recruiting poster for British soldiers. His handlebar moustaches, steely gaze and pointing finger, were all instrumental in the recruitment of the 'New Army'. The phrase "Your Country Needs You" became the most famous image of the war.
The recruitment poster of the Royal Navy Division (as part of the Senior Service) was less dramatic.
When the First World War began, the Reserves of the Royal Navy were found to have a surplus of thousands of sailors even though the warships were fully crewed. This war would be conducted mainly on land so there was an obvious solution. Reserve personnel were brought together at Crystal Palace to form the Royal Naval Division (RND) in September 1914. The RND was commonly known as "Winston's Little Army" because it was founded by Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty.
Royal Naval Division at Gallipoli .
Following the engagements at Antwerp the brigades in the division were re-formed by recruitment. These arrived through the Royal Navy depots in London and several ports on the British coast. .
Blandford Camp in Dorset and Crystal Palace in London were arranged as training camps for the new recruits. In navy parlance, the training camp in London was referred to as boarding HMS Crystal Palace. .
After the Western Front bogged down into trench warfare, calls were made by the end of 1914 to start operations on the Eastern Front. This resulted in the campaign at Gallipoli to attack Germany's ally Turkey. The operation would also serve to support Russia, an ally of Great Britain. .
Churchill was one of those behind the campaign, and felt that the Royal Navy could neutralise the Turkish fortresses along the Dardanelles in order to clear the route to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul). That proved to be more complicated than originally thought when the British-French fleet sailed into a minefield, and the Turkish fortresses were not all destroyed. .
Landing troops were formed to carry out an invasion. As Churchill was involved in the operation at Gallipoli, it was only logical that his Royal Naval Division would play a significant role there. .
The British share of the attack force was made up out of the Royal Naval Division and the professional soldiers from the 29th Division as part of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force. There was also a large number of Australian and New Zealand troops (ANZAC) as well as a French division. These added up to 75,000 men, commanded by the British general Ian Hamilton. This number would be augmented further later on. .
At the Gallipoli landings on the 25 April 1915, the Drake Battalion formed up on the beach and in silence, marched in single file to a place on the cliffs about a mile away. It was very cold and little sleep was had. Later on the 7th May 1915, Drake Battalion left for the trenches and fought the Turks until the 25th May 1915 when they retired to the rest camp. During the following months, the brigades of the Royal Naval Division would participate in attacks on Turkish positions towards the hills of Achi Baba above Cape Helles. These engagements have become known as the battles for Krithia. However, the Turkish forces led by the German military advisor general Otto Liman von Sander, were not so easily pushed aside. .
The Royal Naval Division suffered considerable losses in those battles, or through disease in the sub-tropical climate. These losses are estimated at 330 officers and 7,200 men. By June, those losses had mounted up to such an extent that Benbow and Collingwood battalions were abolished and the men deployed with other battalions. By August, two of the four battalions of marines suffered the same fate. The Division would no longer be deployed in frontal assaults on Turkish positions.
New replacements were needed for the Royal Naval Division fighting at Gallipoli. My father was one of those sent there to bring the Drake Battalion up to strength. Despite a family story, that my father's friends were older than him, so he lied about his age, so he could enlist with them, his service records in the National Archives show otherwise. My father volunteered to serve his country after the start of the Gallipoli campaign. Robert Foster Brown enlisted in the Tyneside Division (service number Z/4609) on the 19th May 1915, aged 20, meeting their recruitment criteria except for one item. His height of 5 feet 1 and half inches was actually two inches below the minimum height.
Nevertheless he passed the medical and five days later left for Crystal Palace. He received his basic training of 25 days with the 4th Depot Battalion before being assigned to the 2nd Reserve Battalion at Blandford Camp on Salisbury Plain, Dorset where he received further operational training. The men were billeted in tents.
My father transferred to Drake Battalion, part of the 1st Brigade of the Royal Naval Division on the 21 September 1915 and sailed from England to join them in Gallipoli.
It would take a few years before the British army command understood that the war could not be won by cold steel. In spite of courageous fighting with major losses and new landings on the western shore of the peninsula, the Allied force achieved nothing. By the end of 1915 it was decided to withdraw the troops, ending the Gallipoli campaign on 9 January 1916. The debacle meant the end for Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty.
On the 24th December 1915 the Drake Battalion was recalled for Sea Service. They left camp in Gallipoli for V-Beach at 8pm and sailed at midnight arriving the next day at Mudros early in the morning and transferred to SS Aragon. (HQ Ship). After Gallipoli the remnants of the division rested for six months in the Greek islands of Salonica, Tenedos, Imbros and Mudros.
In the aftermath of Gallipoli, a discussion was started on the future of the Royal Naval Division. The outcome was to maintain the division, but under Army rather than Navy command. In May 1916, the division was transferred from the Greek islands to the Western Front. The unit entered France through Marseille rather than the Channel ports. We know that my father embarked from Mudros on the hired transport Menominee on the 1st June 1916 arriving at Marseilles in the South of France on the 7th June 1916.
The Royal Naval Division did not reform until arriving back in France in May 1916. For the first time, the Royal Naval Division became a true division with its own artillery and support services. The Royal Naval Division was transferred to France to fight alongside the army, but at first the Admiralty retained control. This contributed to tensions, as did their observance of naval tradition. For example, the RND used naval ranks, they flew the White Ensign and were allowed to grow beards and they remained seated during the toast to the King's health.
The following month the Division was transferred to Army control. The name was changed to 63rd Division, but the subtitle of Royal Naval Division was kept. From this time they were known as the 63rd (Royal Navy) Division, part of the British Expeditionary Force (France & Belgium), and the brigades were numbered the 188th, 189th and 190th. Two battalions of marines and the Anson and Howe battalions made up the 188th Brigade, the other four navy battalions (Hood, Nelson, Drake and Hawke) the 189th Brigade. The two battalions of marines became the First and Second Royal Marine Light Infantry. Khaki uniforms were introduced, but with navy insignia. Four regular army battalions were added to the division to bring it up to strength, which made up the 190th Brigade.
The further history of the division does not substantially differ from other units at the Western Front. Battalions and Brigades were deployed, fought for one or more days with usually large losses during a battle. They would then be with drawn to be brought back up to strength with new recruits or men, recovered from injuries. And back into the fray again.
The Royal Naval Division in the battle at the Somme in 1916
It served in the trenches around Souchez near Arras, the place where the French had fought their bloody battles for the hill with the chapel of Notre Dame de Lorette. In 1916 this part of the Western Front was relatively quiet. Conditions in the trenches on the Western Front were physically onerous due to flooding and the cold & wet climate. My father was laid low with influenza and entered hospital on the 19 September 1916 but was discharged two days later and returned to his unit.
In early October, the division was directed to the Somme, where British and French troops had been trying to break through German defensive lines since 1 July 1916. The Royal Naval Division was only deployed by the end of the battle of the Somme in what was to become known as the battle of the Ancre, a tributary river of the Somme. The division was part of the British Fifth Army under General Hubert Gough, and through this deployment would be able to show its mettle.
British supreme commander General Douglas Haig thought he could do with a success in view of the forthcoming conference with the French High Command at Chantilly, and proceeded to exert pressure on Gough. At Chantilly, the allied strategy for 1917 would be discussed.
Haig however was more worried about the meeting with British and French heads of government which would follow the military meeting. There was criticism of Haig's policy from his political superior, Minister of War David Lloyd George. Until October, the Battle of the Somme had not yielded the results expected of it, and there had been no Big Push. Conquering the ridge of the Ancre could counteract some of this criticism.
My father transferred on the 27th October to the 188th Brigade Headquarters as a batman to Sub-Lieut. Andrews just before the battle of the Ancre.
Able Sea. Robert Foster Brown, seated
The battle at Beaucourt Since the start of the Battle of the Somme, the front had been deadlocked near Beaumont-Hamel on the left shore of the Ancre River. Serre, one of the aims of the first day of the assault of 1 July 1916 had never been reached.
Hoping for a breakthrough here by the end of the year was in no way possible by a long way. The rain had turned the battlefield into a mud-bath and mud prevented any movement. Particularly the area along the Ancre had been turned into a morass. Nonetheless, an attack was launched on Monday 13 November after a dry spell of a few days.
Of the Royal Naval Division the 188th and 189th Brigades, those containing the marines and the sailors, attacked along the left shore of the Ancre. The 152nd and 153rd Brigades of the Scottish 51st Highland Division operated to their left - the sailors next to the Celts.
Of the 188th Brigade, Howe-battalion and the first battalion of marines had to launch the attack, with the Anson battalion and the second battalion of marines in the second line. Of the 189th Brigade, the Hood and Hawke battalions launched the attack, with the two other battalions (Nelson and Drake) in the second wave.
The assault began in the dark at 5.45 a.m., with a successful artillery barrage on the German frontline. This was stormed and taken with heavy losses, with the extensive network of German trenches causing confusion and chaos in the forward march. Nonetheless, progress was made and Beaucourt Station was reached. Hawke battalion was put under heavy machine gun fire and took 400 casualties. By the end of the day, it had virtually ceased to exist.
Re-enforcements of the 190th Army Brigade were sent to the front. The next day, the assault was continued from the station by the 190th Brigade and the combined remnants of the other brigades. The village of Beaucourt was subsequently taken at 10.30 a.m. By the end of the day, the eastern side of the village could be consolidated. After two days' fighting, the Royal Naval Division, of rather what was left of it, was relieved on 15 November 1916 by units from the 37th Division. The Royal Naval Division had shown what it was worth, at the cost of heavy losses. There were 4,000 casualties, of which 1,600 fell during the assault on November 13th and 14h.
The monument to the Royal Naval Division is in Beaucourt village, elevated above the entrenched road through the village. It was erected in the 1920s. The monument is a white obelisk, which shows beautifully against a blue sky, and a plaque. The obligatory text runs: In memory of the officers and men of the Royal Naval Division who fell at the battle of the Ancre, November 13th-14th November 1916.
My father entered hospital again on the 30 November suffering from scabies. When he returned to duty in early December 1916 he was assigned to the 189th Brigade Headquarters.
In spite of the losses sustained, the Division issued a Christmas card with a pun - Up Anchor! - on their performance at the Ancre River. The sailors would be able to use their seafaring skills to survive in the quagmire of trenches. Gallows humour is one way of coping with difficult circumstances.
My father then obtained his first leave of ten days, which he spent in the United Kingdom in late January 1917. He then rejoined his Division's operations on the Ancre (January-March 1917)
The Royal Naval Division in the battle near Arras in 1917
The next major battle in which the Royal Naval Division was deployed was at Arras in April 1917. This battle became known primarily for the conquest of Vimy Ridge by the Canadians, who have placed their national memorial there.
The Britons launched their offensive on April 9th, 1917, and the Third Army, led by General Edmund Allenby, was under orders to proceed to the north and south of the Scarpe River. The 4th British and 9th Scottish Divisions were to attack to the north of the river.
The first day went well, the Germans were surprised and the aims were achieved. Making some 3 miles of progress in one day was unheard of since the battle at the Somme. The front moved north of the Scarpe to beyond the line between Athies and Vimy, and even the village of Fampoux was reached. Progress after that was appreciably more difficult on account of German action. In mid April an attack on the village of Roeux, situated on the Scarpe River, failed and Douglas Haig ordered a break in operations.
On April 16th, meanwhile, the French had launched their attack at the Chemin des Dames, which was a failure from day one. The French demanded however that the British continue their offensive. And thus, fighting carried on.
The Royal Naval Division was ordered to take Gavrelle and breach the third German defensive line. The attack on Gavrelle was commenced on 23 April and was carried out by the 189th and 190th Brigades. At 4.45 a.m. Nelson and Drake battalions went over the top under cover of an artillery barrage. The first line of German trenches was quickly taken, and an hour later the attack was ceased at the edge of the village.
The artillery barrage was relocated across the village, which was reduced to rubble. Other battalions from the brigade were moved forward. House to house fighting led to the taking of Gavrelle, at the cost of 1,500 casualties. In the street fighting the Division showed skill and determination. The next day, the Germans launched a counter-offensive to retake Gavrelle, starting with an intense bombardment. When this was beaten off, the division had taken 479 prisoners and in defeating the counterattacks had obviously inflicted heavy loss upon the enemy, and on 26th April, the attacking battalions were relieved. The relief troops had to continue the British attack towards the windmill, a reinforced German position northeast of the village. This task was allocated to the marines and the Anson battalion of the 188th Brigade, who had not been deployed on April 23rd.
The attack started at 4.25 a.m. The second battalion of marines succeeded in taking the windmill, and holding it as an enclave in German-held territory. That was the only British gain, because after a day of bloody fighting, the situation was basically unchanged from the start. That did not change until the troops of 31st Division relieved them in the night of April 30th. The fighting at Gavrelle had claimed 3,000 casualties from the Royal Naval Division.
In particular, the losses of the Royal Marines Light Infantry were severe, with 850 casualties and many dead, including the commanding officer of the first battalion of marines, lieutenant-colonel Cartwright.
Virtually all the remaining reservists of the original Royal Naval Division lost their lives at Gavrelle. They were the veterans who had survived the fighting at Gallipoli and at the Ancre.
The division was rebuilt however, and on 24 September 1917 the Royal Naval Division would be withdrawn from this part of the front to be deployed at Ypres.
The Royal Naval Division in the third battle at Ypres in 1917
On 31 July 1917 the British army launched the third battle at Ypres, also called the battle for Passchendaele, after the village where the assault was finished. Haig thought he could finally force a breakthrough, and deployed every available division from the British Empire to achieve that goal. The offensive was larger than the battle at the Somme in 1916. The German defensive position east of Ypres consisted of a number of lines. The position bent, but did not break. The shot up ground and copious rainfall turned the battlefield into a huge quagmire. British, New Zealand and Australian divisions literally fought themselves to death here.
By late October, the Canadian corps of General Arthur Currie, under protest, would launch a final attempt to conquer Passchendaele village. This part of Third Ypres is known as the second battle of Passchendaele and lasted from 26 October until 10 November 1917. The Canadians would attack in three steps, progress 500 metres in every stride, and then pull in the artillery.
The Royal Naval Division was tasked to attack alongside the Canadians. The division was to cover the left flank of the Canadian advance. Much like at the Somme, the division was deployed in the final phase of a battle in a quagmire. And like at the Somme the sailors had to endure mocking asides that they, in view of the conditions, would be completely at home. When, they got up to the Front, there was no front line to speak of, just a series of posts scraped in the mud. A machine-gun crew here, a few riflemen there, further on a Lewis-gun crew.
On 26 October at 5.40 am, the Canadian divisions launched the attack for Passchendaele. The first battalion of marines and the Anson battalion of the 188th Brigade attacked at the same time. Like during previous days, it was raining. A few hours later, Anson battalion took Varlet Farm, a reinforced German position midway between Poelkapelle and Passchendaele. The area had to be fought over metre by metre in the following days. The mud-bound fights east of Varlet Farm symbolise in miniature what the whole Third Battle at Ypres had been like. Mud in which men would sink and drown. Mud which clogged guns and machineguns, rendering them useless.
On October 30th, the second step was taken and the 190th Brigade attempted, with regular army soldiers, to proceed through the mud towards the Paddenbeek River. For one of those battalions, it was their baptism of fire in the war. Of the 470 men who went on the attack, 350 became casualties, of whom 170 were fatalities. On 4 November, the 189th Brigade's marine battalions had their turn. The Hood and Drake battalions conquered Sourd Farm, another German position near the Paddenbeek River.
Less than 1 kilometre of territory was gained in the days that the Royal Naval Division fought at Passchendaele, at a cost of 2,000 casualties.
On November 6th, the Canadians were finally to take the ruins of the village of Passchendaele. On November 10th, an attempt to progress further was made, but the Third Battle at Ypres was ended by Haig. The Royal Naval Division was withdrawn from the frontline on that day.
After Ypres, the Royal Naval Division was incorporated into the Third Army, now commanded by general Julian Byng. On 30 December 1917, the division found itself west of Cambrai, near Flesquières on a ridge which became known as the Welsh Ridge, and did not get a peaceful New Year celebration there. The hill was a bulge in the British frontline, a part of the Hindenburg line taken from the Germans after the battle for Cambrai in late November 1917.
The Germans decided to straighten this vulnerable bulge so the Royal Naval Division was on the defensive for two days, rather than on the attack. It was a localised trench battle, which claimed many casualties. As a result, Hood Battalion had to be withdrawn from the frontline on New Year's Day 1918. On the 19 January 1918, following the close of this action, my father proceeded on leave returning home to England for two weeks.
The Royal Naval Division in 1918
In March 1918, the Royal Naval Division was located south of Cambrai in Northern France, near the Belgian border. My father's brigade, the 189th , remained the sole brigade with exclusively naval battalions, namely Drake, Hawke and Hood.
The period of trench warfare on the Western Front was over. The Germans were planning a mobile spring offensive (the Kaiserschlacht). In the week leading up to the major offensive an artillery barrage was launched by the Germans, in which many mustard gas grenades were fired. The Royal Naval Division was gassed, but remained on the frontline in spite of 2,500 casualties. On the 12th March, my father became one of those casualties. He was so severely wounded he was invalided four days later to England and admitted to St John's Hospital, The Grange, Southport on Merseyside. (In later life, due to chronic damage to his lungs he would contract pleurisy in winter time forcing him to take sick leave from his work on the tugboats). Meanwhile, like the other divisions of the British Third and Fifth Armies, the Royal Naval Division fought in the retreat when the real German offensive started on 21 March 1918.
The Germans now did take the Flesquières salient. Withdrawing further, the division fought at Bapaume on March 24th and 25th, and on April 5th at the Ancre, well known territory for the old stagers of the division left alive. The British armies had to yield a lot of terrain in March and April, but were able to hold at Amiens. Gough's Fifth Army was practically annihilated.
Meanwhile, my father was undergoing two months treatment before he went on furlough for 10 days in May at South Shields before being sent to a base on the Greek island of Mudros for rehabilitation and recovery. He then returned to England in July joining the 2nd Reserve Battalion at Blandford before being granted a week's leave.
When the balance swung in the allies' favour, the Royal Naval Division took part in the second battle at the Somme on August 21st - 23rd, the second battle for Arras on September 2nd and 3rd, and the September battles to breach the Hindenburg line.
In September my father returned to France via Calais before rejoining Drake Battalion on the 16th September 1918. The division crossed the Canal du Nord to take Cambrai with the Canadians on October 8th. The Division had its final act of war in the march into Picardy, crossing the Grande Honnelle River on the border between Belgium and France.
The war ended for the Royal Naval Division in Belgium, the very place where it had all started in 1914. On 11 November 1918 the division was at Saint Ghislain, at that time a village west of Mons, now part of the conurbation of Mons. The name of that city still rings magical in British war history, as it was there that the British fought their first battle with the German army on 23 August 1914. Thus the end of World War 1 occurred on the 11th November 1918 when an armistice was signed between the Allies and Germany at Rethondes, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, which took effect at eleven o'clock in the morning - the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month".
The end of the Royal Naval Division
It was February 1919 before my father left France from Boulogne for demobilisation at North Camp, Ripon on the 20th February 1919.
The Royal Naval Division was finally abolished in April 1919. This happened during an official parade at Horse Guards Parade in London. This parade was taken by the Prince of Wales in the presence of Winston Churchill, who had founded the division. Like the division itself, he had moved from the Navy to the Army and had become Minister of War.
Churchill would also write a preface to the book 'The Royal Naval Division' by Douglas Jerrold from 1923 about the history of the division. Jerrold served in the Royal Naval Division and fought at Gallipoli and in France. The book is as good a memory as a physical memorial.
The Royal Naval Division was and would remain a unique war formation. But it was one that had fought in the Great War from beginning to end in all major battles of the British army. And one that had gained a good reputation. The division suffered total losses - killed, injured or missing - of some 47,000 men, of whom 37,000 were on the Western Front. Six Victoria Crosses were awarded to the division. It is slightly ironic that more than 40 percent losses, incurred by the Royal Navy during World War I were sustained in the trenches.
