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World War 1 One ww1 wwII greatwar great 1914 1918 first battalion regiment
Cpl. Frederick Luce Pretty
British Army 1st Battalion Rifle Brigade
from:Vauxhall, London
In 1914 Fred Pretty signed up to the 1st Battalion of the Rifle Brigade (light infantry) before the war started. He signed up to the army because he couldn’t get work; he was only 16. You had to be 17½ to join up, so he told them he was old enough and in those days they didn’t ask for proof.
Born to a poor family in Vauxhall, London, he had 4 brothers and 6 sisters. He was the third eldest. His mother had 13 children but 3 died young. His father was a scaffolder. His father and two elder brothers also went to war - and came home alive, but one brother suffered from terrible shell shock and died a year after he returned.
Fred’s battalion was one of the first regiments to go to France when war was declared and he fought in France right through until six months before the end of the war. He fought in all the major battles in France including the Somme and Ypres. He got bayonetted in the wrist in a bayonet charge; he killed the German who charged him. He also got a couple of shrapnel wounds in his leg. He was gassed during a German raid and spent time in hospital. He only returned home on leave once during the whole war but instead of resting he was put to work by the army loading and unloading.
Six months before the end of the war he went out with a raiding party to capture German soldiers (to interrogate them). They were expecting only a few enemy soldiers in the trenches but instead they found the trenches full of Germans getting ready for ‘the Last Push’. Many of the British soldiers were killed as they couldn’t surrender quickly enough. He was captured as a prisoner of war. He should have been sent to a prisoner of war camp however the Germans were losing the war at this point and were short of manpower so, despite this being illegal, they used their prisoners in the field to help move ammunition and guns. They had to sleep in the muddy fields and were given just a slice of bread and jam to eat. But this was just the same food that the German soldiers had to eat as supplies were so low. Everyone got the same meagre food, sometimes when one of the British prisoners had been pronounced a hopeless case by a doctor Fred would steal their food to give to another prisoner to help them survive. He could have been shot for doing this if he had been caught.
On one occasion whilst working for the Germans as a prisoner he saw another group of British prisoners so he worked his way along to them inconspicuously. He sat talking to one of the men and then realised he recognised him, they had been at school together as young boys. In a quirk of fate, this man later married Fred’s sister and they became brothers-in law.
Fewer than half of Fred’s comrades survived, succumbing to German gunfire, British shelling and pneumonia. Living in such atrocious conditions Fred caught pneumonia. He was treated by the German doctors on the battle field and they cured him. He said he had great admiration of these doctors as they treated the prisoners as well as their own soldiers.
He was then sent to a P.O.W. camp in Pozen, which is now in Poland, although then it was still Germany. This was a new camp filled with prisoners from the battle fields; injured, ill, dying, all British. Fred was one of the lucky ones who recovered and once well he assisted the doctors in treating the patients by changing dressings. They were still there three months after the war had ended. They had heard rumours of the war ending before so they couldn’t trust them. The camp was very isolated – no one knew they were there.
Eventually Fred, with an officer in charge and another prisoner was sent to Berlin to be told that there was no record of this P.O.W. camp which was why they hadn’t been liberated! They didn’t send their own German soldiers as they were so undermanned. Doctors and Red Cross nurses were sent to rescue the prisoners, it would have taken days to reach them, probably using horse and cart. The men were malnourished and very thin and were given lemon barley water to build them up – Fred recalls how it simply bloated the skin up; you could push a finger into the flesh and the dent would just stay there!
Back home his parents had been told that he was Missing In Action and they thought he was dead. The first they knew of his survival was when he arrived home and knocked on the door. One of his sisters answered and cried out, “It’s Fred! It’s Fred!†and his mother came running with a baby in her arms (which would have been his youngest sister). He was only 20 when he returned. Everyone was crying and shouting; one of the children was sent to the pub to get his father and tell him this great news that his son had returned from the war alive. His son (Isabella’s Grandfather), also called Frederick Pretty, now aged 84 told us about his father, of whom he is very proud. He said his father, although he was only a small man, was tough but fair and was always ready to help others.
Back from the war he was unemployed, again. Eventually he got a job as a driver, as he was one of the few people who knew how to drive. He worked for Fiat driving and delivering Fiat truck chassis. Later he worked for Meux’s Brewery as a driver where he stayed until WWII. He never spoke about his war experiences; saying that those who did never experienced what it was really like. He said he would rather forget.
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