To say war is terrible is of course a cliche but only so because it is a universal truth. Equally so is the phrase that someone’ had a very interesting war.’ That certainly applies to my father, Leonard Baker. Volunteering whilst in Canada at the end of 1914 where he was working as a chauffeur, having been trained by Daimlers, he joined the Army Service Crops, later the RASC, and at a time when qualified drivers and mechanics were like gold dust and greatly valued, he drove practically everything from armoured cars to a staff car containing T.E. Lawrence. One of three boys, his mother, protectively, reminded him that as a volunteer he was entitled to spend the first year of his service in the UK. This he did, and reading through the pages of his diary which he kept, off and on, throughout the war, he seems to have operated almost as a one man band, driving often on his own either in a staff car or sometimes a lorry, all over the Home Counties, putting up at country pubs and small town inns, teaching officers to drive, chauffering in particular Si Hugo de Bathe. This noble lord’s father had officiated both at Queen Victoria’s coronation and her funeral. His son, succeeding to the title in 1905 was chiefly famous on account of being the second husband of Lily Langtry, the ‘Divine Lilly,’ Edward Vll’s favourite mistress, whom he married in 1899. Dad makes no mention of Lily is in his dairy but when I referred to this in an e-mail to my sister, Susan, in Australia, she replied, ‘Perhaps he didn’t but Dad told me that more than once he drove young offers to assignments with Lilly, and then he said, "Oh perhaps I shouldn’t have told you that”’. Even fifty years on Dad was still the proper Englishman which is what comes across in his diary for even after what must have been frightening and traumatic experiences on or near the front line, his diary entries are often laconic and betray little emotion .
On 30 December 1917, for instance, he records, ’Lorry ran off Ramleh Road, being a very dark night and edge of road giving way lorry rolled over to the bottom of embankment, nearly 30ft. I landed at bottom still in the lorry but was only a bit shaken, a very lucky escape.’ Perhaps he was more shaken than he cared to admit for there are no more entries until July of the following year. But this is not the only gap in his diary so maybe it is not significant.
After the best part of a year in England Dad finally sailed in January, 1916, on a cattle boat out of Avonmouth. Their destination had been France but just before departure this was changed to Gallipoli. ‘ Hope you don’t get torpedoed,’ was the parting shot of the docker who cast them off. There were 40 soldiers on board, sailors manning the solitary gun. Dad attempted to sleep in a hammock, found it impossible and for the rest of the voyage occupied a pig sty, the pig being absent. To avoid submarines they hugged the Welsh and Scots coasts before heading at a steady 8 knots across the Bay of Biscay and, through the Straits of Gibraltar. Here they were intercepted by an British destroyer and told that once again their destination had been changed, this time it was to be Alexandria.
Here Dad helped unload ships, thankful that he had avoided the slaughter of the Dardanelles, Alexandria being the base from which the Allied troops had crossed the Mediterannean to the Gallipoli beachhead, 43,000 to meet their deaths. The last troops were withdrawn just as Dad was sailing out of Avonmouth. Dad and his fellow drivers were asked if they could ride a horse, but the canny ones, which included Dad, knew if they admitted they could they would be drafted permanently to a horse and wagon section, for there were few motor vehicles and the official view of the Army was that horses, mules and camels would be of more use and more reliable.
Dad’s diary is almost a blank for 1916, there being but two entries, the first, which reads like something from a tourist anywhere at any time, ‘Sent letter and photos home, 20 August 1916, whilst the second rather enigmatically records ‘admitted to Mustapha Reception Hospital, 11 Dec, 1916. Discharged from convalescent depot 6 January, 1917.’ We don’t know why and although Dad certainly talked to me about his war experiences I don’t recall him ever mentioning being wounded or suffering any illness during his service.
1917 sees Dad recording a great deal of action. On 29 January his ’25.30 six cylinder Studebaker ambulance ‘ is loaded on to a train heading some hundred miles west of Alexandria towards the then ill defined and disputed Libyan border. Next morning he’s bound for Mersa Matruh where fighting had been going on since November, 1916. ‘Hard journey through sand storm, reached Mutruh 90 miles.’ The enemy is the Senussi, allies of the Turks and Germans, who were attempting to march on Alexandria. Dad is ordered to carry a loaded rifle, the red cross of an ambulance being, so rumour had it, a favourite Senussi target. On 3 January Dad records, ‘Sheggar Pass, terrible road, pits dug and Pass blown up. Enemy pushed back and some dispersed, about ten casualties on our side. Enemy in possession of two Krupp guns and two machine guns.’ Next day an attempt to reach Siwa is given up after eight miles, but on 5 February, ‘Went in new way and captured the Senussi stronghold, Siwa being a most primitive but interesting place. Reverting to tourist speak Dad notices that ‘The town is more like a hill of cave dwellers, the people being very primitive and dirty and live mostly on camel flesh and dates.They have a very strange way of fastening their doors.’ But he doesn’t tell us what it is! ‘Only about 6 white people have entered Siwa before the expedition. Got some interesting curios at Siwa.’
With the defeat of the Senussi the British army heads back eastwards, the value of the motor lorry is becoming more and more obvious although inevitably the unsurfaced desert tracks do it no favours. On 8 February, ‘Left the car on road for night owing to radiator leaking (so is he no longer driving his ambulance?). Dad now reverts to the interested tourist. On 13 February he ‘saw a lovely sunset on the sea, the sun sinking exactly behind a mosque,’ on the 18 he ‘went to a church in the morning, church a funny little wooden shack lit by candles,’ whilst in the evening ‘went in a small sailing boat accompanied by R and A.’ A couple of days later, complete with camera he ‘visited Bedouin encampment Dabba, which was ‘very interesting and well worth seeing, market a strange sight.’
It is at this time that my maternal grandfather, Hugh Knights, having volunteered at the age 45 to join the cavalry, gets himself killed in another theatre of the Middle East war, on the advance to Baghdad, leaving 8 orphan children, their mother having died in 1911. Such an seemingly utterly irresponsible action in abandoning his family – my mother and two of her brothers spent some time in Stafford workhouse – is to say the least hard to explain, but that’s another story.
By 3 March Dad has reached Kantara and sees ‘Suez Canal for first time.’ Kantara was a most important base, essential for the defence of Suez. Back in February 1916 a cemetery had been established there ‘for burials from the various hospitals,’ and today it is a Commonwealth War Memorial Cemetery where the bodies of 1,562 Commonwealth Great War soldiers lie. From now on, although Dad never totally abandons the role of tourist, he sees a great deal of action. Kantara was the terminus of a railway leading to Gaza and Dad with the ASC vehicles on board steams eastwards to ‘Belah, within eight miles of Gaza.’ On 30 April he writes ‘Supposed to have left Belah through being too exposed to shell fire and air attack. Moved back to Rafa, a sand plain.’ On 8 and 9 May, ‘had two air raids over camp, 8.45am and 2.0pm, about 100 bombs dropped; enemy used machine guns. Each raid lasted about half an hour. Practically no damage done, a few casualties including three in the Company Five Taubes (German aircraft) in the first raid and seven in the second, a very unpleasant experience. This is probably the occasion Dad recounted to me when, being taken by surprise, he scrambled through prickly scrub and managed to get down into a ditch beside the railway track. Some seconds later his mate, Titch, arrived, cursing and out of breath. Dad asked him what had kept him. ‘You’d lag behind if you hadn’t got any bloody boots on,’ was the reply.
Dad goes back by train to Kantara, ‘as a guard,’ and then ‘has a bathe at El Arish and missed the train.’ One might have thought this a pretty serious matter but Dad merely notes that later he ‘came up on a train loaded with rails for new line.’ On 1 June ‘Taubes came over at usual time (breakfast time) and dropped about 10 bombs – casualties.’ From April to August fierce battles were fought to resist a combined German and Turkish advance across Sinai in an assault towards the Suez Canal, in which some 220 British, Australians and New Zealanders were killed, with another 71 dying from wounds and over 900 wounded. However it is estimated that some 18,000 of the enemy were either killed or wounded, another 4,000 taken prisoner and from then on the Germans and Turks were driven steadily back, eastwards. Being wounded and put into an ambulance was no guarantee of survival. Dad used to convey the wounded to the railhead but for some extraordinary reason captured prisoners were given priority. Both were put into open trucks under the burning sun and conveyed, slowly, to Kantara. The lucky ones who survived this treatment would either be attended to there and eventually returned to active service or given a ‘Blighty’ which meant a hospital ship home to the United Kingdom. By that date General Allenby had been sent out from France to take command of the British, Australian and New Zealand forces. By moving most of his headquarters staff from Cairo to the front line he instantly gained the trust of his soldiers. To quote Dad,’ he was a general who made a point of seeing and being seen by his troops and as a consequence we had great respect and affection for him’
Whilst horses and camels would be vital to the war effort in the Middle East – I have a picture of Dad and two comrades sitting on camels in front of the Pyramids at Giza although I suspect this was a tourist jaunt rather than a serious military expedition – it was becoming obvious that the motor vehicle, the aeroplane and the train were playing a much greater part. The speed with which the Army Service Corps was able to back up advances across Sinai persuaded Allenby of the superiority of the motor vehicle as long as drivers were resourceful and could cope with minor breakdowns. Dad was of the opinion that much of the success of the advance to Beersheba was due to one of the junior officers, Lt H L Yonge, but it was the officer commanding who got the Military Cross. Dad said Yionge was a ‘quiet, friendly chap, popular with the soldiers.’ In civilian life he lived with his sister on an Essex smallholding. He never married, Dad and he kept in touch after the war and would meet at reunions. I was introduced to him at the final reunion at the Bull and Mouth Tavern in High Holborn in May, 1955, the only one I ever attended; which I did somewhat reluctantly, not,as a somewhat detached 18 year old, having any great interest in meeting characters of which I had often heard but seemed to me to belong to the dim and distant past. Now, of course, I am so pleased I did, not just for Dad’s sake but looking back it was my one opportunity to meet what I now perceive as legendary figures.
Although Dad remained a private throughout the War, this, I suspect was a deliberate choice for he was asked to apply for a commission but refused. Mum said he was 'Mentioned in Despatches' but I never asked and it was not the sort of information Dad would have volunteered. I can only conclude that he was someone who totally lacked ambition, as far as employment was concerned. He kept in touch with several officers after the war, as well as privates and other ranks, becoming a chauffeur for various members of the landed gentry, driving all over Europe and the USA, throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s. He met Mum, orphaned in the War, when she was a housemaid aged 20 and eventually got round to marrying her ten years later. Dad’s particular friend was Herb – short for Herbert – Ashdown. Although it never struck me at the time I came to realise that he had the most appropriate name of anyone I have ever known for he lived at Nutley in the Ashdown Forest and worked as a gardener. He was a tall man with a big nose and spoke with a deep Sussex burr and would come up once a year on the Southdown coach and he and dad would go off to their company reunion.
On 27 October 1917, General Allenby decided that he had sufficient resources to start the push across the Sinai, deep into the Ottoman Empire, the final objectives being Jerusalem and Damascus. The ASC lorries carried ammunition, general supplies and water, this latter being Dad’s load, put into 400 gallon tanks which looked like ‘giant suitcases.’ This was perhaps the most vital of these vital supplies for both men and horses for on 31 October 1917 the 4th and 12th Australian Light Horse Regiments took part in what is generally regarded as the very last successful, full scale cavalry charge in any war and ensured the capture of Beersheba. The day before Dad recorded, ‘No.1 section moved up at midnight about six miles up Beersheba Road. On 2 November he notes, ‘Entered Beersheba the day after its capture with 16 lorries of 347 company, the first motor company to enter Beersheba.’ One might have thought that he would make some reference to the dramatic events of the previous 36 hours but all he says is ‘ ‘Rather a disappointing place, but possessing a few good buildings.’ He does add, ‘ an officer and a native blown up and killed by picking up articles attached to mines and bombs. Turks left a number of wounded in the hospital.’ Next day he witnesses,’ big bombardment of the Turkish line 3,000 yards off. Unloaded ammunition and got away in mist at dawn. The ammunition dump was heavily bombarded just after we left. Lucky for us we got away in time. Had a dreadful journey in pouring rain, continually getting stuck in the soft roads and having to dig out. Finished up with a broken chain at nearly midnight.’
Christmas Day was dreadful ‘The worst I hope I shall ever have. Number of large buildings damaged by shell fire or bombs. Pouring rain, and cold until 8.30pm. Rations scarce and no parcels arrived. Wrote to Mum and Dad. Hope they had a jolly Christmas.’ Dad was based for some months in 1918 in Jerusalem which Allenby had entered on 11 December, on foot, so as not to offend the susceptibilities of the various religions to whom Jerusalem was the holiest of cities. He made friends with several of the locals, Arabs and Jews, just as two of his grandsons would some 70 years later when working as volunteers in kibbutzes, and took at least one roll of film which he sent back as usual to Alexandria to be developed. On 22 July, he notes that he had ‘7 days leave in Cairo …Mother and Dad also on their holidays at Eastbourne. Rather a strange coincidence. Put up at GHQ Savoy Hotel, also visited zoo and museum and saw numerous mummies.’Still a private, by choice, after nearly four years but here he is, on leave putting up at the best hotel in Cairo The Savoy dated from the 1860s, amongst its most famous guests being T.E. Lawrence who was there in December 1914, and Lord Carnarvon who funded the expedition which discovered Tutankahmum’s tomb in 1924.
The war in the Middle East had entered its final phase with the advance on Damascus. The advance from Jerusalem to Jericho was through chasms. The distance is a mere twenty miles but it begins a 3,000 feet above sea level and drops to some 1,200 feet below it in the Jordan Valley. Whatever progress was being made in the Middle East the war in France was far from won, drivers were still at a premium and the War Office in London suggested that ‘lorry driving in Palestine could be done by men of a lower medical category.’ Dad’s friend, Lt Yonge reported on this experiment. ‘To disprove this contention I collected certain disbelievers and too them on a lorry convoy from Jerusalem to Jericho. The day was perfect – for my purpose at any rate. Boiling hot and just enough wind in those ghastly valleys to stir up all the dust, which I suppose lay on the roads for an average of not less than six inches. They came back eyes, noses, ears thick in dust and schemes for substituting B class men for A class were never seriously raised again.’
Damascus was captured on 1 October 1918 and Turkey surrendered on 30 of that month. In T.E. Lawrence’s account of the war, The Seven Pillars of Wisdom, he claims that, having arrived in the Syrian capital some days earlier, all the utilities were fully restored but Dad told me this was not true. Driving in the advance guard into the night late at night he found himself running over dead bodies which he could not make out lying in the unlit streets. A day or two later Dad saw General Allenby sitting with a white man dressed as an Arab in the back of Allenby’s Rolls-Royce and realised who it was. T.E. Lawrence was not then anything like as famous as he would become or indeed was already with sections of the British public through newspapers, desperate for a glamorous war hero, and it was through newspaper sent out from home that the British troops in the Middle East got to hear of him. Dad met him later, twice driving him to meetings in a staff car, but as he said, ‘he never spoke to me' ...