HMS Hampshire and more- February 2015

Kitchener and HMS Hampshire- centenary of the HMS Hampshire sinking

Picture of the Kitchener Memorial, Marwick Head, courtesy of the Kitchener Memorial Facebook page

The Orkney Heritage Society have posted the following

In June 1916 HMS Hampshire hit a mine and sank in a gale near Orkney. Earl Kitchener and more that 730 other men died: 12 survived. Orkney Heritage Society is restoring Orkney's Kitchener Memorial and creating a commemorative wall inscribed with the names of the other men who died. Cost £200,000.


As mentioned on the Great War at Sea Poetry Website, the death of Lord Kitchener on 5th June 1916 was the event of contemporary Great War at Sea Poetry. A whole published anthology was dedicated to him and appeared at the end of 1916.
'A selection of the best poems in memory of the late Field Marshall Lord Kitchener K.G' edited by Chas Forshaw, the founder of the British Institute of Poetry. None of the poems are titled.

Taking the first verses from this anthology written by Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland, whose contribution appears on pages 225-227.

"As some watch shooting stars, serrated clouds
Sun's half-half eclipse, so on the sky of State
They watched his name, blazoned in liquid fire,
And humbly gazed, and gazing knew it great.

No words demanded; by a subtle spell
Of dogged silence clinging to his past.
The East gave tribute, and the startled South
Linked to the West-they gave him all their heart.

Mysterious Helmsman on uncertain tides,
Few knew his course , few wish to ask him more
They scanned his steadfast face, then fell asleep
He was their pilot through the tempest's roar.

And all the while the ancient call he heard
'Come overseas'-the cry of Vera- Tyr
You of immortal breed, through fire and blood
Through snow and ice, we guard your golden spear ...."

Such poetry disturbs anyone who belongs to the more 'Disenchantment' view where Britain's participation in the Great War is considered as a meaningless tragedy . War here is portrayed in heroic, in fact Pagan terms. Reminds one of Julian Grenfell's 'Into Battle' where war seems to be part of a vision of greater nature. Millicent 's reference to Tyr -the one armed Norse god of war is interesting. Kitchener is eulogised as belonging to some pantheon of mythical figures.

The fact that Kitchener's body was never found added to the mysteries and conspiracy theories.

It is easy to see how the other casualties of HMS Hampshire, were overlooked when the 1926 original Kitchener memorial was unveiled, so it is welcome to hear that there will be a memorial wall listing all of the HMS Hampshire men's names constructed there. Donations can be made via the 'Just Giving ' link below.

Orkney Heritage Society Just Giving

Kitchener/HMS Hampshire memorial blog

Great War at Sea Poetry Kitchener page

In Brief 

Following recent post about Wilfrid Gibson, pleased to announce that the Friends of the Dymick Poets, whose remit includes Gibson, are now linked to the Great War at Sea Poetry website.
Friends of the Dymock Poets

Also pleased to notice that the Forgotten Wrecks of First World War project have their own page on
'Great War Maritime Poetry'. The 'Forgotten Wrecks' project is an excellent initiative and their page on war at sea poetry is welcome.

Forgotten Wrecks of the First World War

Great War Maritime Poetry

 It has also been a pleasure to make on-line contact with 'World War 1 East Sussex'-a fantastic website indeed.
World War 1 East Sussex

Main website should be updated soon with a page about 'Gallipoli & Great War at Sea Poetry' in time for the centenary.
Great War at Sea Poetry

Finally, glad that the Isaac Rosenberg tribute night is now list for Sunday 26th April 2015 7.30pm at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue, St. Johns Wood,  London.
Isaac Rosenberg event

The story of Isaac Rosenberg, the East End Jewish boy who became a great poet and painter and died in the trenches of the Great War, told through words and music.

Presentations of Rosenberg's poems and letters, read by Michael Rosen, Elaine Feinsteinand Lee Montague

Music by John Ireland, RV Williams, Ivor Gurney - performed by Phillip Bell (tenor), accompanied by Simon Haynes (piano)

Yiddish songs - Vivi Lachs

Premiere of song settings of Rosenberg's poems by Simon Biazeck

Biographical presentation - Jean Moorcroft Wilson

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson

 Wilfrid Wilson Gibson -'Troopship Mid-Atlantic'

     

(S.S. Baltic : Mid-Atlantic : July 1917) 

Dark waters into crystalline brilliance break

About the keel, as through the moonless night

The dark ship moves in its own moving lake

Of phosphorescent cold moon-coloured light;

And to the clear horizon, all around

Drift pools of fiery beryl flashing bright

As though, still flashing, quenchless, cold and white,

A million moons in the dark green waters drowned.

And staring at the magic with eyes adream,

That never till now have looked upon the sea,

Boys from the Middle-West lounge listlessly

In the unlanterned darkness, boys who go

Beckoned by some unchallengeable gleam

To unknown lands to fight an unknown foe

My pal Sea Jane from the Great War Forum kindly directed me to this poem here. Wilfrid Wilson Gibson was born in Hexham in 1878, and had several poetry collections published in his life, dying in 1962.  This poem is from an anthology  A miscellany of poetry - 1919 edited by W. Kean Seymour with decorations by Doris Palmer (London: Cecil Palmer and Hayward, 1919).

Wilfrid Wilson Gibson is an intriguing figure. Connected to the Georgian poets, being friends with Rupert Brooke and renowned literary patron Eddie Marsh, he managed to have work included in all the Georgian Poetry anthologies from 1913-1922, and was a prolific writer of poetry.

Gibson's war poetry is so effective that it has been assumed that he fought on the Western Front. Perhaps his poem  'Breakfast' is the most known about a soldiers' life on the Front. 

"We ate our breakfast lying on our backs, 

Because the shells were screeching overhead. 

I bet a rasher to a loaf of bread

 That Hull United would beat Halifax... "

 In fact Gibson was rejected for war service due to poor eyesight until 1917 ,then able to join the Army Service Corps Motor Transport . He never saw active service overseas . Largely forgotten from the mid-1930's onwards, attempts have been made to revalue his work. Martin Stephens in his 1996 work 'The Price of Pity ' paid his tribute to his use of the colloquial language of the ordinary soldier. Professor Tim Kendall included a section on Gibson in his 2013 anthology 'Poetry of the First World War ' , stressing that "Gibson's Battle (1915) was among the first volumes of poetry to convey the actualities of War as experienced by common soldiers'.  Tim Kendall maintains that Gurney, Sassoon, Owen, Graves and Rosenberg all praised his work. 

Returning to poem 'Troopship' , it certainly was a poem in two halves. The first verse depicts the troop ship as a lake of light crossing a dark ocean. The second verse focusing on the mid-West boys who were being sent of to war in another continent :Why  was Gibson using  the  SS Baltic and the passage of US troops to the Western Front as a theme? Drawing on Tim Kendall above, seems that Gibson embarked on a lecture tour of the USA in the first half of 1917, so would have been there when the USA declared war on Germany .  The first half of 1917 saw a huge number of Allied ships being destroyed by U boats so an Atlantic crossing had its dangers. 

Perhaps  Gibson's work helped stimulate war poetry by encouraging those fighting to write about how they perceived their experience of conflict. Alternately the fact that Gibson didn't directly see the fighting may make his war poems of only secondary value.  

UPDATE   

Picture Credit : RMS Baltic ,  by Robert Welch, 'Harland & Wolff' Collection, in the Public Domain, courtesy of Wikipedia

Currently Revising World War 2 Poetry Blog

Vera Brittain- Testament of Youth -the movie

                                         "HMHS Britannic" by Allan Green, 1878 - 1954 Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons - 

Was lucky enough to be able to see the preview of 'Testament of Youth' as part of the BFI film festival in London on 16th October 2014. Should be on general release on 2nd January 2015. One section of the book-published in 1933-  that was left out of the film was Vera's account of VAD nursing in Malta.

Aged 22, Vera sailed on HM hospital ship  Britannic on 24th September 1916, arriving on 7th October 1916, and left Malta on 22nd May 1917. Still grieving for the loss of her fiance Roland Leighton, who served on the Western Front and  died of wounds on 23rd December 1914, Vera wrote in 1933

" The memory of my sunlit months in the Mediterranean during the War's worst period of miserable stagnation still causes a strange nostalgia to descend on my spirit. "

Chapter VII of 'Testament of Youth' titled 'Tawny Island' opens with this poem.

WE SHALL COME NO MORE

So then we came to the Island,
Lissom and young, with the radiant sun in our face;
Anchored in long quiet lines the ships were waiting,
Giants asleep in the peace of the dark-blue harbour.
Ashore we leapt, to seek the magic adventure
Up the valley at noontide,
Where shimmering lay the fields of asphodel.

O Captain of our voyage,
What of the Dead?
Dead days, dead hopes, dead loves,dead dreams, dead sorrows-
O Captain of our Voyage,
Do the Dead walk again ?..............


The journey was fraught with danger. HM hospital ship Britannic was at risk of attack from mines and torpedoes.Vera claimed that Britannic managed to lose its cruiser escort ships in The Agean. At Mudros the VAD nurses were transferred to a disease ridden liner Galeka. Britannic was eventually sunk on 21st November 1916, most likely striking an underwater mine. Britannic was also sister ship to the ill fated Titanic.

Asphodel meadow is where the spirits of dead dwell in 'The Odyssey' .  I've never seen 'We Shall Come No More' published in any anthology but it's a personal favourite of mine, from the Great War at Sea poetry genre. Particularly enjoy the contrast between the enchanting first verse...the exuberance reminds me of Francis Ledwidge's short poem 'Going to the War ' , his journey en route to Gallipoli.

 'In the Mediterranean- Going to the War'

Lovely wings of gold and green
Flit about the sounds I hear,
On my window when I lean
To the shadows cool and clear.

Roaming, I am listening still,
Bending, listening overlong,
In my soul a steadier will,
In my heart a newer song.

But this excitement  is followed by the refrain which suddenly evokes Vera's grief at the loss of her fiance from wounds .
Dead days, dead hopes, dead loves,dead dreams, dead sorrows
Her question Do the Dead walk again? 
Suggests that Vera felt that she too  was with the Dead, and not sure if she could come back to life again .


UPDATE  New blog by Michael Bully, February 2023 Bleak Chesney Wold related to Charles Dickens/ 'dark' Victorian. 

Royal Naval Dockyard Chatham -Live Bait Squadron commemoration 22nd September 2014

                                         HMS Cressy, one of three cruisers sunk by the U9 on 22nd September 1914

"As part of The Historic Dockyard Chatham’s First World War Centenary commemorations, an event of national significance will remember the three Royal Navy Cruisers - HMS Aboukir, HMS Hogue and HMS Cressy - which were sunk by enemy submarine action on 22nd September 1914 off the Dutch coast in the North Sea with a total loss of life of 1,459 men. "

From the Historic Dockyard Chatham website

http://www.thedockyard.co.uk/NetsiteCMS/pageid/1359/First%20World%20War%20Centenary%20Event:%20Loss%20of%20Three%20Royal%20Navy%20Cruisers.html

YEARS AHEAD

YEARS ahead, years ahead,
Who shall honour our sailor-dead ?
For the wild North Sea, the bleak North Sea,
Threshes and seethes so endlessly.
Gathering foam and changing crest
Heave and hurry, and know no rest :
How can they mark our sailor-dead
In the years ahead ?
Time goes by, time goes by,

And who shall tell where our soldiers lie ?
The guiding trench-cut winds afar,
Miles upon miles where the dead men are;
A cross of wood, or a carven block,
A name-disc hung on a rifle-stock
These shall tell where our soldiers lie
As the time goes by.

Days to come, days to come
But who shall ask of the wandering foam,
The weaving weed, or the rocking swell,
The place of our sailor-dead to tell ?
From Jutland reefs to Scapa Flow
Tracks of the wary warships go,
But the deep sea-wastes lie green and dumb
All the days to come.


Years ahead, years ahead,
The sea shall honour our sailor-dead !
No mound of mouldering earth shall show
The fighting place of the men below,
But a swirl of seas that gather and spill;
And the wind's wild chanty whistling shrill
Shall cry " Consider my sailor-dead! "
In the years ahead.

GUY N. POCOCK.

(From Page 100 of 'Modern Poetry' edited by Guy N. Pocock . (1920) )

New Blog launched by Michael Bully, February 2023  Bleak Chesney Wold  related to Charles Dickens/ 'dark' Victoriana 

Great War at Sea Poetry Project Website

          Use of above image of HMS Vanguard by kind permission from Orkney Library & Archive

 Great War at Sea Poetry Project now has a website at http://greatwaratseapoetry.weebly.com/

Pages have been added about HMS Vanguard, Editha Jenkinson, poetry written to commemorate Lord Kitchener's death on aboard HMS Hampshire on 5th June 1916, the Battle of Jutland, war poetry generally.
Future topics include poetry about troopships, Wilfred Owen's view of sailors, and more 'Great War at Sea Poetry'.

I am working on a longer project provisionally titled 'Hilton-Young's Cigar ' which will look at Ltn. Edward Hilton-Young's one poetry anthology 'A Muse at Sea' published in 1919. Hilton-Young (20th March 1879 -11th July 1960)    served aboard HMS Iron Duke and HMS Vindictive at the time of the 23rd April 1918 Zeebrugge Raid.

Here's an attempt to describe the Great War at Sea Poetry Project

The Great War at Sea Poetry aims to encourage research into the sea as a setting for war poetry of this era written by combatants and non-combatants alike. Looking at contemporary anthologies, war at sea poetry was published during the Great War  but became marginalised and neglected in later years.

Whether this was due to the sea becoming less of a source of inspiration for poetry, or how categories such as ‘war poets’ and ‘war poetry’ have been constructed, remains an open question. Wider connections between ‘Great War at Sea Poetry’ with  ballads and other verse forms have become apparent, particularly in the work of such poets as Cicely Fox Smith.

There  is no attempt to create a category of  ‘Sailor Poets’ or to claim that sea poetry reveals some hidden historical  truth about the nature of Naval conflict , and reading poetry is not a viewed as a  substitute for historical research into the ‘Great War at Sea’.

It is hoped to get an anthology of ‘Great War at Sea Poetry ‘ published to commemorate the centenary of Jutland in 2016.

HMS Vanguard

             HMS Vanguard 9th July 1917 

                                 Image of the Chatham Naval Memorial  used with the kind

                                            permission of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission

Remembering today 9th July 2014 those who died aboard the HMS Vanguard, who exploded whilst moored off the coast of Scapa Flow with the loss of over 800 lives -figures vary from 804 - 835 dead. Some men serving were absent from the ship on shore leave. A representative of the Japanese navy was also amongst the dead. The cause of the explosion may have been badly stored cordite or a bulkhead overheating and igniting explosive material.

The  Western Front Association  have published a fascinating article on HMS Vanguard and other accidental losses in home waters.

Always worth  remembering that the bodies of the Great War dead at land, sea and air were not always found-and how important local war memorials. plaques, national memorials such as the Naval Memorial at Chatham became. Again there seems some discrepancy in figures of the number of bodies found of those who served on HMS Vanguard, ranging from one to seventeen.

 Poetry, quite frequently published in newspapers and magazines, helped form a culture of mourning. 

From a poem by David Horne that first appeared in From the Chatham News, 24 July 1917, with kind permission  of Jonathan Saunders and originally published on line http://www.gwpda.org/naval/vanguard.htm

                                                         HMS Vanguard 

                                                                    " Stand still! Stand Still! Ye leaping waves 

And mourn along with me
For a gallant ship has crossed the bar
Of the great eternal sea:
A flash, a roar, a blood red flame,
Then a huge overwhelming cloud,
And a thousand soles (sic)  are wrapped within
The ocean's winding shroud.

Ten thousand doors do ever lead
To death upon the deep:
Sometimes they open silently
Sometimes our hearts do creep
When a blinding flash, and a deafening crash
Sends a good ship to her doom
And her gallant crew are hid from view
Within a watery tomb.........."

                              

Cicely Fox Smith -Commemoration

                                                                                                                                       
                         

Delighted to hear that the life and work of  Cicely -Fox Smith (1882-1954)  is going to be commemorated at Bow, Devon, on 21st June 2014.  More details from ;
Celebrating Cicely

 An extensive prose writer and poet, a huge body of her work concerns themes relating to the Sea, and war at sea.  Her poem 'Home Lads Home' , written around 1916, was set to music about twenty years ago and performed in British folk clubs. Her poem 'North Sea Ground' about Grimsby during the Great War was set to music by classical composer  E.J. Moeran .

A favourite of mine is  'Stormy Dusk',which appears in her anthology 'The Naval Crown-Ballads and Songs of the War' (1919). This anthology contains poems that originally appeared in 'Punch', 'The Spectator' , 'Daily Chronicle', 'Sphere' and 'Country Life', making one realise what a potentially large readership her work had.

The first few lines are quite ominous, but overall there's not the graphic depiction of war of say Rosenberg, Owen, Gurney, or the satire of Sassoon, or triumphalism of Jessie Pope, just a simple prayer for the safety for the men at sea and for victory. A reminder that war poetry could be quite under-stated at times.


Stormy Dusk

To-night the dark came stormy down,
The sun went red to rest;
And fleets of clouds like battleships
Filled all the burning West.
The wind was rising to a gale,
It howled in hedge and tree . . .
And it's cold, bitter cold,
Where our sailormen must be,
Oh, it's bitter cold this night
In the wild North Sea!

To-night I heard the church clock strike
Across the gusts of storm . . .
And I thought how go the hours at sea
While we are sheltered warm . . .
I prayed God guard our ships at sea
And keep them from all harm . . .
And guide them through the pitch-black tides
Where the drifting death may be,
And give them soon a safe return
And a fruitful victory . . .
And Christ our Lord who walked of old
On waves of Galilee,
Be near our men this night
In the wild North Sea!

-------------------------------------------------------

There is an online version of   The Naval Crown

Wish to thank various pals from the Great War Forum, particularly Sea Jane, for their help.