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Herbert Joseph Wildgoose
1897 – 1973
In 1914 at the age of
seventeen Herbert was working at the
United States Finishing Company in Pawtucket, Rhode Island where his older
brother, Jack, also worked. After
a fight with the superintendant, Jack was fired from his job and a few days
later Herbert was also dismissed. Too afraid to tell his mother, on 23
December 1914 Herbert took his packed lunch but, instead of going to work,
went with a friend to New York. His friend got cold feet and returned home
but Herbert worked his passage on a boat to England where he travelled to
Ashton-under-Lyne, which had been the family’s home in England before
emigrating to America. England was at war and so, his cousins having all
joined up, Herbert enlisted in the British Army.
In 1916 the following appeared in the Central
Falls edition of the Pawtucket Times:
An interesting
account of the fighting in the Dardanelles is contained in a letter received
last week in this city from Private Herbert Wildgoose, 19 years old, formerly
of 67 Parker Street, Central Falls, but now at the War Hospital, Colaba,
Bombay, India. Private Wildgoose is a
member of the Sixth Battalion, King’s Division, and fought the Turks at the
Dardanelles, where he was injured by the flying fragments of a bursting
shell. As young Wildgoose flippantly expresses it “a shell thought it was
some relation of mine, and finding itself in error, raised a terrible
kick-up, killing four and wounding three.”
His letter escaped the censors, as it was mailed by a sailor friend of
his in Bombay. The parents of Private Wildgoose, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas
Wildgoose, live at 59 Butler Avenue, this city. The young man left this city last year and previous to that
time was employed by the United States Finishing Company, Pawtucket.
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No Tents to
Sleep in
His account of the
experience of men doing active service is most interesting. The following is some of his narration:
“It was the first
of April and the rain was pouring down in torrents. There was about eight inches of mud and we
had no tents to sleep in and the weather was bitter cold. Our trousers were cut at the knees and
we had no overcoats. The only
protection we had was an oil sheet that was dripping wet, and we had slept
out in the open all the night before, so you understand what a plight we
were in. We woke up at about 5.30
o’clock and for breakfast had one biscuit and a drink of cold water. After breakfast we had to go and dig
trenches til 12 o’clock, then we had the same as at breakfast, and it was
followed by more digging until 5 o’clock, when we stopped for cold tea that
was fit for washing in, but we had to drink it and be thankful for it. It was still raining and kept it up
until April 4. During the four days
we were digging trenches, but on the night of April 4 we went into the
trenches up the line to do a bayonet charge in the morning. Well, we waited for the morning, for
there was no sleep for us that night.
Begin Attack on Turks
It was 4.55 o’clock in the morning when we crept over the
parapet, but the Turks got the wire someway or another and they started to
let us have it. The bullets were
coming thicker than the rain. While
we waited for the signal my two chums on either side of me were
killed. One of them did not die
suddenly, but had time to ask me to write to his mother. This I did, but it was a week later
before I got a chance.
When we
got the signal we started off with a rush and the men were dropping all
around me. Every moment I expected to get a bullet, but didn't, although I
was in the front line and one of the first to get into the trench of the
Turks. Most of the Turks had fled, but I got four and gave them no quarter,
though they wanted to surrender, but I "seen 'em off" as the
saying is. We followed the Turks
into two more trenches and after that a new brigade relieved us and carried
on the attack, but were repulsed and we who were in reserve had to go to
the front again to continue on the assault. When we left the trenches for a
roll-call after fighting from 4:55 in the morning of April 5 till 8 o'clock
in the morning of the next day we had 500 out of 820 men. (That was just my
company alone).
Dead
Men for Bed Mates
Two days more of trench digging then fell to our
lot and this programme was varied with a night attack. It was to be a night attack, but lasted
three days, for we advanced so far that we were cut off from the main body. However, they managed to surround the
Turks some way or another and annihilated them, killing over 3000, wounding
1700 and taking about 5000 prisoners.
As for
my company we were in a sorry plight with just 112 left out of 500 with no
officers and but one sergeant. They didn't send us away after the cutting
up we had but kept us doing the same thing over and over again. It was
sickening! Some nights you'd have a dead man for a bed mate, that is, you'd
sleep beside a man who had been dead for a week."
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Herbert went on to fight in Afghanistan and Mesopotamia eventually
arriving back in England in 1919 where he was discharged from the army in
April and returned to America. He was cited for bravery in action during the
Mesopotamia Campaign and awarded the Military Medal. His other medals were
the Mons Star (1914-15), the Victory Medal, the Great War Medal and the
Dardanelles Star.
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