2786 PRIVATE JOHN THOMAS MILLS ETHERIDGE
1/4TH BATTALION SUFFOLK REGIMENT (T.F.)
KILLED IN ACTION
16TH MAY 1915
AGE 29 YEARS
John, known as Jack, was a Halesworth lad through and through. Born in the town during the third quarter of 1885, he was the fourth child of John, a white or tin smith, and his wife Mary (née Mills). Interestingly, it appears that John was the only one of his siblings to have had his mother’s maiden name included on his birth certificate.
Always considered to be of a quiet and retiring disposition, Jack, after attending the town’s boys’ school was fortunate in obtaining a carpenter’s apprenticeship with Albert Woodyard, a local builder, who ran his business from his home in London Road. In early 1892, his father died at the young age of forty-one years. This would have affected Jack as he would have then been expected to help support his mother. Luckily for him this situation did not last too long, as some two years later she remarried Alfred Crane. Mary and her children then moved into his house in Steeple End. On completing his apprenticeship, Jack remained in the employ of Albert, working on projects in and around the town, while in May 1907 he enlisted in the local Halesworth ‘F’ Company of the 1st Volunteer Battalion, Suffolk Regiment. These part-time soldiers had been first formed in the town in February 1860, with their role being purely that of home defence. On the 11th June 1907, the Halesworth Times newspaper reported that on the 15th of the month, as part of his recruitment training, Jack and several others were required to attend their first practical lesson in marksmanship on the Southwold rifle range. Within months of his enlistment, the Volunteers were being disbanded. Their replacement, the new Territorial Force, was formed on the 1st April 1908. Jack, being a fit and able young man, became one of those who were asked to transfer his service into the new reserve, which he willingly did.
In the build-up to the 1st World War in 1914, two events in Jack’s life occurred, the first being that he had left the employ of Arthur Woodard to take up a position in his trade with the Smiths Motor Body Works in Bridge Street. He had also terminated his service with the Territorials. It was shortly after the outbreak of the war that he applied to re-enlist in the 4th Suffolks to serve with his Halesworth friends, possibly after hearing that they were to be one of the first Territorial Battalions due to cross to France. Although he was accepted, having broken his service, he was not deemed ready to be sent overseas, so he, along with several others who had volunteered to re-join the Territorials, were held back for further training, while the 4th Suffolks sailed for France during the night of the 8th and 9th November 1914. On their arrival, it must have come as quite a shock to discover that they were initially destined to serve as a Supplementary Battalion in the Jullundur Brigade of the Indian Corps. These troops from the sub-continent had landed at Marseilles on the 26th September 1914. At that time, each of the Corps infantry brigades consisted of two Indian and one British battalion. The 4th Suffolks were fortunate to find that their Regular Army mentors in the brigade were to be the 1st Battalion Manchester Regiment, who were only too glad to take their part-time comrades under their wing, with both battalions forming a close bond during their early days in France. On the 11th December, the Manchesters were joined in their trenches by the first party of men from the 4th Suffolks who were to gain front-line experience. It was during this period that they suffered their first fatal casualty. Private Robert Larter who had been born in the local village of Blyford was shot through the head while looking over the edge of the trench parapet. Little did anybody realise that Robert would be the first of many hundreds of soldiers the 4th Suffolks would lose during the following four years, including several of the original Territorials.
During the early months of 1915 the Battalion’s knowledge and experience of trench warfare grew, so that in a short period they were responsible for their own sections of the firing line. But with all of this came more and more casualties. These losses had to be made good, so on the 28th February a party of replacements, including Jack, were sent out to join them. Shortly after their arrival on the 10th March, the 4th Suffolks were preparing to take part in their first full-scale attack. This would go down in the history of the Great War as the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, the first occasion when British troops had driven the Germans from well excavated positions in a trench-to-trench attack. It was during this battle, which Jack was to come through unscathed, that another young Halesworth lad, Private Percy Sones, won the Distinguished Conduct Medal at the age of eighteen years. The citation for his award shows that during the Battle he had carried messages through very heavy rifle and machine gun fire for a period of forty-eight hours without rest. When it is considered that the D.C.M. at the time was the second level award for non-commissioned soldiers below that of the Victoria Cross, this award must have furnished his widowed mother Laura, who lived in Swan Lane, with a great deal of pride and the admiration of all the people of Halesworth. (See below)
After the Neuve Chapelle battle, the 4th Suffolks continued to serve with their Indian comrades, both in and out of the line.
On the night of the 5/6th May 1915, the Battalion took over a section of trenches opposite the German line in the area of Bois du Biez. It was here, over the following ten days, that they were under a constant and accurate artillery barrage. On Sunday 16th May, the day of Jack’s death, the 4th Suffolks’ War Diary records that they had suffered a number of casualties from the shelling in both dead and wounded. The Halesworth Times newspaper of the 25th May 1915, in reporting Jack’s loss, stated that his mother, Mary, had first heard of his death in a letter from a close comrade, Private George Offord, who related that her son had been killed by a shell around 4 o’clock in the early morning. He pledged this had been a sudden death without him suffering any pain. Shortly after, Mary received a further letter from Lieutenant H F Ling, Jack’s Officer, who wrote in glowing terms of his qualities as a soldier and how he and the men of his Platoon had held her son in the highest regard. Sadly, due to the nature of his death there would have been possibly few remains to be laid to rest. Jack is now being remembered on the Le Touret Memorial to the missing, situated in Northern France.
On his enlistment Jack had listed his mother and two of his sisters, Kate and Emma, as joint next of kin. They were entitled to share any monies due after his death, for which they each received £2.6s.4d (£2.23p), with Mary receiving a further gratuity of £3.0s.0d (£3) in May 1915.
For Jack’s service and sacrifice in the Great War, his mother would have received his medal entitlement of the 1915 Star medal trio and his named bronze memorial plaque and scroll.
The location of these is unknown.
Private Percy Sones Distinguished Conduct Medal
One of several Halesworth Men to receive a
gallantry award during the Great War