5967 COMPANY SERGEANT MAJOR (ACT R.S.M.)
WILLIAM FINCH
MERITORIOUS SERVICE MEDAL
7TH (SERVICE) BATTALION, SUFFOLK REGIMENT
KILLED IN ACTION
27TH MARCH 1918
AGED 36 YEARS
William Finch is another of the war dead listed on the Halesworth Memorial who had not originated from the district, although Suffolk born. His birth had been recorded at Great Waldringfield in 1882, the third child of James, a farm labourer, and Mary (née King). After completing his education in 1896, William, as was common at that time, followed his father into working the land, possibly with the aim of bettering himself. In early 1902 he would have travelled to Bury St Edmunds to enlist in the Army, becoming 5967, a Private Soldier in the Suffolk Regiment. Sadly, due to the loss of so many of the Great War soldiers’ records during the London Blitz of World War Two, very little is known of William’s early service life, other than him serving as a Regular soldier. At that time, the Suffolk Regiment had two Regular Army Battalions, with one being on home service while the other was overseas, policing the Empire. In the Census of 1911, William can be found serving with the 2nd Battalion at Longmoor Camp in Hampshire with the rank of Corporal. It also shows him as being a married man, having wed Charlotte, (née Hopper) at Bury St Edmunds in the second quarter of 1909. While William was away from here she had remained living in Bury with their two young children, Frederick aged one and George who was three months old.
The 1914 edition of Gale’s Almanac for Halesworth and Southwold listed William as now having been promoted to Colour Sergeant and serving as the Drill Instructor with the Halesworth ‘F’ Company of the 4th Battalion Suffolk Regiment Territorial Force. On taking up his position, he had moved Charlotte and their now three children to live at No. 3 Holton Terrace, situated on the Holton Road. At the time of him joining ‘F’ Company they had fifty-eight members from the town, with the Saxmundham Half Company numbering forty-three giving a total of one hundred and one part time soldiers. Within a year of William joining the Company, he and the new Company Commander Captain, F J Rodwell, had increased the unit’s strength to four Commissioned Officers and one hundred and thirty-four Non-Commissioned Officers and Men from both of the towns.
On Saturday 1st August 1914 ‘F’ Company joined the other companies of the 4th Suffolks for their annual fourteen days of training, held that year at Great Yarmouth. As they left Halesworth by train, there was much excitement among the men, as over the previous weeks war against Germany had seemed inevitable, especially as the day previous Austria, with which Germany was closely aligned, had declared war on Serbia. The following day orders were received that, due to the European situation, the men of the battalion would be returned to their homes to await further instructions. These came on the Monday, when all serving members were told to report to the Rifle Hall to wait for mobilisation. On the 3rd August neutral Belgium was invaded by the Germans and Great Britain declared war in support of the Belgians. The orders for the entire Territorial Force to be mobilised came at midnight of the 4th-5th August. By early that afternoon the Halesworth men had boarded the train for Ipswich, joining the other companies of their Battalion.
At some point William and those 4th Suffolk men who had decided to continue under their original Territorial terms of service, which was purely that of home defence, parted from their comrades who had volunteered to serve overseas with the Regular Army.
With William being a professional soldier, it was no doubt decided that he would be more of an asset in training the thousands of new recruits who were queuing up to enlist, while continuing to serve with the home duty men as they prepared the defences on the North Norfolk coast against the possible threat of invasion. Little did anyone at that time know that all of the men serving would eventually be liable to be sent to the Front Line.
It was while serving at the seaside town of Cromer that another popular Halesworth Territorial, Corporal William Rose of 39 Chediston Street, passed away after suffering a heart attack. Due to him having died in England, his body was then returned to his wife to be laid to rest in the town’s cemetery. The Halesworth Times newspaper of the 20th July 1915 reported that due to his having died while on active service a full military burial service would be accorded to him, with William Finch, now with the rank of Company Sergeant Major, the senior man present.
Although William was now serving away from their home in Halesworth, Charlotte remained living in Holton Road with their fourth child, a son named James, born in January 1915. In October 1916 William must have still been serving in a training role, as the Halesworth Times of the 17th of the month reported a tragic accident that had occurred on the 13th, where his oldest son Frederick, with two friends and his youngest son George, had, after leaving school, gone down to the river Blyth to play. It was while Freddie was swinging on an old drawbridge, that he fell into the river and sadly drowned. At the inquest held on the following Friday, which William was able to attend, he heard how his old Halesworth Company Commander, Captain Rodwell, who at that time was home on leave, on hearing of a boy in the river had rushed to the scene and promptly jumped in and pulled the boy onto the bank where he began artificial resuscitation until the arrival of Doctor Nyssen who declared that the boy, aged seven, was deceased.
After the inquest and no doubt attending his son’s funeral, William would have returned to his unit, now known as the 64th Provisional Battalion. At some time, possibly in early 1917, he was himself sent out to France to join the 7th (Service) Battalion of the Suffolks. This battalion had been formed at Bury St Edmunds on the 20th August 1914 as part of the New Armies. Within days of its formation, the 7th Suffolks had been transported to Shorncliffe on the Kent coast where they underwent intensive training in the art of soldiering. In February 1915 they moved once again, this time to Aldershot, later known as the home of the British Army. While there, being countrymen, they showed their natural aptitude for marksmanship by winning the first place in their Brigade’s musketry competition. By the end of May they along with the remainder of the 12th (Eastern) Division, were considered ready to take their place in the front line, crossing to France on the 30th May 1915 where, after a period of training in trench warfare, they were involved in several of the major actions of the mid-war period. These included the Battle of the Somme where, on the first day, the 1st July 1916, British casualties in killed alone amounted to almost twenty thousand lives lost. Some twenty months later on the morning of the 20th March 1918, the 7th Suffolks had arrived in the area of Estaires, France, where they were looking forward to a sustained period of rest after several weeks of heavy fighting, in which they had once again suffered a high number of casualties, particularly in experienced senior ranks. This had then led William, a highly regarded Company Sergeant Major, to be awarded the acting rank of Warrant Officer Class 1, the Regimental Sergeant Major, the most senior soldier in the battalion. Within hours of the 7th Suffolks’ arrival at Estaires, the Germans mounted the beginning of their last great offensive of the war, with the intended aim of breaking through the Allied front lines and marching on to Paris and the Channel Ports. In response to this threat, the 7th Suffolks, with the remainder of the 12th Division, were immediately rushed south to the Albert sector, where they were directed to occupy a section of the front line. It was while taking up their positions that it was soon realised that, having previously been about to enter a rest area, they had handed over much of their defence stores, including trench mortars and both hand and rifle grenades. Without these defensive armaments and, just as importantly, their full-size picks and shovels to dig and reinforce the trenches, they were in a poor position to stem the German onslaught.
By 3pm on the 26th March, the battalion were in trenches that ran adjacent to the Albert railway station. Just ninety minutes later the German stormtroopers were spotted advancing in waves towards the British positions. Holding their fire the Suffolks allowed the enemy to advance to within one hundred yards of the firing line, before engaging them with their Lewis guns and rapid rifle fire, which inflicted many casualties on the enemy. Still they continued to attack, eventually capturing a section of trench. By 11.15pm, however, a swift counter-attack launched by the 7th Suffolks’ ‘C’ Company under Captain Green managed to eject the Germans.
The fighting in their area continued for a further couple of days until, suffering from a large number of casualties, great exhaustion and the lack of rations and water, the battalion was relieved on the evening of the 28th March before making their way back to the French village of Henecourt to rest and take stock of their losses, which amounted to two hundred and fifty-six all ranks. The severity of the fighting, which had lasted barely three days, can be best gauged by the fact that one platoon of thirty plus men had been reduced to just three men standing. Among those listed as killed or missing in action was William. His remains were never found. He is remembered today on the Pozieres memorial to the missing in France.
Although lost to his battalion, his dedication to the men of the 7th Battalion Suffolk Regiment was later rewarded, when on the 17th June 1918 it was announced in the London Gazette that William had been awarded the Meritorious Service Medal for Devotion while serving in France. This medal had been first instituted in the year of 1845 to reward Sergeants and Warrant Officers who showed exceptional levels of distinguished or meritorious service. In 1917 the criteria were extended to include individual acts of gallantry not in the presence of the enemy.
As well as being on the Halesworth war memorial, William is also remembered on that of his home village at Great Waldringfield.
The news of her husband’s loss must have further added to Charlottes grief having lost young Freddie just eighteen months before. While she awaited confirmation of William’s death, she would have continued to receive the allotment of the pay that he would have made to her and the children, that is until the 28th November 1918, when it was established that he had indeed been killed in action. From that day on, the young family would receive £1 14s 7d (£1.73p) weekly pension with a total gratuity paid to her of £44 3s 6d (£44.18p).
As well as the above monies his wife would have been able to claim his M.S.M. which, under normal circumstances, would have been presented during a formal parade, his British War and Victory medals and the named memorial plaque and scroll.
The location of all of these awards is not known.
William’s name on the Pozieres Memorial