Teenage Tommies

EXPLOSION

They were as young as 14.

Nearly a quarter of a million

answered the call to arms in the First World War.

But on leaving these shores,

the boys were expected to fight and suffer like men,

engulfed by the horror of the greatest conflict

the world had ever known.

This is the story of five teenage tommies.

There was a tin miner's son from Cornwall.

The son of a Lancashire vicar.

A blacksmith's apprentice from across the border in Yorkshire.

A Jewish boy from London's East End.

And the shy son of a factory owner,

who gave up his chance to escape the war.

They had in common their youth and their innocence of war.

GUNSHOTS

More than 20,000 teenage tommies were killed.

Many more were badly wounded.

And for others who came home,

the horror of war would live with them until the end of their lives.

My father told me all sorts of stories.

In the hour or two before he died,

he was on the Western Front,

yelling, "The Bosch are coming. We're going over the top now."

Right down deep on the ground floor of his memory

was the Western Front.

When war was declared on August 4th 1914,

Britain had a standing army of quarter of a million men

facing a German army three times that size.

The Secretary of State for War, Lord Kitchener,

needs a new civilian army.

So he immediately sets out to say, "I need 100,000 men straightaway."

And he puts out his appeal in August 1914,

and he is immediately swamped, not by 100,000,

but with 1.1 million volunteers.

Amid the patriotic fervour, rules were ignored.

Soldiers were supposed to be 19 to fight,

but many younger boys wanted to join up.

Such was the need for volunteers

that recruitment officers were often willing to sign up

even the most fresh-faced boys.

It was obvious they weren't 19,

but you'd have a queue of men going down the road,

you're getting a bounty for every one who joins up...

Are you really going to argue the toss

with a young lad who's enthusiastic, who's keen as mustard to go,

who looks maybe pretty fit, pretty well?

Let's take him.

One of the volunteers was 14-year-old St John Battersby.

St John Battersby was born in 1900.

He was brought up here in Holy Trinity parish in Blackley,

on the outskirts of Manchester.

In fact, his father was the first vicar of this parish.

He ran away from home just after

the outbreak of the war,

because his mother had died and he wanted to go into the army.

His father was horrified -

not that he had joined the army,

but that he had joined it as an ordinary soldier.

His father clearly felt

his son should be in the army as a leader.

-Commensurate with his father's social position.

-Yes.

And his father, of course, intervenes.

And we know that because there is a reference here,

seeking support from the Mayor of Manchester.

And the headmaster of Middleton Grammar School.

And they both say this boy would make an excellent officer.

Little white lie along the way.

It succeeded.

The 14-year-old was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant

in one of the new Pals battalions,

designed to boost recruitment by keeping it local.

"Remember, if you can get 15, 30 or 60 of your comrades to join,

"you can all enlist together, train and fight together."

It must have seemed the jolliest of ideas

to combine patriotism and friendship on a big adventure in Europe.

A boy did what his mates did - he joined up.

One such boy was a 14-year-old blacksmith's apprentice

who came here to Woodhouse Moor in Leeds to enlist.

One of the reasons why he joined

was that he was handed a white feather on the tram,

which was quite a prevalent practice,

particularly from mothers and grandmothers of children,

boys that had joined up.

So it was suggesting he was a coward?

That was the suggestion.

-I mean, he was only 14.

-Yeah.

What do you say? "I'm too young, I couldn't fight."?

-A minute later, he's up here on the moor, joining up.

-Yes.

Horace and his fellow Leeds Pals

were sent for battle training to Costerdale,

a camp on the Yorkshire Dales.

For men working in the factories,

it would have been quite an idyllic experience.

Three square meals, lots of fresh air and exercise.

To improve their physical fitness,

they would have started with route marches and drills,

and eventually, they would have started training

with the various weapons.

It wasn't all training,

because I can see here we have a photograph of a rugby match

that took place up here.

-And here is your great-granduncle.

-Really?

-There he is.

-Wow!

-I think he looks like you.

He looks a lot more grown up

than he does with his uniform on.

He does look like a fully grown man, there.

This is your first time visiting this place,

and I'm just wondering what you make of it.

It would be quite similar to one of my cadet camps,

with orders and training and things going wrong all the time!

For me, it's just fun, but for him,

it would have just been preparation for war.

There would have been a sense of danger looming ahead.

Recruiters were sent to all corners of the British Isles

in a great national campaign.

In the shadow of the redundant Cornish tin mines,

one 15-year-old found the promise of adventure overseas hard to resist.

Cyril Jose, the son of an out-of-work miner,

followed the call to arms.

No certainty of work any more, and poverty in this area,

war might have seemed like an escape to him.

Well, he was very young,

so I don't know if he'd have thought about it quite in the same way.

It was certainly an adventure, you can read that in his letters.

"Dearest Ivy, stand back!!

"I've got my own rifle and bayonet.

"The bayonet's about two feet long from hilt to end of point.

"Must feel a bit rummy to run into one of them in a charge. Not 'arf!

"Goodbye and God bless you, from your affec brother, Cyril."

Going to war at the age of 16.

He had quite a bit of responsibility, didn't he?

I think that's right. But there's also a lot of childhood

still in a lot of the letters from Grampa.

He's asking for copies of the Magnet.

And he was clearly still playing tricks and acting like a child.

So it's a bit of a mixture of both, I think.

"It would take a lot to put a British Tommy off his football.

"Here, a German shell exploded right on the field of play.

"To show their contempt for the enemy's fire,

"they continued their game."

But you didn't have to be native-born British

to feel the powerful pull of patriotism

during the First World War.

Here in London's East End, a haven for migrants back then,

as it is now, a 15-year-old boy was longing to join up.

Aby Bevistein was born in Russian-occupied Poland in 1898

and came to London with his parents when he was three.

The whole street, everybody, knew each other,

and just surrounded by our own kind, which were all Jewish people.

The grocer, the baker,

everybody within walking distance of the house, all Jewish.

From what you know, did Aby have a strong desire to assimilate?

Whether he wanted to or not, at this board school,

he would have been taught in English.

He probably belonged to a Jewish club,

and there, the emphasis was not so much on Jewishness

but on a sort of military form of Englishness -

discipline, hard physical exercise,

and being proudly British.

And joining up in 1914 is part of this process.

It's going a step further,

but it's actually showing your loyalty

by potentially giving your life for your new country.

In September 1914, Aby Bevistein volunteered,

changing his name to the British "Harris."

"Dear Mother, I did not like to leave you on Tuesday.

"I was very sorry to see you cry.

"But never mind, I will come home one day.

"From your loving son, Aby."

I'm sure he regretted joining up in the army

without their knowledge.

They were heartbroken.

Because of the religion, because they were Orthodox,

it's something the only son would not do.

They would want him to become - I don't know, whatever -

but certainly...

A soldier was not a thing you did if you were an Orthodox Jew.

Not the thing that you would do.

Just a mile from where Aby lived,

another boy from a very different background

was also preparing for war.

Ernest Steele was a child of the new middle classes.

His father had built up a thriving box-making business in Hackney,

where Ernest went to work, aged 15.

It wouldn't have been unusual for a 15-year-old boy

to be working in a factory here then?

No, not at all.

I mean, it's very typical of the middle classes that he...

He had a very decent education, but then left when he was 15

and started working in his father's business.

I knew that there were cardboard boxes, but I've never seen

these sort of pictures. So I'm quite surprised. And...

I never got a sense of the scale

or that they were actually doing quite well for themselves.

Probably the most remarkable...

Military collector David Empson

has found a trove of material on Ernest's life.

I've been a custodian of part of your family's history.

This is him leaving school as a 14- or 15-year-old.

This is the house he was born and grew up in

and from which he entered the army in 1914.

That's fantastic.

There he is as a young teenager, obviously just joined the army.

-So young.

-So young.

And this is actually Ernest's own little photograph album.

His father Edwin, here.

That is...his past and his history,

even his handwriting.

His beau is in here.

-His...fiancee.

-The girl he was engaged to, yes.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. EC Steele.

Why on earth you would have this

in the trenches in the First World War, I...

"Scholars have nothing to teach you.

"From the soft touch of the eyelashes of a woman,

"you will know all there is to know about happiness."

On August 17th 1915,

Ernest Steele was sent with his regiment,

the Queen's Westminster Rifles, to Le Havre in France,

and then on to Ypres in Belgium.

"Dear Mater and Pater,

"since I last wrote, lots of things have happened."

EXPLOSION

"Left England for France, arrived Havre 12 midnight.

"Rose at 7, parade in afternoon."

In Ernest's own diary,

he reveals how he was given an extraordinary chance

to escape the war.

"August 17th 1915. Light duty.

"Sergeant Clifford told all under 19 years of age

"could go back to England if they wished.

"After long discussion, we decided to stay."

That shows a real commitment to his comrades

and to the people he was out there with.

He was given a kind of opt-out, wasn't he?

To come back to being a cardboard box manufacturer's son and...and living,

but decided that he couldn't desert the other people

who were already out there.

In 1915 and 1916,

nearly 600,000 volunteers joined the war.

Among them were our five teenage tommies.

While Ernest Steele was engaged in Ypres,

Aby Bevistein, the Jewish East Ender, was further south,

where the battle for Loos was raging.

That too was the destination

for the Cornish miner's son, Cyril Jose.

15-year-old officer St John Battersby from Manchester

and Horace Iles, the Leeds blacksmith's apprentice,

arrived near Serre in the Somme region.

Some of the trenches where Horace Iles was stationed

have been preserved.

It's so hard to visualise what it would have been like

for a 16-year-old to arrive into these trenches

in the middle of the carnage.

Even before you arrive

in this front line trench, you are going to be passing behind you

the cemeteries in their great numbers.

The dead, stacked behind this trench ready to be taken away.

And you may look out into no-man's-land

and see the dead men already out there.

The stench of these trenches,

the smell of the cordite,

the rumbling guns.

The whole of your body would move with that rumbling,

even though you're not on the receiving end of it.

Suddenly, it'll be your turn.

What would the attitude have been to the more seasoned soldiers,

the veterans, to a youngster like Horace arriving in this trench?

Poor Horace - you were going to have to earn your spurs.

You will be tested.

If we were in this trench now, for instance, going over the top,

who's going be back over that trench first towards the enemy?

Do you think it'd be the old soldier,

or do think it's going to be the young soldier?

Which one would you send?

As a tactical point of view, I'd send the young soldier.

Purely because you don't want to waste your best men.

In fact, it's going to be the old soldier.

The old soldier will say to the youngster,

"Follow me, my lad, I'll see you through it."

If I'm the first up that assault ladder,

the machine gun hasn't yet started to strafe the trench.

If I'm going up, the third or fourth men out of that trench,

the machine guns are now tapping into these sandbags.

And I could cop it in the chest or the head.

MACHINE GUN FIRE

-And you know who's going to go and get it, don't you?

-Yeah.

-The 16-year-old, isn't it?

-The 16-year-old.

On May 22nd,

Horace Iles had his first taste of the terror of warfare

when the Germans raided his trench.

The Germans were very, very keen on trench raiding,

which meant sending small groups of men out

to get into the front line trenches.

Using a rifle in a...in a trench would be very difficult,

so that's why they were using knives and clubs

to bludgeon the enemy there.

It's at that point you realise - "Can I do this?

"Can I kill another man?" And you are facing that man.

It was either kill or be killed.

After fierce fighting,

the Leeds Pals repelled the invaders, but at a cost -

15 dead, 34 wounded, an officer shellshocked.

Horace was lightly wounded.

After being patched up, he was sent back to the front line.

"Dear Florrie, I was discharged from hospital two days ago.

"It's three weeks since I've had a letter.

"Hope you and the nipper are in the pink.

"Your loving brother, Horace."

By the spring of 1915,

the teenage tommies knew the kind of war they were facing.

In one major battle around Ypres in Belgium,

there were 60,000 British casualties.

In August, the 16-year-old tin miner's son from Cornwall,

Cyril Jose, was sent here to Fromelles, near Lille.

Now, he and the other men

of the Second Battalion Devonshire Regiment

were preparing to go into battle.

You've never been to where Cyril served on the Western Front?

I've never had any idea where it was.

You're about to find out exactly where.

Because this technology takes the old trench maps

and, using GPS, takes us to where Cyril and his comrades were serving.

And you can see, here are the British lines.

This area in between here is no-man's-land,

and there you have the German lines.

Cyril is already taking part in attacks in no-man's-land at night.

The trenches come alive at night.

Men would be working to repair the trenches

that had been destroyed by shellfire.

So they may actually go on working parties

out into no-man's-land to improve the wire.

"I've been quite adventurous for the past two nights,

"having been out in front with a covering party

"while some others fixed up some barbed wire.

"The first night was quite exciting

"as the Gs must have spotted something once or twice,

"as they sent over a lot of rapid fire."

MACHINE GUN FIRE, SHELLS WHIZZING

"They continually sent up star shells

"so that we had to keep our nappers down low."

Star shells would linger in the air and illuminate as it fell.

They had to remain stock still.

If there was any movement,

the snipers on the other side would pick them off.

"I then rejoined my section, and on sentry,

"I didn't half send some ammunition over to our old friend Fritzy."

One of the things about Cyril's letters

is he says how exciting it is to go over the top.

Others, with a sense of self-preservation,

would stay back.

This arrow is taking us in the direction

of where there was a listening post.

It's as far forward as you're going to put your own men.

And they listened, literally, for any movement of the enemy.

"I had a rotten experience next to last night in the trenches

"when I went out into a listening post

"about 75 yards out.

"They must have known something was there.

"The Gs had a rifle fixed so as to hit the listening post.

"It was a bit quiet, one chap bobbed up."

GUNSHOT

"Got it through the napper. He died soon after.

"I guess I didn't bob up so much after that."

-You can imagine how he must have felt.

-Yes.

And he's...he's just seen a man shot through the head.

It must have been very close to him too.

How he survived, I shall never understand.

It's one of those things in war, that...

You can be an incredibly experienced soldier

and get shot in the head.

And you can be a 16-year-old

on your first trip to an observation post,

-and you can survive.

-Yeah.

It's chance, a lot of the time.

But maybe he was a lucky boy, Cyril.

I think that's probably a fair...fair assessment

of my grandfather, actually.

"Although one hears much about the flooded trenches of Belgium,

"knee-deep mud is not always the case.

"Our cheerful tommies manage to construct these cosy shelters

"for a well-earned rest.

"Our artist depicts a typical scene."

In fact, trench warfare had become stalemated.

New tactics were needed.

One of the most frightening

was tunnelling under the trenches and planting mines.

What it meant to the infantry was they were constantly fearful

that there was going to be an explosion under their feet,

and particularly in the region around Loos,

where there was a lot of tunnelling activity on both sides.

The 16-year-old East Ender Aby Bevistein

faced the threat of mines in the fighting around Loos.

"Dear Mother, I've been in the trenches four times

"and come out safe.

"We go in the trenches for six days

"and then we get relieved for six days' rest.

"Dear Mother, I do not like the trenches.

"We're going in again this week."

On December 29th 1915,

the Germans in their lines over there had tunnelled here,

under Princes Street Trench,

where Aby Harris and his comrades were stationed.

EXPLOSION

Two men were killed and Aby was wounded.

"Dear Mother, I was taken ill and I was sent to the hospital.

"but don't get upset about it.

"I will be all right."

"Sir, I regret to inform you that Private Abraham Harris is ill

"suffering from wounds and shock."

What they mean by shock is that he's suffering

from damage that cannot be accounted for

by physical impacts on his body.

Shellshock was the term that was used for soldiers

who had become, in effect, militarily worthless.

They might understand it in common terms

as "temporary madness".

"Dear Mother, you don't know how I was longing for a letter from you.

"I would like to know

"what the War Office said was the matter with me."

Most doctors thought that it was a collapse of morale,

or a character defect.

You're damaged goods.

Early in the New Year of 1916,

Private Aby Harris was still on the Western Front,

billeted in this farmhouse at Le Flandry.

He'd been injured and shellshocked, but he was passed fit for duty.

16-year-old Aby Harris was about to go into action once more.

Very few people's nerves would stand

even the prospect of a second big explosion.

If one wants to look at it like drawing a cheque

on the account of courage or of fortitude that Aby had got...

..that would have been a mighty big cheque.

That would really empty the account.

Aby arrived back in the trenches here near Vermelles

on February 12th 1916.

Within a matter of hours, fighting had broken out.

Grenades exploded around him.

He was deafened and suffering from shock.

Aby Harris left his trench

and found his way to the company headquarters.

After examination by a medical officer,

he was pronounced fit for duty

and ordered to return to the front line.

Aby set off in the opposite direction.

Further north, in Belgium, the other London boy, Ernest Steele,

the factory owner's son from Hackney,

was among the thousands of men brought in to reinforce units

that had suffered severe casualties.

Ernest arrived at the front in August 1915.

By then, any optimism about a swift victory had vanished.

The swelling casualty lists

brought home the awful reality of modern warfare.

For Ernest, any movement out of his trench could mean death.

"Tuesday, December 14th 1915.

"In the evening, went up to firing line.

"Got over near Hooge when mine went up

"and then over came umpteen shells and rapid fire.

"I fell over a dead man.

"I got hit slightly. I'm feeling rocky.

"Wrist hurting slightly and nerves going.

"Iodine for wrist and rum for nerves."

He's being shot at and people are falling around him.

And he's only a young boy, isn't he?

It's... I think it's quite shocking.

We also know war is taking a deep strain on him

from a letter that he sends back to his brother.

"Dear Harry, I heard from Mater last night

"and she said you wanted to join up.

"Now, I'm going to talk to you seriously, so look out!

"You may feel old and strong, but you're only 15.

"Therefore you're too young to stand the strain

"of anything approaching this.

"I'm over three years older than you

"and even I'm beginning to think I'm not much use out here.

"Love to all from your elder brother, who knows."

He wants him to be alive when he goes back.

Maybe that's something that he's looking forward to,

going back and seeing his family and his brother.

You have to have that hope and optimism when you're in war

that you are going to go home.

30 miles to the south, near Bethune in northern France,

the other young Londoner, Aby Bevistein,

now known as Private Harris,

had wandered, shellshocked, away from the front line.

He went back to the farmhouse where he'd been earlier billeted.

In the army's eyes, he was now a deserter.

"Dear Mother, we were in the trenches

"and I was ill, so I went out,

"and they took me to the prison

"and I'm in a bit of trouble now."

Aby was brought before a court martial.

He wasn't a worldly-wise boy.

Despite facing senior military officers,

he decided to defend himself.

Aby comes in, he's faced with four officers.

So he's in a room full of people who he's been educated to defer to,

and he's undefended.

Desertion means not being in your appointed place.

If you've left when an enemy attack is in progress,

wow - you've got some explaining to do.

If you don't run very far, you're a coward.

If you run a fair distance, you're a deserter.

In cases of desertion, you have to prove intent.

The court, as far as it's concerned,

once they've heard Cordionne, the Frenchwoman,

her evidence is absolutely crucial.

"I recognised him as he had been billeted at the farm

"for three weeks.

"He said the Germans had been bombing our trench

"and he had left them

"and was going to England."

The moment that she says he wants to get back to England,

that's it, that's intent.

There is no corroboration for it,

it wouldn't stand up in a regular civil court.

The court makes its decision -

guilty, sentenced to death.

It's over, done and dusted, within 15 minutes,

half an hour, tops.

Army law's not about justice. Army law's about discipline.

GUNSHOTS

This was sent to your grandparents.

Would you mind just reading it to me?

"Private Harris was sentenced after trial by a court martial

"to suffer death by being shot for desertion

"and the sentence was duly executed on 20th March, 1916.

"I am, Sir, your obedient servant, PG Hendley."

I can't imagine what my grandparents and my mother must have felt

on receiving something like this.

Just to be told that your son has been shot for desertion.

It must have bewildered them.

That wasn't justice.

Had it been an officer with shellshock,

I'm quite sure they would have sent him back to England

to go to hospital.

Of the 306 soldiers executed during World War I

for military offences, only two were officers.

But young officers made up a disproportionate share

of battle casualties.

They were often the first to be targeted by the enemy.

We have very little understanding of what it was like to be an officer

and particularly a junior officer.

These were men who had to lead from the front.

They were men who were distinguishable by dress.

So every time an officer went out, they would be in danger.

Therefore, the casualty rates amongst junior officers was the highest.

These men were difficult to replace,

and so you have this incredible situation

where you might have a 16-year-old

in charge of men in their thirties, even forties.

One such 16-year-old leading his men

was the Manchester vicar's son St John Battersby.

He arrived in France with his locally recruited battalion,

the Accrington Pals, in the spring of 1916.

The Pals were joining in a massive build-up of troops

along a 15-mile stretch of the British line

in the area of the Somme.

So they were put on a train, and he describes how this train

eventually came to the end of the line in the middle of a field,

surrounded by ammunition boxes.

There's my dad, 16 years old, really in the war.

He is responsible for 30-odd men.

His decisions may result in them dying or not dying.

St John Battersby was now among 600,000 British troops

gathering for the biggest, and hopefully decisive, offensive of the war.

In fact, all four surviving teenage tommies

were converging on the Somme.

Londoner Ernest Steele was in Gommecourt.

The Cornish miner's son, Cyril Jose, was sent to La Boisselle.

And joining St John Battersby at Serre

was blacksmith's apprentice Horace Iles of the Leeds Pals.

We've now arrived at the exact position

of the Leeds Pals.

What would it have looked like

on the morning of July 1st, their position?

Well, as you said, we're on the exact position

and the line's going straight in line with my arm

towards the top of that coppice,

cos they're going to be heading in this direction,

looking towards those German positions.

And there's been seven days of continuous bombardment,

leading up to this.

Seven days - the greatest barrage the world had ever seen.

And this was to kill, concuss and cave in the German trenches

and to render them incapable of any form of resistance.

-But for Horace, for your relative, it's good news, this pounding.

-Yeah.

No-one would have believed that anything could have survived.

I mean, he was hit by a barrage himself and wounded,

so he knew the damage it could do.

"The illustration depicts one of our batteries in action.

"The range of the enemy is found by means of wonderful calculations."

What they'd been told by their officers

that those Germans out there have actually been sent senseless

by this seven-day barrage.

They'll be no Germans out there ready to fight against you.

We're going to walk all the way to Berlin.

The advance was planned for July 1st.

The day began with mist

and the final Allied bombardment got under way.

A British officer wrote of how the air vibrated

and the earth shook.

Across a 16-mile front,

120,000 men got ready to go over the top.

What happened next would become the bloodiest story

in the British Army's history.

There are photographs of men

who rose out of the trenches in the battle of the Somme

and who were felled by this very rapid rate of fire,

knocked down by a barrage of machine gun bullets.

The intention at the Somme was that those machine guns wouldn't be there.

They'd be destroyed by the artillery.

But the Germans survived by digging deep.

The British suffered almost 60,000 casualties

amid the constant machine gun fire.

Waiting to face the machine guns

was the youngest officer at the Somme,

16-year-old St John Battersby.

My father said that he came out of the trench

and was advancing down the hill

with machine gun fire coming from his right.

He said he could see the fire sweeping the field

and he could see men falling before him.

And just as the machine gun arrived and hit him,

it jammed and stopped firing.

He took a number of bullets in the hip

and one that went straight through the forearm.

This 16-year-old....can see the machine gun fire coming towards him

-and he keeps walking towards it.

-Yeah.

That's...

It's hard to conceive of that.

When you look at the figures for the wounded and the casualties,

out of the battalion, 87 confirmed killed,

but then 335 "missing".

And you realise that the vast majority of the...the battalion

just simply disappeared.

This land is just full...

..of dead people, to this day.

At the same time on that fateful day,

20 miles away, the tin miner's son, Cyril Jose,

was preparing for battle.

All across the line, men were clambering out of their trenches

into the withering fire of the Germans.

16-year-old Cyril Jose from Cornwall was with the Devonshire Regiment,

attacking the village of Ovillers-la-Boisselle.

They had to cross quarter of a mile of no-man's-land,

ground that sloped upwards towards the German positions.

"Men went down like corn before a scythe.

"Down went Second Lieutenant Gould.

"Across him fell his batman, Harry Hamlyn.

"Both were killed instantly.

"A bullet thumped through my left shoulder and chest,

"knocking me down.

"I panicked and yelled, 'I'm hit!'

"Not until 7am on July 2nd, stiff and in pain,

"did I feel it safe to move.

"Slowly, I began the long crawl back.

"It seemed that I was alone in a field of dead men."

It was only when we read the letters

that we really began to understand what it must have been like for him.

Because after he's wounded, it takes him two days

to crawl through no-man's-land back, all the way back

to the British lines

and he describes himself, his uniform, "purple with blood".

And it took a lot of strength to do that.

And I think, also, he talks, I think, about drinking water

out of the...bottles from dead men's bodies

and for a 17-year-old to do that is just truly scary.

I mean, you just can't imagine how...

The emotions he must have been going through

as he was trying to get back to...to his trench.

"Some big bug thought it a great idea

"to go over in broad daylight

"instead of crawling up as near their parapet in the night.

"Of course, Johnny wouldn't expect us then so much.

"What brains old Douglas must have.

-"Made me laugh when I read his dispatch -

-'I

-attacked.'"

"Old women in England picturing Sir Doug

"in front of the British waves,

"brandishing his sword at Johnny in the trenches?"

"Attack Johnny from 100 miles back.

"I'll get a job like that in the next war."

That is so much my grandfather.

It's exactly the way he used to talk about the generals

and the way in which he felt that they'd just been thrown

like lambs to the slaughter without any kind of thought

about what it must be like for the men on the front line.

This is a boy who...

18 months earlier, had enlisted at the age of 15,

presumably very enthusiastic about what he was going in for.

And then to come to that sort of reaction.

-Sorry, that letter always makes me...choke up.

-Absolutely...

Among the few to reach the German trenches

was Ernest Steele's regiment - but success was short-lived.

"Regiment reached the German line.

"But owing to division on the right failing,

"we had to retire with enormous casualties.

"Out of 3,000, only 600 got back.

"Division covered in glory... and gore."

The slaughter on the Somme marked a critical moment

in the story of the boy soldiers.

As news of casualties emerged, parents began to question

why their children were at the front.

They began to campaign, lobbying the press and politicians

to bring the boys home.

Horace Iles' family in Leeds

was now deeply concerned about their 16-year-old boy.

Horace's sister Florrie writes him a letter.

-You actually have a copy of that letter.

-Yeah.

"My dear Horace.

"I'm so glad you are all right so far,

"but I need not tell you what an anxious time

"I am having on your account."

"We did hear that they were fetching all back from France under 19.

"For goodness' sake, Horace, tell them how old you are.

"I'm sure they will send you back if they know you are only 16.

"If you don't do it now, you'll come back in bits

"and we want the whole of you.

"Just remember, I am always thinking of you

"and hoping for your safe return."

"Your loving sister, Florrie."

The problem with it, though, is by the time it got sent over there,

he was already dead.

So she was returned...she was sent back the unopened letter

with just "Killed in Action" written at the top.

My great-great-uncle Horace is somewhere in that field.

I mean, I've read somewhere that he was left out there for a year.

Under growing public pressure,

the army withdrew the underage soldiers from the battlefield

to special camps until they reached their 19th birthdays.

But not all were happy with this.

"They rioted. Every window in the place was shattered.

"Everything breakable was smashed into small bits.

"One of the guards fled to a small room and locked himself in."

These lads, they'd been in action, a lot of them had military medals.

As far as they're concerned,

they are bigger than these chaps who have authority over them.

They're not going to be chivvied to go and clean their barrack rooms.

They're not going to run 20 miles.

They're going to do exactly what they want to do.

Cyril Jose from Cornwall

was recovering from wounds at his camp.

How did Cyril acclimatise to life in the camps himself?

By the time he was wounded on July 1st,

I think he was probably pretty glad to get out of it,

at least for a while.

He would have known that, while the war continued,

his age was getting to the point when he'd have to go back overseas,

so that may have been of some concern to him,

having seen the action he had.

But he was willing to go and he went back.

There must have been guys dreading their birthday.

There are cases where young lads have slit their own throats.

I think his name's McConnell of the 16th Highland Light Infantry,

cuts his own throat because he's hit 19

and he just cannot face it again.

And that's the tragedy, that's the great tragedy.

But then that's one small tragedy

when there were thousands happening just, you know, 30 miles away.

But not all underage soldiers were sent to the camps.

The shortage of experienced leaders caused by the high casualty rate

meant that teenaged officers could stay and fight,

if they and their parents agreed.

Three months after he was shot on the Somme,

16-year-old St John Battersby was back on the front line.

He was barely two miles from where he'd been wounded.

He's under a bridge across the trench

and a shell landed on top of it.

EXPLOSION

One was killed outright, one had both his legs blown off.

My father had his left leg seriously damaged.

Probably by something like that.

That, on its own, would sever a leg.

Four weeks later, he had the leg amputated.

"To Secretary War Office.

"Sir, I am in receipt of your letter

"informing me that there is no alternative

"but to relinquish my commission, owing to ill health.

"As I am only an amputation case,

"I could do almost any home service duties.

"I would wish to remain in until the end of the war, if possible.

"Your obedient servant, R St John Battersby."

He stayed in until September 1920.

By September 1918,

only two of our teenage tommies were still at war

and both were converging on the battlefield of Epehy

in northern France.

Cyril Jose from Cornwall, now 19,

was back in the trenches from his camp

and getting ready for the final Allied push.

Ernest Steele, the son of the London factory owner,

was now a lieutenant in one of the mobile machine gun units,

coming into their own

as the stalemate in the trenches was broken.

The boy who'd been offered a ticket home back in 1915

had seen the war through to its final phase.

Ernest knows the Allies now have the momentum.

After three years here,

after turning down the chance to leave,

after becoming a leader and a man,

Ernest can glimpse the end - the promise of home.

On the 17th, Ernest is here,

and these are the Allied trenches right next to the railway line,

and as he's looking out across the fields,

he can see the German line

which they're going to assault the following day.

And on that evening, Ernest writes a letter home.

"Dear Mater and Pater.

"As I don't suppose I shall have a chance

"of writing you again for a few days,

"I thought I'd take the chance of letting you know

"so that you shouldn't worry.

"I think we're winning the war hand over fist now

"and I hope to be home for good in less than a year.

"While I'm out here, I realise more than ever

"all that you have done for me

"and wish I could have a chance to repay you at least a part.

"The best of love from your affectionate son, Ernest."

Early on the morning of September 18th,

Ernest and his machine gunners move forward

ahead of the main group of troops.

The German lines are all across here,

and Ernest and his men are setting up their machine gun positions

so that they'll be able to lay down fire for the infantry

as they move forward.

Covered by machine gun fire,

Cornish boy Cyril Jose was emerging from the trenches.

"We advanced 3,000 yards to put the pincers round St Quentin.

"We took plenty of prisoners.

"Quite a change for me to be in such an easy stunt.

"Jerry put up good resistance.

"I got hit.

"Still, must be thankful for small mercies."

Although Cyril Jose was once again wounded,

the battle of Epehy was a success.

The two-mile advance yielded thousands of prisoners.

But the Allies suffered over 1,200 casualties.

Ernest and his men come into the view of the German troops.

Just as they reached this point here,

at the top of the hill...

..here, at this point,

Ernest is hit by a German sniper.

And he's killed instantly.

It's a sad ending,

but I guess a lot of the men who came out had this ending.

And not...not the returning home

and telling Mater and Pater all about it that he'd hoped.

Ernest's father Edwin, the box maker from Hackney,

created his own memorial to his son.

Edwin never got over the death of his son.

He was heartbroken at the loss

of the bright shining light in the family

he had all these hopes and dreams for.

I don't think he ever looked at the world in the same way again.

# Here we are, here we are

# Here we are again... #

The battle of Epehy saw the end of Cyril Jose's war.

His wound gave him a ticket home to England.

But his war experiences led him to mistrust authority

for the rest of his life.

It explains an awful lot of his attitude

towards the establishment, towards authority.

He never really wanted to be part of that establishment.

-So there he is.

-That's him.

He was a jolly person. He was always laughing.

He lived in a caravan in Epping Forest for a long time.

He'd just do whatever he had to do for money, and that was it.

As long as he had money for his books, that was all he cared about.

The vicar's son, St John Battersby, who lost his leg in the war,

himself became a vicar of a small rural parish.

He was a very thoughtful man.

Playful. He didn't drive.

He walked up and down this hill to visit the people in the village.

He wanted to have somewhere

that was...safe and calm and assured.

If you've spent three years of not knowing

whether you would be alive in the next 15 seconds or not,

being assured that that was going to be the case here

would be...would be good news.

The war haunted the families of the dead,

like 17-year-old Jewish boy Aby Bevistein,

executed for desertion.

My mother never spoke about him.

But I do recall, though,

when November 11th used to come around each year,

that she would go into the dining room,

close the doors and have a really good sob.

I regret, I regret very much

not having gone in and asked her why.

It brought back memories of... of the brother that she lost.

Lost to the world.

Horace Iles' great grandnephew - just 16 himself -

has come to visit his grave for the first time.

"For Horace and all the Leeds Pals.

"May you all rest in peace,

"knowing you're not forgotten

"and have our gratitude.

"From four Leeds Pals -

"Phil, Dave, Steve, Rick."

(Rest in peace.)

The thing that set me off was the...

..the wreath of poppies.

There was a...there was a letter

written on it from four servicemen.

They'd just written "To all who died here...

"..with our friends, that you have our ever-serving gratitude."

Just...just...sorry...

HE SIGHS

I'm happy for...who he was...

..and grateful for what he did.

And that's all I really can do.

OK.

The horror of total war

changed the lives of thousands of teenage soldiers.

For the dead, and the survivors, what was lost here was youth

and all its hopes.