BARRY MEMORIALS OF THE GREAT WAR - 5In the fifth of his series of articles on Barry's Great War Memorials, Dr Jonathan Hicks looks at the stories behind Barry Island School's Memorial.
THE SOMME AND JUTLAND CASUALTIES OF BARRY ISLAND SCHOOLThis school memorial lists just eighteen ex-pupils who died during the Great War 1914-1918 but contains a wide variety of stories. Four were naval men, twelve died whilst serving in the Army and two men I have been unable to trace.
Joseph Heathcote was a regular soldier who was a private with the Grenadier Guards. Aged 21, he was the son of Joseph and Jane Heathcote of 13 Amherst Crescent, and was killed during the First Battle of Ypres in 1914. On 28th October his battalion advanced to the northern edge of Polygon Wood. They dug trenches for shelter and waited for the Germans to attack. At 5.30 a.m. on a cold, damp, foggy morning, Joseph Heathcote was killed during the close fighting which followed as the German infantry advanced, driving the British soldiers back. Joseph Laity had been chosen to play football for Wales at schoolboy level before the Great War began. A resident of 24 Phyllis Street, he had joined the 9th Battalion of the King's Royal Rifle Corps and died of wounds on 7th October 1915, aged 20, during the attack on Bellewaarde, a diversionary attack during the Battle of Loos. Besides the series of battles that raged for four and a half years along the Western Front in France and Belgium, the other major British theatre of war was Gallipoli. Here a combined British and Commonwealth force attempted to gain possession of a peninsula occupied by Turkish forces. The fighting dragged on for several months and it was near the end of the campaign that Private William Merry of the Inniskilling Fusiliers was killed. He was aged just 17 and was the son of Mr and Mrs John Merry of 40 Phyllis Street. Employed as an apprentice engineer at C. H. Baileys, Barry Docks, he had evidently enlisted and been posted abroad when he was well under age to do either. He is buried at Twelve Tree Copse Cemetery, Gallipoli. Ordinary Signalman Charles Kirby was killed in May 1916, aged 18, at the Battle of Jutland, the major engagement between the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet off the coast of Denmark. The son of Miriam Kirby, of 11 Amherst Crescent, and the late Edward Hely Kirby, he was killed aboard HMS Defence, a 14,300 ton cruiser which was hit by shells fired by the German flagship Friedrich der Grosse as she sped in to attack the damaged German light cruiser Wiesbaden. Her forward magazines detonated and she disappeared in a column of smoke taking 903 men with her, including Rear Admiral Sir Robert Arbuthnot, leaving behind nothing but bits of floating wreckage. The three other naval men were all merchant seamen. Willie Bartlett was an Able Seaman who served on SS Ribston. He drowned as the result of an attack by a German submarine on 16th July 1917 aged 20 and had lived at 4 Clive Road. John Shepherd was drowned in November 1917 whilst serving on SS Umgeni. Charles Watkins lived at 63 Phyllis Street and was a 17-year-old Mess Steward aboard SS Turnbridge when it was attacked by a German U Boat on 7th July 1918. John and Fred Streeter were killed aged 18 and 19 respectively. John joined the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and was killed on the infamous first day of the Battle of the Somme on 1st July 1916. The son of Fred and Clara Streeter, of 13, Phyllis Street, he had been employed as an apprentice at the Locomotive Department of the Barry Railway Company. The 1st Battalion advanced at Beaumont Hamel on the right of the brigade and south of Y Ravine. They were cut down by machine gun fire from the front and flanks. John was one of 549 casualties that morning. I have stood in the trench that he left that sunny morning and the ground even now is perilously open and devoid of cover, which brings home to one the tremendous courage required to walk towards German machine gun fire. His brother Fred was killed two years later in September 1918 while serving with the 13th Battalion of the Rifle Brigade. Before the War he worked at the offices of Hodge and Co., ship repairers and engineers, Barry Docks. He was educated at Barry County School and joined the Army on 28th November 1917. He had been in France since April 1918. Cyril Howe was killed on the same day as John Streeter. He had joined the 1st Battalion of the New Zealand Expeditionary Force and served in Egypt before embarking for France. On 21st June 1916 the battalion took over the line at Lepinette, just outside Armentieres. There was little shellfire in that sector on 1st July but diaries of soldiers show that German snipers were very active that day, so he was possibly shot by one of these. He lived at 24 Plymouth Road and died aged 24. He is not currently listed on the Memorial Hall's Roll of Honour, but is one of the names we hope to add during the planned restoration. Leonard Hellier joined the King's Own Scottish Borderers aged 19 in September 1914. He was a clerk with Watson's Timber Merchants and was a member of the YMCA Gymnastics Club. By July 1915 he had been promoted to Corporal and in September 1915 he suffered a gunshot wound to his right arm and hand and was evacuated back to Netley Hospital. In October 1916 he attended Officer Training School at Pembroke College, Cambridge and in June 1917 he joined the Border Regiment as a second lieutenant. In August 1917 he was injured whilst running in a race during Brigade Sports and was evacuated back to Base Hospital. He recovered, but at the Battle of Passchendaele in December 1917 he received a severe wound to his head caused by shellfire and died on 16th December. Daniel T. Smart died of wounds received in France at Barry Accident Hospital in December 1918. He was a corporal with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers who was married with two children and lived in Church Street, Cadoxton. He had been employed at a boatman at Barry Docks. The unknown men are Henry Robins and James Todd; if readers have any information on these men I should be glad to hear from them.
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