ONE hundred years ago this week, the latest edition of the Southampton Pictorial, published in March 1915, printed a series of portraits sent in from Southampton’s very gallant sons as they fought for king and country on battlefields across the globe.
In the early days of the war 14 young Southampton men joined the 3rd Hants Battery of the Royal Field Artillery and were sent out to India with the first detachment of the 5th Hants.
This picture showed the bungalow at Lahore where the young men were stationed, with two of the Southampton contingent – Gunner Beeston and Gunner Lucas – seen here sitting upon a camel.
Another photograph sent to the Southampton newspaper offices from the sunny climes of India was this regal looking snapshot of Lance Corporal E C Watling seated in very grand surroundings that were a far cry from the freezing cold, and often waterlogged, trenches of his comrades fighting the war in Europe.
Lance Corporal Watling, who was attached to D Company 5th Hants Regiment, was a conductor on the Southampton tramways before the war intervened, and according to his letter, which he sent to accompany the photograph, the English soldiers had settled well in India, with the Hampshires proving to be very popular with the natives.
Meanwhile, on the battlefields closer to home, two of our ‘Tommies’ – who were having to endure the bleak conditions inside the trenches in France – were pictured with contented smiles as they showed off their latest weapon against the biting wind and freezing cold.
The two unnamed Southampton soldiers had found these woolly wonders very comforting in the trenches, especially during the bitterly cold weather that our gallant troops had to endure during the past few months of the conflict on the Western Front.
However, despite the harsh conditions, the brave young men still managed to find time to raise a smile with a little bit of light-hearted tomfoolery, as demonstrated in another Southampton Pictorial photograph.
With the aid of a captured German soldier’s trench coat and helmet, these three Sotonians, who from left to right of the picture were Corporal W Rabbetts, Corporal L Godden, and Driver A Wearn, took a moment between fighting at the front to engage in some comical role-play by enacting a mock tragedy while off duty.
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