Final thoughts on the search for my grandfather

It has been a long time since I began the research into what might have happened to my grandfather, Andrew Thomas Lockerbie at Bullecourt. From time to time I have searched records which might have helped but no new avenues have presented themselves, until now. The increasing use of Artificial Intelligence has enabled me to use it to search areas otherwise inaccessible or unknown, and this has suggested that I add this page to my notes, essentially assembled with the use of AI, and the only part of my site that does so.

Recently I have returned to the question of what might actually have happened to Andrew, partly because it has always seemed to me unsatisfactory simply to say that he was killed at Bullecourt on 3rd May 1917 when, in fact, nobody knows that he was.

I have not found a missing piece of evidence that would clarify his disappearance, and I suspect that such records no longer exist. The International Committee of the Red Cross has no further information, and I understand that the relevant German records were largely destroyed during the Second World War. What follows is necessarily conjecture, albeit conjecture based on what is now known about the fighting.

This first map is taken from the War Diaries – WO95/1661/3 – of the 22nd Infantry Brigade, which includes the Honourable Artillery Company, and is held in the National Archives. The map indicates the position of the 2nd Battalion Honourable Artillery Company before they went into action at about 10.30pm on the night of 3rd May 1917. The green, brown and orange lines mark, respectively: the intended first objective, first attack; the second objective, first attack; and the third objective second attack. A and B Companies were to take the first objective, with C and D Companies passing through towards the second. By 11.50pm they had reported that they had reached their objectives. Thereafter the situation appears to have deteriorated rapidly.

The instructions to the Honourable Artillery Company are contained in the 22nd Infantry Brigade Operations Order n°. 125, 3rd May 1917:

#4. The objectives of the 2nd H.A.C. will be:-.

• 1st. The German Front line from U.28.a.3.1. inclusive to road at U.27.b.7.8. exclusive.
• 2nd. The second German Line from U.28.a.8.8. inclusive to road at U.27.b.7.6. exclusive.
• 3rd. To work up the German Front Line system and gain touch with the 6th Australian Brigade whose left now rests at U.22.d.6.3. - U.22.d.6.0.
• 4th. To push strong patrols into the village and gain touch with any parties of the 125th Infantry Brigade holding out there, and with the patrols of the 1st R.W.F.

Pencilled on this second map, and with two arrows made in red, is a note indicating the direction of the German counter-attack which began at 12.30am on the morning of the 4th; at 1.45am Captain Bower reported that he was practically surrounded, with only about thirty men left; at 2.15am he reported that he had been ‘bombed out’ and had taken up positions in shell holes outside the German wire. At 3.30am orders came to withdraw, followed by a German barrage and yet another counter-attack.

The ‘Narrative of Operation Against Bullecourt For Period 3/5/1917 to 5/5/1917’ sets out in some detail the difficulties of this combat. Having advanced under a rolling barrage the British troops were met with strong resistance and counter-attacks by the Germans who managed to drive a wedge between the right wing of the 2nd HAC and the left wing of the Australians. There was hand-to-hand combat with noise and smoke so dense that some troops fell into German trenches they were unable to see. It became evident that the initiative had not succeeded and the necessary orders were given to move back.

The battalion eventually collected what men it could and took up a position along the Écoust-Noreuil road which runs south-east at the bottom left corner of the map. It is certainly possible in the rapidly changing conditions that Andrew was wounded and became separated from his comrades without anyone subsequently knowing whether he had been killed, rescued, or taken prisoner.

The 2nd Honourable Artillery Company’s casualty return for the period 3rd to 5th May is uncomfortable reading.

• 2 officers and 2 other ranks killed,
• 5 officers and 101 other ranks wounded, and
• 4 officers and 99 other ranks missing,

presumably one of the latter being Andrew.

When they were finally relieved on the 4th May, only 4 officers and 94 men remained. Nearly 250 men were unaccounted for.

The fact that Andrew is noted only as one of the number of other ranks, while officers are given names, I believe to be based on the need for the command to be aware of the strength in numbers of soldiers at their disposal, and of the small number of officers available to lead them, losses seriously affecting command structure. This is a reflection of the manner in which the war was waged.

It is worth remembering just how confused this fighting was. The German defenders were not necessarily in their trenches waiting for the British to arrive. There were deep dugouts in the Bullecourt defences, and German infantry emerged from them during the fighting. At one point, the 2nd HAC found itself being fired upon from three sides. The German force in the sector included the 27th Württemberg Infantry Division which included the 120 and 124 Infantry Regiments along with the 123 Grenadier Regiment. Their records contain a specific account of the fighting around Bullecourt including the need to abandon the rescue of one of their wounded soldiers due to a British advance. Ironically, these records are held at the Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, Germany, a city in which I once worked.

The German account also describes the terrible conditions under which the fighting took place on the night of 3/4th May as a succession of attacks and hand-to-hand engagements. Elsewhere it describes the bombardment, the machine-gun fire and the explosions of grenades, with the struggle breaking down into confused close-quarter encounters around trenches and ruined buildings. In such conditions, with visibility restricted and attacks and counterattacks taking place in darkness, it is not difficult to understand how men could become isolated and how the fate of an individual might remain unknown. Although this account cannot tell us what happened to Andrew, it provides another perspective on the intensity of the fighting in which he disappeared.

The card of the International Committee of the Red Cross is an interesting document, perhaps for the information it seems not to have. The usual letters establishing where the information on the card came from are missing in Andrew’s case. The ICRC’s explanatory notes indicate that cards were issued in connection with documents such as lists of prisoners and notices of death received from the warring countries. I had assumed that the information in Andrew’s case came from Germany, rather than Turkey, but I have since come to doubt that assumption.

It is only recently that I have been able to understand the International Committee of the Red Cross’ card relating to my grandfather. I had thought that it alone was the clue to understanding how Andrew had died, but I had not been able to unravel its meaning due to their website no longer accepting questions.

The card is, essentially, a record of an enquiry from my great-grandfather, David, asking if the ICRC had any news of his son, Andrew’s, fate.

It is a curious document in that the administrative work of the ICRC was carried out in French, as is witnessed by most of the card, but amendment of the hand-written ‘A20758’ does not have its vertical element of the number ‘7’ crossed as is the German and French custom.

Both the typed but crossed out ‘14756’ and hand-written ‘A20758’ are internal administrative notations, most probably relating to a letter sent them by David, the letter then missing from their files. Unlike many or most of the other cards, there is no link to another document, such as a letter that can be accessed.

The card records the enquiry from David which must have suggested that Andrew might be wounded – ‘serait blessé’, and a reply has been sent – ‘Rép’ recording that nothing – ‘rien’ has been discovered by the ICRC, that information being sent on the 3rd August 1917, three months after Andrew went missing.

So the full sequence on the card is that the family writes to the ICRC asking about Andrew; the ICRC found no information to report, and on 3 August 1917 a negative reply was sent to David. This does not prove that Andrew was never captured. If he had been taken that night, one might expect him to appear on a German list, but that would depend on his having been identified, recorded and the information reaching the ICRC. The negative answer, combined with ‘serait blessé’, therefore leaves the question unresolved. Nor does the card establish that Andrew was wounded in the initial advance, left in No Man’s Land or in the ruins of the village, and dying there without being identified or recovered.

Some time later, my grandmother was sent the personal effects from ‘our Australian prisoner’, she said from a German woman. The woman who informed her may have come across Andrew personally, equally she may simply have been passing on information or possessions which had reached her through somebody else. Andrew was British, serving in the Honourable Artillery Company, but alongside a large Australian contingent on their east flank.

This might suggest that Andrew may have been wounded when captured by the Germans, some details noted, and died shortly afterwards, perhaps in a German collecting station or hospital, before he was formally registered as a prisoner.

But there is no evidence that Andrew entered the German prisoner system, and the return of his possessions is not sufficient evidence of this. Nor is the absence of an International Committee of the Red Cross record evidence that he did not; a man who died before formal registration could very easily disappear from the surviving record.

Alternatively, though perhaps unlikely, his personal effects might have been given or taken from his body by an Australian who, subsequently, was wounded and captured on or near the battlefield and his personal effects subsequently passed into German hands.

The mysterious return of those effects remains, to me, the most tantalising part of the story. But it is evidence of the journey of his possessions, not necessarily evidence of the journey of Andrew himself.

Perhaps that is as far as the evidence allows me to go. I would love to know what happened to him. After more than a century I have come to think that the most honest conclusion may simply be that we know where Andrew probably disappeared, there is a question over his being wounded, though no proof that he was, and that some of his possessions described as coming ‘from our Australian prisoner’ eventually passed through German hands. It seems to me that he may well have been a prisoner, if only briefly, but I cannot establish that from the evidence that survives.

My father never knew any of the above other than that of Andrew’s personal effects being returned. Throughout his lifetime he was saddened by his slight memory of his father, particularly on Remembrance Days. With others, Andrew went into the darkness at Bullecourt on the night of 3rd May 1917, and there my search must end.