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Soldiers' Records |
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28694 2/4th Battalion The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment
transf. 604753 Labour Corps
Died 10 July 1920
Christchurch, Ellesmere Port
George Keates?
(Has the CWGC got his rank wrong?)
George Keates' nephew, Ellesmere Port resident Ray Wardle with his wife Susan. Ray proudly displays his uncle's war medals and an old painting which they rescued from a house clearout, believing it to be of George.
Article in the local paper, the Ellesmere Port Pioneer 26 Nov 2006
(written incidentally by Pioneer journalist Gary Porter, former History pupil, Whitby High School)
CWGC WAR RECORD OF GEORGE KEATES
19 - Hardly a Boy, but barely a Man.
In the ways of war, despite the advanced technology of the weapons used, nothing much has changed over the years. Back in 1982 Paul Hardcastle wrote an unusual song about the Vietnam war. The single went to number 1 in 13 countries. The ‘song’ was unusual in several ways, not just because it was entitled '19' (the “average age" of the combat soldier during the conflict) but also because it was an early example a record utilising samples of spoken news reports – all taken from or about the Vietnam conflict.
For First World War I serviceman George Keates, the song has a special link, as this was the age he died at, despite his war grave displaying a year older. George Ernest Keates, like so many of the ‘boys’ of the time, lied about his age to be eligible to, “do one’s bit for King and Country”. And like the nearly 185,000 others, he suffered at the ‘hands’ of a terrible new weapon that was brought to bear on an unsuspecting and unprepared adversary. And again, like many conflicts today, the common serviceman was left insufficiently equipped to be able to deal with the foe.
Yperite, more commonly known as Mustard Gas, was first used by the German Army in September 1917. Unlike the Chlorine gas that had been previously used, Mustard gas was the most lethal of all the poisonous chemicals used during the war, as it was almost odourless and took twelve hours to take effect. Yperite was so powerful that only small amounts had to be added to high explosive shells to be effective. Once in the soil, mustard gas remained active for several weeks. The skin of victims of mustard gas blistered, the eyes became very sore and they began to vomit. Mustard gas caused internal and external bleeding and attacked the bronchial tubes, stripping off the mucous membrane. This was extremely painful and most soldiers had to be strapped to their beds.
A year before his own death in action, the famous war poet, Wilfred Owen, was also impelled to wax lyrically about the war, and about Mustard Gas in particular. He refers to the suffering the men endured – the: blindness, the “froth-corrupted lungs”, the “vile, incurable sores”, and the men, “floundering like a man in fire”. His famous poem which used the Latin quotation, 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori', were no doubt a comment on the time and of the war itself, stating that it was, ‘sweet and fitting to die for one's country'.
Few records have to date been found as to where Corporal George Keates was located during the battle in which he suffered from the deadly gas. It usually took person four or five weeks to die of mustard gas poisoning. But George must have been made of strong stuff, as he was transferred to the Labour Corps and survived the war by nearly two years before succumbing to his injuries at this tender age of “19”.
One thing though we can be fairly sure of, George didn’t suffer from another link to modern day warfare – the scourge of the atrociously named, “friendly fire”. It was important to have the right weather conditions before a gas attack could be made. When the British Army launched a gas attack on 25th September in 1915, the wind blew it back into the faces of the advancing troops. This problem was solved in 1916 when gas shells were produced for use with heavy artillery. This increased the army's range of attack and helped to protect their own troops when weather conditions were not completely ideal.
To say that that, “conditions were not completely ideal”, is an understatement of epic proportions. When the men, many of whom had come from sheltered, rural communities, finally came to realise that their ‘home’ would be a mud sodden, rat infested trench, no wonder that: desertions were common and shell shock so destructive. The biggest wonder is that so many did stick bravely to their posts.
It therefore comes as no surprise that there is a campaign to have George’s grave, plus the 24 others that are similarly buried at Christ Church cemetery in Ellesmere Port, to be officially signposted by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The current Chairman of the Ellesmere Port branch of the Royal British Legion has joined this campaign. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website, lists the basic details of George Keates 28694 (one of 7 listed in their database with that name) plus pictures of the grave itself. They have welcomed the interest in the proposal and have agreed to look into it. We await these collective deliberations with interest.
David Irvine
Dulce et Decorum est
by
Wilfred Owen, (1917)
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in.
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.