500 of the Best Cockney War Stories

A general and a staff officer were travelling by rail-motor towards the front line when in the darkness the rail-motor crashed into some stationary freight trucks, completely wrecking the vehicle and instantly killing the driver.

I rushed with a stretcher party to render help. The general and his staff officer were unconscious amid the wreckage.

Feverishly we worked to remove the debris which pinned them down. Two of us caught the general beneath the shoulders, and one was raising his legs when to his horror one leg came away in his hand.

When the general regained his senses, seeing our concern, he quickly reassured us. The leg turned out to be a wooden one! He had lost the original at Hill 60.

The tension over, one of the stretcher-bearers, a Cockney from Mile End, whispered into my ear, "We can't take 'im to the 'orspital, sarge, he wants to go dahn to the Ordnance!" —Sgt. T. C. Jones, M.S.M., 15 Bushey Mill Lane, Watford.

Dismal Jimmy's Prisoner

Out of the ebb and flow, the mud and blood, the din and confusion of a two days' strafe on the Somme in September 1917 my particular chum, Private James X., otherwise known as "Dismal Jimmy," emerged with a German prisoner who was somewhat below the usual stature and considerably the worse for the wear and tear of his encounter with the Cockney soldier.

"Jimmy," although obviously proud of his captive, was, as usual, "fed up" with the war, the strafe, and everything else. To make matters worse, on his way to the support trenches he was caught in the head by a sniper's bullet.

His pet grievance, however, did not come from this particular misfortune, but from the fact that the prisoner had not taken advantage of the opportunity to "'Op it!" when the incident occurred. "Wot yer fink ov 'im, mate?" he queried. "Followed me all rahnd the blinkin' trenches, 'e did! Thinks I got a bit o' tripe on a skewer, maybe, th' dirty dog!" "Jimmy" muttered. Then he came under the orders of a Higher Command. —H. J. R., 1 Central Buildings, Westminster, S.W.1.

That Creepy Feeling

In the brick-fields at La Bassée, 1915, there was a pump about five yards from our front line which we dare not approach in daylight. At night it was equally dangerous as it squeaked and so drew the sniper's fire.

We gave up trying to use it after a few of our fellows had been sniped in their attempts, until Nobby Clarke said he would get the water, adding: "That blinkin' sniper hasn't my name on any of his ruddy bullets."

After he had gone we heard the usual squeak of the pump, followed by the inevitable ping! … ping! We waited. No Nobby returned.

Two of us crawled out to where he lay to bring him in. "Strewth, Bill," he cried when my mate touched him, "you didn't 'arf put the blinkin' wind up me, creepin' aht like that!"

There he lay, on his back, with a piece of rope tied to the handle of the pump. We always got our water after that. —F. J. Pike (late 2nd Grenadier Guards), 4 Hilldrop Road, Bromley, Kent.

"Toot-Sweet," the Runner

Scene: Before Combles in the front line.

Position: Acute.

Several runners had been despatched from the forward position with urgent messages for Headquarters, and all had suffered the common fate of these intrepid fellows. One Cockney named Sweet, and known as "Toot-Sweet" for obvious reasons, had distinguished himself upon various occasions in acting as a runner.

A volunteer runner was called for to cover a particularly dangerous piece of ground, and our old friend was to the fore as usual. "But," said the company officer, "I can't send you again – someone else must go."

Imagine his astonishment when "Toot-Sweet" said, "Giv' us this charnce, sir. I've got two mentions in dispatches now, an' I only want annuvver to git a medal."

He went, but he did not get a medal. —E. V. S. (late Middlesex Regt.), London, N.W.2.

Applying the Moral

Before we made an attack on "The Mound of Death," St. Eloi, in the early part of 1916, our Brigadier-General addressed the battalion and impressed upon us the importance of taking our objective.

He told us the tale of two mice which fell into a basin of milk. The faint-hearted one gave up and was drowned. The other churned away with his legs until the milk turned into butter and he could walk away! He hoped that we would show the same determination in our attack.

We blew up part of the German front line, which had been mined, and attacked each side of the crater, and took the position, though with heavy losses.

On the following day one of my platoon fell into the crater, which, of course, was very muddy. As he plunged about in it he shouted "When I've churned this ruddy mud into concrete I'm 'opping aht of it."

This was the action in which our gallant chaplain, Captain the Rev. Noel Mellish, won the V.C. —"Reg. Bomber," 4th Royal Fusiliers, 3rd Division.

Spelling v. Shelling

An attack was to be made by our battalion at Givenchy in 1915. The Germans must have learned of the intention, for two hours before it was due to begin they sent up a strong barrage, causing many casualties.

Letters and cards, which might be their last, were being sent home by our men, and a Cockney at the other end of our dug-out shouted to his mate, "'Arry, 'ow d'yer spell 'delightful'?" —H. W. Mason (late 23rd London Regt.), 26 Prairie Street, Battersea, S.W.

Too Much Hot Water

We were taking a much-needed bath and change in the Brewery vats at Poperinghe, when Jerry started a mad five minutes' "strafe" with, as it seemed, the old Brewery as a target.

Above the din of explosions, falling bricks, and general "wind-up" the aggrieved voice of Sammy Wilkes from Poplar, who was still in the vat, was heard:

"Lumme, and I only asked for a little drop more 'ot water." —Albert Girardot (late K.R.R.), 25 °Cornwall Road, Ladbroke Grove, W.11.

"Ducks and Drakes! Ducks and Drakes!"

After the evacuation of the Dardanelles the "Drakes" of the Royal Naval Division were ordered to France. Amongst them was Jack (his real name was John). A young Soccer player, swift of foot, he was chosen as a "runner."

One day he tumbled into a shell hole. And just as he had recovered his wits in came Colonel Freyberg, V.C., somewhat wounded. Seeing Jack, he told him he was just the boy he wanted – the lad had run away from home to join up before he was seventeen – and scribbling a note the colonel handed it to him.

The boy was told if he delivered it safely he could help the colonel to take Beaucourt. Jack began to scramble out. It was none too inviting, for shells were bursting in all directions, and it was much more comfortable inside. With a wide vocabulary from the Old Kent Road, he timely remembered that his father was a clergyman, and muttering to himself, "Ducks and drakes, ducks and drakes," he reached the top and went on his way.

The sequel was that the message was delivered, reinforcements came up, led by the boy to the colonel, and Beaucourt was taken. —Father Hughes, 60 Hainault Avenue, Westcliff-on-Sea.

You Must have Discipline

On September 14, 1916, at Angle Wood on the Somme, the 168th (London) Brigade Signals were unloading a limber on a slope, on top of which was a battery which Jerry was trying to find. One of his shells found us, knocking all of us over and wounding nine or ten of us (one fatally).

As the smoke and dust cleared, our Cockney sergeant (an old soldier whose slogan was "You must have discipline") gradually rose to a sitting position, and, whipping out his notebook and pencil, called "Nah, then, oo's wounded?" and calmly proceeded to write down names. —Wm. R. Smith (late R.E. Signals), 231 Halley Road, Manor Park, E.12.

L.B.W. in Mespot

At a certain period during the operations in Mesopotamia so dependent were both the British and the Turks on the supply of water from the Tigris that it became an unwritten law that water-carriers from both sides were not to be sniped at.

This went on until a fresh British regiment, not having had the position explained, fired on a party of Turks as they were returning from the river. The next time we went down to get water the Turks, of course, returned the compliment; so from then onwards all water carrying had to be done under cover of darkness.

On one of these occasions a Turkish sniper peppered our water party as they were returning to our lines. They all got back, however; but one, a man from Limehouse, was seen to be struggling with his water container only half full, and at the same time it was noticed that his trousers and boots were saturated.

"Hi!" shouted the sergeant, "you've lost half the water. Did that sniper get your bucket?"

"Not 'im," replied the Cockney, "I saw to that. 'E only got me leg."

What, in the darkness, appeared to be water spilt from the bucket was really the result of a nasty flesh wound. —J. M. Rendle (Lieut., I.A.R.O.), White Cottage, St. Leonard's Gardens, Hove, Sussex.