500 of the Best Cockney War Stories

Trench-er Work

We were attacking Messines Ridge. The ground was a mass of flooded shell-holes. Hearing a splash and some cursing in a familiar voice, I called out, "Are you all right, Tubby?"

The reply came, as he crawled out of a miniature mine crater, "Yus, but I've lorst me 'ipe (rifle)."

I asked what he was going to do, and he replied, "You dig them German sausages out with yer baynit and I'll eat 'em."

So saying, he pulled out his knife and fork and proceeded towards the enemy trenches. —"Pip Don" (London Regt.), 22 Ingram Road, Thornton Heath.

"The Best Man – Goes Fust"

In the second battle of Arras, 1917, our regiment was held up near Gavrelle and was occupying a line of shell-holes. The earth was heaving all around us with the heavy barrage. Peeping over the top of my shell-hole I found my neighbours, "Shorty" (of Barnes) and "Tiny" (of Kent) arguing about who was the best man.

All of a sudden over came one of Jerry's five-nines. It burst too close to "Shorty," who got the worst of it, and was nearly done for. But he finished his argument, for he said to "Tiny" in a weak voice, "That shows you who's the best man. My ole muvver always says as the best goes fust." —J. Saxby, Paddington, W.2.

When Clemenceau Kissed the Sergeant

About Christmas of 1917 I was on the Somme with one of the most Cockney of the many battalions of the Royal Fusiliers. As we sheltered in dug-outs from the "gale" Fritz was putting over, to our surprise we heard a voice greet us in French, "Allons, mes enfants: Ça va toujours."

Looking up we beheld an old man in shabby suit and battered hat who seemed the typical French peasant. "Well, of all the old idiots," called out the sergeant. "Shut yer face an' 'ook it, ye blamed old fool." For answer the old man gave the sergeant the surprise of his life by seizing him in a grip of iron and planting a resounding kiss on each cheek, French fashion.

Just at that moment some brass hats came along and the mystery was explained. The "old fool" was the late Georges Clemenceau, then French War Minister, who had come to see for himself what it was like in our sector and had lost his guides.

"An' to think that 'e kissed me just like I was a kid, after I'd told 'im to 'ook it," commented the sergeant afterwards. "Wonder wot 'e'd 'a done 'ad I told 'im to go to 'ell, as I'd 'alf a mind to."

Years later I was one of a party of the British Legion received in Paris by "The Tiger," and I recalled the incident. "Père La Victoire" laughed heartily. "That Cockney sergeant was right," he said, "I was an old fool to go about like that in the line, but then somebody has got to play the fool in war-time, so that there may be no follies left for the wise heads to indulge in." —H. Stockman, Hôtel Terminus, Rue St. Lazare, Paris, VIIIème, France.

Poet and – Prophet

I was sitting with my pal in the trenches of the front line waiting for the next move when I heard our Cockney break into the chorus of a home-made song:

"'Twas moonlight in the trenches,
The sky was royal blue,
When Jerry let his popgun go,
And up the 'ole 'ouse flew."

The last words were drowned in a terrific crash. There was sudden quiet afterwards, and then a voice said, "There y'are, wot did I tell yer?" —T. E. Crouch, 28 Eleanor Road, Hackney, E.8.

Pub that Opened Punctually

It was at the village of Zudkerque, where Fritz had bombed and blown up a dump in 1916. My pal and I were standing outside a cafe, the windows of which were shuttered, when the blast of a terrific explosion blew out the shutters. They hit my pal and me on the head and knocked us into the roadway.

My pal picked himself up, and, shaking bits of broken glass off him and holding a badly gashed head, said: "Lumme, Ginger, they don't 'arf open up quick 'ere. Let's go an 'ave one." —J. March (late R.E.), London, S.E.

That Precious Tiny Tot

We had paraded for the rum issue at Frankton Camp, near Ypres, when the enemy opened fire with long-range guns. A Cockney came forward with his mug, drew his issue, and moved off to drink it under cover and at leisure. Suddenly a large shell whooped over and burst about 40 yards away. With a casual glance at the fountain of earth which soared up, the man calmly removed his shrapnel helmet and held it over his mug until the rain of earth and stones ceased. —"Skipper," D.L.I., London, W.2.

Cigs and Cough Drops

Cigarettes we knew not; food was scarce, so was ammunition. Consequently I was detailed on the eve of the retreat from Serbia to collect boxes of S.A.A. lying near the front line.

On the way to report my arrival to the infantry officer I found a Cockney Tommy badly wounded in the chest. "It's me chest, ain't it, mate?" he asked. I nodded in reply. "Then I'll want corf drops, not them," and with that he handed me a packet of cigarettes. How he got them and secretly saved them up so long is a mystery.

I believe he knew that he would not require either cough drops or cigarettes, and I took a vow to keep the empty packet to remind me of the gallant fellow. —H. R. (late R.F.A.), 10th Division, London, N.3.

"Smiler" to the End

When Passchendaele started on July 31, 1917, we who were holding ground captured in the Messines stunt of June 7 carried out a "dummy" attack.

One of the walking wounded coming back from this affair of bluff, I struck a hot passage, for Jerry was shelling the back areas with terrific pertinacity. Making my way to the corduroy road by Mount Kemmel, I struck a stretcher party. Their burden was a rifleman of the R.B.'s, whose body was a mass of bandages. Seeing me ducking and dodging every time a salvo burst near he called out:

"Keep wiv me, mate, 'cos two shells never busts in the same 'ole – and if I ain't a shell 'ole 'oo is?"

Sheer grit kept him alive until after we reached Lord Derby's War Hospital outside Warrington, and the nickname of "Smiler" fitted him to the last. —W. G. C., 2 Avonly Road, S.E.14.

"The Bishop" and the Bright Side

A fully-qualified chartered accountant in the City, my pal, "The Bishop" – so called because of his dignified manner – was promoted company-clerk in the Irish Rifles at Messines in 1917.

Company headquarters were in a dark and dismal barn where the Company Commander and "The Bishop" were writing under difficulties one fine morning – listening acutely to the shriek and crash of Jerry's whizz-bangs just outside the ramshackle door.

The betting was about fifty to one on a direct hit at any moment. The skipper had a wary eye on "The Bishop" – oldish, shortish, stoutish, rather comical card in his Tommy's kit. Both were studiously preserving an air of outward calm.

Then the direct hit came – high up, bang through the rafters, and blew off the roof. "The Bishop" looked up at the sky, still clutching his fountain-pen.

"Ah, that's better, sir," he said. "Now we can see what we are doing." —P. J. K., Westbourne Grove, W.2.

"Chuck yer Blinkin' 'Aggis at 'im!"

The Cockney inhabitants of "Brick Alley," at Carnoy, on the Somme in 1916, had endured considerable attention from a German whizz-bang battery situated a mile or so away behind Trones Wood.

During a lull in the proceedings a fatigue party of "Jocks," each carrying a 40-lb. sphere, the business end of a "toffee-apple" (trench mortar bomb), made their appearance, and were nicely strung out in the trench when Jerry opened out again.

The chances of a direct hit made matters doubly unpleasant.

The tension became a little too much for one of the regular billetees, and from a funk-hole in the side of the trench a reproachful voice addressed the nearest Highlander: "For the luv o' Mike, Jock, get up and chuck yer blinkin' 'aggis at 'em." —J. C. Whiting (late 8th Royal Sussex Pioneers), 36 Hamlet Gardens, W.6.

Back to Childhood

I had been given a lift in an A.S.C. lorry going to Jonchery on May 27, 1918, when it was suddenly attacked by a German plane. On getting a burst of machine-gun bullets through the wind-screen the driver, a stout man of about forty, pulled up, and we both clambered down.

The plane came lower and re-opened fire, and as there was no other shelter we were obliged to crawl underneath the lorry and dodge from one side to the other in order to avoid the bullets.

After one hurried "pot" at the plane, and as we dived for the other side, my companion gasped: "Lumme! Fancy a bloke my age a-playin' 'ide an' seek!" —H. G. E. Woods, "The Willows," Bridge Street, Maidenhead.

The Altruist

One afternoon in July 1917 our battalion was lying by a roadside on the Ypres front waiting for night to fall so that we could proceed to the front line trenches.