500 of the Best Cockney War Stories

A "Bow Bells" Heroine

For seven hours, with little intermission, the German airmen bombed a camp not a hundred miles from Etaples. Of the handful of Q.M.A.A.C.s stationed there, one was an eighteen-year-old middle-class girl, high-strung, sensitive, not long finished with her convent school. Another was Kitty, a Cockney girl of twenty, by occupation a machine-hand, by vocation (missed) a comédienne, and, by heaven, a heroine.

The high courage of the younger girl was cracking under the strain of that ordeal by bombs. Kitty saw how it was with her, and for five long hours she gave a recital of song, dialogue, and dance – most of it improvised – while the bombs fell and the anti-aircraft guns screamed. In all probability she saved the younger girl's reason.

When the last raider had dropped the last bomb, Kitty sank down, all but exhausted, and for long cried and laughed hysterically. Hers was not the least heroic part played upon that night. —H. N., London, E.

Samson, but Shorn

During the German attack near Zillebeke in June 1916 a diminutive Cockney, named Samson, oddly enough, received a scalp wound from a shell splinter which furrowed a neat path through his hair.

The fighting was rather hot at the time, and this great-hearted little Londoner carried on with the good work.

Some hours later came the order to fall back, and as the Cockney was making his way down the remains of a trench, dazed and staggering, a harassed sergeant, himself nearly "all in," ordered him to bear off a couple of rifles and a box of ammunition.

This was the last straw. "Strike, sergeant," he said, weakly, "I can't 'elp me name being Samson, but I've just 'ad me perishin' 'air cut!" – "Townie," R.A.F.

"What's Bred in the Bone – !"

When we were at Railway Wood, Ypres Salient, in 1916, "Muddy Lane," our only communication trench from the front line to the support line, had been reduced to shapelessness by innumerable "heavies." Progress in either direction entailed exposure to snipers in at least twelve different places, and runners and messengers were, as our sergeant put it, "tickled all the way."

In the support line one afternoon, hearing the familiar "Crack! Crack! Crack!" I went to Muddy Lane junction to await the advertised visitor. He arrived – a wiry little Cockney Tommy, with his tin hat dented in two places and blood trickling from a bullet graze on the cheek.

In appreciation of the risk he had run I remarked, "Jerry seems to be watching that bit!"

"Watching!" he replied. "'Struth! I felt like I was walking darn Sarthend Pier naked!" —Vernon Sylvaine, late Somerset L.I., Grand Theatre, Croydon.

A Very Human Concertina

In March 1918, when Jerry was making his last great attack, I was in the neighbourhood of Petit Barisis when three enemy bombing planes appeared overhead and gave us their load. After all was clear I overheard this dialogue between two diminutive privates of the 7th Battalion, the London Regiment ("Shiny Seventh"), who were on guard duty at the Q.M. Stores:

"You all right, Bill?"

"Yes, George!"

"Where'd you get to, Bill, when he dropped his eggs?"

"Made a blooming concertina of meself and got underneaf me blinkin' tin 'at!" —F. A. Newman, 8 Levett Gardens, Ilford, Ex-Q.M.S., 8th London (Post Office Rifles).

A One-Man Army

The 47th London Division were holding the line in the Bluff sector, near Ypres, early in 1917, and the 20th London Battalion were being relieved on a very wet evening, as I was going up to the front line with a working party.

Near Hell Fire Corner shells were coming over at about three-minute intervals. One of the 20th London Lewis gunners was passing in full fighting order, with fur coat, gum boots, etc., carrying his Lewis gun, several drums of ammunition, and the inevitable rum jar.

One of my working party, a typical Cockney, surveyed him and said:

"Look! Blimey, he only wants a field gun under each arm and he'd be a bally division." —Lieut. – Col. J. H. Langton, D.S.O.

"Nah, Mate! Soufend!"

During the heavy rains in the summer of 1917 our headquarters dug-out got flooded. So a fatigue party was detailed to bale it out.

"Long Bert" Smith was one of our baling squad. Because of his abnormal reach, he was stationed at the "crab-crawl," his job being to throw the water outside as we handed the buckets up to him.

It was a dangerous post. Jerry was pasting the whole area unmercifully and shell splinters pounded on the dug-out roof every few seconds.

Twenty minutes after we had started work Bert got badly hit, and it was some time before the stretcher-bearers could venture out to him. When they did so he seemed to be unconscious.

"Poor blighter!" said one of the bearers. "Looks to be going West."

Bert, game to the last, opened his eyes and, seeing the canvas bucket still convulsively clutched in his right fist, "Nah, mate!" he grunted – "Soufend!"

But the stretcher-bearer was right. —C. Vanon, 33 Frederick Street, W.C.I.

"I Got 'Ole Nelson Beat!"

Several stretcher cases in the field dressing station at the foot of "Chocolate Hill," Gallipoli, awaited removal by ambulance, including a Cockney trooper in the dismounted Yeomanry.

He had a bandage round his head, only one eye was visible, and his left arm was bound to his breast with a sandbag.

His rapid-fire of Cockney witticisms had helped to keep our spirits up while waiting – he had a comment for everything. Suddenly a "strafe" started, and a shrapnel shell shot its load among us.

Confusion, shouts, and moans – then a half-hysterical, half-triumphant shout from the Cockney: "Lumme, one in the blinkin' leg this time. I got 'ole Nelson beat at last!" —J. Coomer (late R.E.), 31 Hawthorn Avenue, Thornton Heath.

Two Kinds of Fatalist

A German sniper was busy potting at our men in a front-line trench at Cambrai in March 1918. A Cockney "old sweat," observing a youngster gazing over the parapet, asked him if he were a fatalist.

The youngster replied "Yes."

"So am I," said the Cockney, "but I believes in duckin'." – "Brownie," Kensal Rise, N.W.10.

Double up, Beauty Chorus!

One summer afternoon in '15 some lads of the Rifle Brigade were bathing in the lake in the grounds of the château at Elverdinghe, a mile or so behind the line at Ypres, when German shells began to land uncomfortably near. The swimmers immediately made for the land, and, drawing only boots on their feet, dashed for the cellar in the château.

As they hurried into the shelter a Cockney sergeant bellowed, "Nah then, booty chorus: double up an' change for the next act!" —G E. Roberts, M.C. (late Genl. List, att'd 21st Divn. Signal Co.), 28 Sunbury Gardens, Mill Hill, N.W.7.

The Theatre of War

During the battle of Arras, Easter 1917, we were lying out in front of our wire in extended order waiting for our show to begin. Both our artillery and that of Fritz were bombarding as hard as they could. It was pouring with rain, and everybody was caked in mud.

Our platoon officer, finding he had a good supply of chocolate, and realising that rations might not be forthcoming for some time, crept along the line and gave us each a piece.

As he handed a packet to one cheerful Cockney he was asked, "Wot abaht a programme, sir?" —W. B. Finch (late London Regiment), 155 High Road, Felixstowe.

"It's the Skivvy's 'Arf Day Orf"