WW2 100 - 25 September 1942 - A tragic accident at Dalditch Camp: Lieutenant James Ayers Bayley, Royal Marines 1918-42

Continued from 19 August 1942

‘Never forgotten. He was one of the best.’ 

PRIVATE ERNEST FRANK HARDING (1919-42)   

https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/11/ww2-7513-never-forgotten-he-was-one-of.html

 

Lieutenant James Ayers Bayley’s is one of the 13 WW2 military graves in St Peter’s Burial Ground registered on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website.  He died on 25 September 1942.

 

‘Killed on Active Service’ and the fact that he is buried in Budleigh Salterton, along with the fact that his uncle was a respected local resident and that James' widow Elizabeth apparently came from Exmouth might suggest that his name should be on Budleigh’s War Memorial, but it is not.  And ‘Killed on Active Service’ gives no clue that this 24-year-old officer was actually shot and killed by a Bren gun while on a training exercise.  

James was born on 6 September 1918, the son of Captain L.H. Bayley RN and Isa R.N. Bayley according to the CWGC website.

Lawrence Hodson Bayley, his father, had been a serving naval officer on submarines since 1915, commanding HMS V4 and then HMS V3 in 1918. He took command of HMS H48 in September 1919 and in the following year was involved in an unfortunate accident when his submarine collided with and damaged the fishing vessel Junita, an incident which he failed to report. 

Known as a good boxer he asked to leave the submarine service in 1921 to pursue a qualification in physical training and participate in the Imperial Service Boxing Championship. By 1928 he had been promoted to the rank of Commander, working hard to promote physical training in the Navy which apparently resulted in ‘a large number of officers taking part in many forms of sport’. He requested to be placed on the Retired List at his own request on 1 March, 1937 and subsequently was promoted to the rank of Captain (retired) on 6 March, 1938.  

Image courtesy of Nicholas Parks Young

WW2 saw him promoted as Training Commander at HMS Collingwood,  a Royal Navy shore establishment formed in 1940 as an entry camp for new recruits.  From August 1941 to April 1942, he was in command of HMS Montclare, a passenger ship which had been converted to an armed merchant cruiser.

 

It was no surprise, given his father’s naval background, that James decided on a military career. He was gazetted 2^nd Lieutenant with the Royal Marines, effective from 1 January 1937, and by 1 April 1939 had made the rank of Lieutenant.  

Left: Badge of the Royal Marines

The newspaper announcing James’ death described the location of the accident as ‘a camp in the South-West’ – clearly Dalditch. It also gave his place of residence as Chorley Wood in Hertfordshire. But James was certainly familiar with our area. The probate details published after his death give his address as 'Gullivers', which is the name of a house at 96, Bradham Lane, Exmouth.  His estate was given as £1,598.16s.9d, the equivalent of approximately £75,000 in today's money. 

Well before he joined the Royal Marines, James' uncle, Victor Bayley CIE, CBE, had returned to England after a distinguished career as an engineer in India. He had settled in Budleigh at 7 Cliff Terrace, taking up a second career as an author to write thrillers based on his overseas experience: Dangerous Derelict, House of Hatred and City of Fear were just a few of the titles! 

Later, in 1943, he found time to become Chairman of Budleigh Salterton Urban District Council. Perhaps James had met his future wife Elizabeth while visiting Uncle Victor.  

This lovely photo, spotted by Local historian and Dalditch Camp expert Simon Fogg,  shows the couple at their wedding in Gosport in April 1941. Shortly after receiving that photo I received another, that group photo of HMS Collingwood. 

 That fine-looking terrier was obviously an important Navy mascot as well as a much loved pet for the Bayley family. 

 

Map of Dalditch Camp 1941-46 as re-drawn by Simon Fogg

Woodbury Common with its wild landscape of undulating gorse and heather covered heathland has been used by the military for centuries, but it was in Autumn 1941 that tents and marquees began to be replaced by Nissen huts, and Dalditch Camp came into being as a large training centre for Royal Marine recruits. At its zenith there were over 6,000 inhabitants in what became virtually a small town until it closed in November 1946.    

 

Flamethrowers were actually used at Dalditch from 1943

The Camp had the facilities to practise specialised weapons and combat training. Weapons handling, marksmanship and demolition were all part of the activities regarded as essential experience for recruits, involving flamethrowers, grenades and machine guns.  

 

Commando veteran and former President of the Commando Association James Dunning gives an insight into such wartime experience for recruits based at camps like Dalditch in his book It Had to be Tough: The Origins and Training of the Commandos in World War II (2000). It was regular practice for trainees to be subjected to live fire, and Woodbury Common was ideal for providing field firing ranges where, for example, light machine guns (LMGs) such as the Bren gun could be used on pre-set ‘fixed lines’ to simulate enemy fire. 

‘This safety measure ensured that the ‘enemy fire’ was overhead, but only just, or to the flanks of the advancing troops,’ explains James Dunning. ‘Such firing enabled the trainees to experience the crack, whine and thump, characteristic of hostile small arms fire, whilst controlled buried explosives – detonated by remote control – simulated mortar and artillery fire and enemy mines. Smoke canisters were ignited to add to the realism and ‘fog of battle’.  Collectively these innovative practices gave rise to a new military training term: ‘Battle Inoculation’.’

Bren guns as used by Royal Marines students during WW2 at Dalditch

One important aspect of this training was teaching recruits how to identify the precise location of enemy positions based on the sound made by hostile weapons as they fired.

 

The Mark 1 Bren gun  Image credit: Robert DuHamel

The Bren gun was a gas-operated weapon, which used the same .303 ammunition as the standard British bolt-action rifle, the Lee–Enfield, firing at a rate of between 480 and 540 rounds per minute (rpm), depending on the model. It was operated by a two-man crew, sometimes commanded by a Lance Corporal as an infantry section's ‘gun group’, the remainder of the section forming the ‘rifle group’. The gunner or ‘Number 1’ carried and fired the Bren, and a loader or ‘Number 2’ carried extra magazines, a spare barrel and a tool kit. Number 2 helped reload the gun and replace the barrel when it overheated, and spotted targets for Number 1. It had an effective firing range of 600 yards (550 m). The Mk1 version was built and introduced into service in Britain in 1936. The Mk 2, a simplified version of the Mk1 more suited to wartime production was produced in 1941. Loaded, it weighed just over 23 lb, and had what has been described as a complicated tripod mount.

On the late afternoon of Friday 25 September 1942, James and 16 other gun officers of the Royal Marines were on one of Dalditch Camp's firing ranges, supervised by Lieutenant Colonel F.B. Pym. Most likely it was the 500 yard range - which has 200 and 300 as well as 500 yard points -  known as 'the field range' on Colaton Raleigh Common, next to Woodbury Castle.  Simon Fogg has found .303 cartridges on that range which have the distinctive oval Bren gun firing pin dent on the primer. It was a calm autumn day, and a line of guns had been set up in the morning in readiness for a firing demonstration. Some rain had fallen earlier on, but not enough to postpone the event which was part of the officer students’ training.  The first part of the programme consisted of students lying down and trying to locate by listening from what direction the various weapons had been fired.

For the second part, the order was given to stand up, and two single shots of a Bren gun located 200 yards from their front were fired over the heads of the students. The shots were fired in rapid succession. To his horror, Colonel Pym suddenly realised that James was lying on the ground. The young officer had died instantly, shot in the head.  

The Western Morning News of 29 September reported fully on the inquest, which was held in Budleigh on the previous day. James’ uncle Victor attended, representing the family. Col Pym informed the East Devon Coroner, Mr C.N. Tweed, that a military enquiry into the matter was still sitting, but that, speaking personally, he could not detect any carelessness whatsoever.  Another Royal Marines officer, Captain C.H. Corpe, told the inquest that he had examined the gun after it had been fired, and had noticed that the sight was almost directly in line with where James had been standing. Further examination of the tripod showed that it was secure, except that the front leg was placed on some furze twigs underneath which was wet ground.  Captain Corpe had pressed on the top of the tripod and found that there was ‘a slight depression’. His view was that the rain in the early part of the afternoon may have affected the position of the tripod. Another Royal Marines witness, Colour Sergeant S.E.Percival, told the inquest that he had set the tripod and gun in the position indicated by an officer; he had examined the sights and found them to be in order before the gun was loaded.

The Coroner concluded that James’ death was the result of ‘an unfortunate and regrettable accident’ and that he could not apportion blame to anyone. He was quite prepared to accept the theory that the front leg of the tripod had become displaced owing to the soft nature of the ground. James’ uncle Victor told the inquest that he believed that everything had been done that could be done.  

Perhaps not. Simon Fogg believes, like me, that James’ name should be commemorated on our War Memorial, and perhaps also Exmouth's. It’s true that James was not killed in battle, but then neither was Lancelot Dennys, who was killed in a plane crash in China. Perhaps, when a future WW2 anniversary approaches, cases like James should be considered for inclusion in some form on the War Memorial. In any event, I was saddened by discovering the truth behind that ‘Killed in Action’ and thought that, nearly 80 years on, people might like to give some thought to poor James and his family.   

James’ grave is in Section E, number 195, of St Peter’s Burial Ground.

Dalditch Camp images courtesy of Simon Fogg, and I am grateful to Simon for digging out vital documents which tell James' story. 

The next post is for PRIVATE CHARLES WILLIAM HOLMES (1910-42)  who was killed in North Africa on 24 Oct 1942 while serving with The Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey), 1/7 Battalion in North Africa. You can read about him at 

https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2021/01/ww2-75-24-october-1942-sadly-missed-by.html

These ‘orphans’ are listed on Budleigh Salterton War 

Memorial, but have not been identified. Their first names, 

date of death and service numbers are not known. 

They are recorded on the Devon Heritage website as 

'Not yet confirmed’  

If you know anything which would help to identify them,

please contact Michael Downes on 01395 446407.

 

J.S. Harris

F.E. Newcombe

P. Pritchard

A.G. Watkins

F.J. Watts