WW2 100 – 3 July 1941 – ‘Always in our thoughts Gone but not forgotten’: Private Clifton Ernest Woolacott (1921-41) 12th Battalion, Devonshire Regiment
Continued from
3 July 1941 ‘Our beloved son’: Private Stanley John Holloway (1914-41)
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/12/ww2-75-3-july-1941-our-beloved-son.html
The tragic death of 20-year-old Clifton Ernest Woolacott stirred various thoughts in me when I first read about it. He is not listed on Budleigh Salterton’s War Memorial, yet his grave is in St Peter’s Burial Ground on Moor Lane. His family were not local, yet he seems to have been killed while engaged in the highly hazardous work of protecting Budleigh against invasion.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission records him as a member of the 12th Battalion, Devonshire Regiment with the Service Number was 5619427. According to the CWGC, his parents were James Thomas Woolacott and his wife, Elise Jane Woolacott, of Totnes.
Tackling this WW2 project chronologically as I am, it was clear that Ernest - as he was known to his family - had died on the same day as Private Stanley John Holloway, a fellow-member of the Devonshire Regiment’s 12th Battalion whose grave is alongside Stanley’s in Block F, Row 8.
Church of St Martin of Tours, Exminster
Image credit: David Hawgood
So I was puzzled when I came across Ernest’s name in this photo of the 1939-45 marble memorial plaque in St Martin’s church, Exminster. All the more so because the photo was on the excellent Devon Heritage website, which noted that Ernest had been born in Okehampton in 1921.
Well, at least these were all Devon places. The parents obviously moved around a bit. And the Exminster answer came from local resident Sally Williams who kindly contacted me to say that the parents according to the 1939 Register for Exminster were living at the village’s Lower Marsh Row.
St Peter’s Burial Ground, Moor Lane, in Budleigh Salterton Image credit: Commonwealth War Graves Commission
There was still the question of how both men had met their deaths. And the answer came when I found by chance a sad photo of a funeral procession about to enter St Peter’s Burial Ground with two bearer parties, each carrying a coffin.
Understanding how Ernest and Stanley died means seeing our coastline with different eyes and imagining the fear that people felt in 1940 when they were told that the country could be invaded at any moment. I’ve often thought of the story I was told by someone who lived through those times, and how it reflected that fear.
Plan of battle of Operation Sea Lion, the cancelled German plan to invade England in 1940. Image credit: Wereon – Wikipedia
This person had access to a large store of sporting guns and rifles in her village home, and imagined that they would be welcomed by her neighbours, eager to defend the country after Churchill had announced that Britain could expect to be invaded at any moment. She was shocked to discover that her offer of weapons was refused. Nobody wanted to be found by invading German paratroops and shot as armed resistance fighters. There was one exception in the village: a family of German Jewish refugees.
Invasion barges assembled at the German port of Wilhelmshaven Image credit: Wikipedia
When Hitler’s threat of launching an invasion of Britain – codenamed Operation Sea Lion – was realised by the government in 1940 there must have been similar fears, but action was taken. The authorities were convinced that the UK was in danger of suffering the same fate as other occupied countries of Europe, and immediately began fortifying the ports and potential landing beaches.
Abandoned military equipment at Dunkirk, 1940. From a set of 20 German propaganda photographs showing the aftermath of the Dunkirk evacuation. Image credit: National Army Museum
The ‘miracle of Dunkirk’ had allowed 338,226 soldiers of the British Expeditionary (BEF) Force to escape capture by the Nazis, but a mass of valuable heavy equipment had to be abandoned. Left behind in France were 2,472 guns, 20,000 motorcycles, and almost 65,000 other vehicles. Also abandoned were over 400 tons of stores, more than 75,000 tons of ammunition and over 160,000 tons of fuel. Almost all of the 445 British tanks that had been sent to France with the BEF were abandoned.
The British Army’s loss of equipment at Dunkirk would have made it difficult to defend a long and exposed coastline in response to Operation Sea Lion. Fortifications and obstacles were seen as a means of evening the balance against what was feared would be an irresistible blitzkrieg invasion force.
Budleigh beach in the 1940s: not such an inviting place
In Budleigh, the most visible obstacle to an invading force was the so-called Admiralty scaffolding, pictured above. It was also known as beach scaffolding, and officially designated Z.1. It’s been estimated that 15,000 miles of scaffolding tube was used along the British coastline.
An infantryman standing next to British anti-invasion beach defences, looks out over the English Channel Image credit: Wikiwand
Along with scaffolding, barbed wire appeared on every coastline, including Budleigh Salterton, where it was almost impossible to gain access to the beach.
The books Henrietta’s War and Henrietta Sees It Through by local author and artist Joyce Dennys were published in 1985-86. They purport to consist of wartime letters to a friend serving overseas, written by a doctor’s wife who lives in a seaside town which is evidently Budleigh.
The letters on which the books are based were originally written in wartime by Joyce Dennys for the glossy society magazine The Sketch.
In Henrietta's War, the author describes the moment of excitement in the town at the sound of the ringing of ‘Barton’s Bell’ – an allusion to the real Palmer’s Bell off the High Street in Budleigh which would have been rung in the case of invasion. Various groups of residents in uniform surge along the road ‘with a do-or-die expression on his or her face’, intent on forming a parade. ‘The last person to arrive was Colonel Simpkins, in a state of exhaustion, writes Joyce Dennys. ‘He had been caught inspecting the defences on the beach, the wrong side of the barbed wire, and had to run a mile along the pebbles before he could get back to the parade.’
Image credit: Estate of Joyce Dennys
The need to prevent tanks from breaking through was of key importance, and anti-tank traps of various designs were installed. Trios of metal spikes embedded in concrete seem to have been popular in Budleigh, judging by this sketch that Joyce Dennys produced for Henrietta’s War. Her character Henrietta Brown, in a letter dated 24 July 1940, writes to her friend Robert of how ‘the soldiery continues its activities’ as it fortifies the town, to the delight of one resident.
‘Lady B’s house is now completely surrounded by impedimenta. I met her yesterday struggling up the hill with her shopping basket. ‘Look!’ she cried, waving her hand towards a mass of barbed wire and concrete. ‘I never thought I’d be in the front line. I’m so proud!’
The same kind of anti-tank trap can be seen at the beach end of Granary Lane, as shown in this postcard from the collection of local historian Dave Mayne.
One of Budleigh's WW2 pill boxes, on Salting Hill, photographed in 2020
‘Pill-boxes spring up all around us like mushrooms,’ observes Joyce Dennys’ character Henrietta. ‘Writing one’s name, and a little Hitler abuse, in the concrete before it is dry has provided many of us with a lot of quiet fun, and Perry (the dog) shows just what he thinks of the Nazi régime every time he passes them.’
In fact a total of five pill box sites have been noted along Budleigh’s sea front. Not quite as many as mushrooms, but still a significant number for a small town. Around 28,000 pillboxes were built in Britain, just in 1940.
Within view of the pill boxes, and intended to be covered by them with machine gun fire were minefields. It was apparently when a landmine was accidentally set off on Budleigh beach that Ernest and Stanley were killed.
A 50th (Holding) Battalion of the Devonshire Regiment had been raised in 1940, and renumbered as the 12th Battalion the same year. It spent most of its time on home defence, anticipating a German invasion. The Regiment’s 11th Battalion was posted to Plymouth, while the 12th Battalion was given the specific task of defending Budleigh Salterton at the time of Ernest's and Stanley's deaths.
A military funeral procession in 1941 approaches St Peter's Burial Ground, on Moor Lane, Budleigh Salterton. Image credit: Tony Crofts
I found the above photo on the internet research platform and discussion forum ww2talk.com together with some relevant commentary. Usefully, a forum member quoted Sid Manley, a veteran member of the 12th Battalion, as saying that he could remember the funeral and that he was actually in the photo; he thought that he was second or third from the left. What he can remember is that Ernest and Stanley stepped on a mine on Budleigh Salterton beach.
Roly Evans, of the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining, is an authority on the use of landmines worldwide. ‘While not widely appreciated today, there were once 1,997 minefields in the United Kingdom containing between 338,500–350,000 landmines,’ he wrote in an article in the 2017 issue of the Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction. ‘If you were to walk today on a beach suitable for amphibious landing on either the south or east coasts of the United Kingdom, chances are that you would be walking on a former 1940s minefield.’ His article explores the story of the United Kingdom’s coastal minefields, from their hasty installation through to their costly clearance.
B Type C mine (B=beach) Image credit: Imperial War Museums Collection
A number of different mines were used in 1940. These included the B Type C from Royal Navy stores, pictured above. It contained 11.4 kg (25.1 lbs) of explosive, usually Amatol. The B stood for beach mine, although the mines were sometimes colloquially referred to as mushroom mines. While the mine had enough explosive to destroy a tank or a vehicle, it could also be initiated by a person, requiring as little as 22.7 kg (50 lbs) of weight to set it off. The device effectively functioned as both an antipersonnel and anti-tank mine. The B Type C mine would become infamous during the subsequent clearance efforts.
Generally the Royal Engineers were tasked with laying, cordoning, and recording belts of mines in minefields like those on Budleigh beach. Both sides of the belt of mines were protected by wire to prevent people straying into the area accidentally. In rural areas, sometimes a sheep would get through the wire and would be blown up. In Charmouth, not too far from Budleigh, an item in the 2014 edition of Shoreline, a community magazine mentioned this piece of news from 1940: ‘A land mine had gone off on the Stonebarrow Cliff; apparently by a cow stepping on it and that the poor beast had its head blown off by the explosion. The cow was a black one belonging to Mr Peach, the Charmouth beach attendant.’
'While effort was taken to fence off minefields and record mine locations accurately, anecdotal evidence suggests that this practice was not as universal as desired, and many minefields were laid in great haste,’ writes Roly Evans. He quotes the Corps of Royal Engineers Journal as stating that ‘the laying of minefields was the first large scale practical experience the British Army had had in this branch of warfare. Lack of experience, and hurried operation, led to many mistakes being made which were to cause much trouble to units and members of the Corps later.’
Precautions were taken to safeguard people where minefields had been laid, but they were too often in vain when dealing with the forces of nature, especially on the coast.
In Henrietta's War, the main character writes to her friend Robert on 13 November, 1940:
‘We had a sou’-westerly storm last week and the waves playfully pushed some of the barbed wire on the beach into a sad, tangled loop. This delighted the fishermen, who derive much pleasure from the havoc wrought by the storms as long as it isn’t to their boats and nets.’
Budleigh’s storms could create as much havoc in the minefields. Some efforts were made to improve on the hasty minefield laying as early as late 1940, notes Roly Evans. When properly planned and executed, beach minefields would be laid above the high water mark, and mines would be secured in place by recovery wires. Recovery wires linked mines and held them in place, assisting later clearance efforts greatly.
Clearance of minefields without recovery wires would often prove problematic, since mines would be more prone to migration. In the autumn of 1940, the 125th Infantry Brigade took over a stretch of Suffolk’s coastal defence. They noted that ‘mines have also been placed on the beaches, but the sea sucks them out to sea up to 50 yards out from the mine fields as marked on the maps. Anywhere near the sea side of the mine fields is dangerous. The mine fields are very well marked on the maps, but of course they are moved by the action of the sea.’
It would not be surprising to discover many more fatal incidents involving landmines on our stretch of the coast, in addition to the deaths of Stanley and Clifton. Roly Evans mentions that three Royal Engineers were killed by a B Type C at Cuckmere, Sussex, in September 1940, that there were more casualties in 1942.
Defensible Barracks, Pembroke. Site of a notable wartime tragedy involving landmines Image credit: Gordon Hatton; Wikipedia
One of these occurred on 28 April, 1942, at the Defensible Barracks overlooking Pembroke Dock. Eighteen men were killed instantly and another died the following day after a training course went wrong. Their graves are at the Llanion Military Cemetery in Pembroke.The incident was not widely reported due to wartime censorship.
Clearance of the UK’s minefields commenced in earnest in late 1943, once it seemed likely that the threat of a German invasion had receded.
Concrete tablet at Purbeck View School (formerly Forres School), Swanage, Dorset, engraved with names and informative short statement that the building is erected in memory of the young boys killed by a landmine at Swanage beach on 13 May 1955. Image credit: John Patrick (courtesy of Purbeck View School); Imperial War Museums Collection
Of the 117 mines laid on Swanage beach in 1940, as Britain prepared for a Nazi invasion, 58 are still unaccounted for.
Otter Head pill box, on the east bank of the river
Hopefully, all Budleigh's landmines have been removed. The harmless pill boxes are all that remain as evidence of the terrible events of 1939-45, and sadly, their educational value too often goes unnoticed. ‘The surviving physical evidence of the second world war is all around us, but is often unrecognised,’ said Historic England’s chief executive, Duncan Wilson, quoted in a Guardian newspaper article of 6 May 2020. ‘From the battle headquarters at RAF Hucknall airfield to the memorial at St Luke’s church in Bromley; from aircraft hangars, former air-raid shelters, barracks and hospitals, to the thousands of homes that sheltered evacuees, we must ensure that the rich history of these iconic sites is not forgotten.’
Remembering a WW2 building in Sidmouth: the west end of Connaught Gardens. Photographed in 2020
On a recent visit to Sidmouth I noticed the blue plaque on the pill box next to Connaught Gardens. Some people might object to this. They believe that there is a problem with war memorials in that they often become places where people glorify war even if that was not the intention. Others feel that they should be preserved as monuments to the stupidity of war rather than being airbrushed out of history. Just as the military graves in St Peter’s Burial Ground and elsewhere should testify to the awful waste of young lives, whatever their nationality.
The next post is for AIRCRAFTMAN 1ST CLASS HORACE BUCKNELL (1905-41), Service Number 354090, Royal Air Force, who died on 26 August 1941, and is buried in Winchester
You can read more at
https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/12/ww2-75-26-august-1941-buried-in.html
If you know anything which would help to identify them,
please contact Michael Downes on 01395 446407.
F.E. Newcombe
F.J. Watts
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