By Isle of Wight Observer
My grandfather, ‘Jim’ Banks, was one of 1,114,805 British military personnel lost in WW1. Worldwide losses were around nine million. My grandfather was among 559,000 British and Commonwealth soldiers missing with unknown graves. It had been my intention for many years to find out more about him as a man and find out where he had likely been killed and buried.
My grandfather was a dedicated soldier; killed in the Third Battle of Messines, Ypres, Belgium in June 1917, aged 35. Before the war, he was with a yeomanry (territorial) force, serving short spells in both India and Egypt.
At the outbreak of war he was immediately transferred to the Dorsetshire Regiment as a sergeant and posted to India. From there, in 1915, he was sent to Gallipoli where 40 per cent of his battalion were killed or injured. Early in 1916 he was in Egypt for the protection of the Suez Canal and later that year was on the Somme from where he returned home injured. Although discharged on medical grounds he claimed he was fit to return to the Somme.
On June 7, 1917, he was posted to Oosttaverne, Belgium, in the Ypres Salient. My grandfather, at that time a sergeant, volunteered to take a small group of men to relay communication trenches at night. Five men, including my grandfather, were killed by overhead shelling. Records show him as being buried at “Mahieu Farm” Oosttaverne, 5 miles from Ypres. My grandmother was told by one of the survivors that grandfather’s remains laid close to the farmhouse.
I flew to Belgium in October 2017 taking the train to Ypres. I found grandfather’s name on the town’s Menin Gate which records 54,000 soldiers with no known grave. The taxi driver, who had picked me up from the station, later took me to find the farm.
After searching farmland areas for nearly two hours we found one elderly farmer who knew the farm and
gave us directions.
At the farm buildings we met the owner’s son, Bram, and explained the reason for the visit. The original farmhouse had been lost in the war, with the family returning afterwards. I was shown the area where the old farmhouse stood and for me, standing in the place where my grandfather’s remains laid, was a most poignant one. I placed a small wooden commemorative cross by the field’s gate.
Bram told me his grandfather, aged 92, had been killed a few years previously, while ploughing, and that only recently two local farmers had lost their lives from exploding munitions. He showed me a large pile of shells dug up over the last five months.
I had achieved my objective but wanted to leave some mark of remembrance to my grandfather. I emailed Bram asking if he would be willing for a stone marker to be placed at the farm, near the old farmhouse. The family agreed to such, so I organised the making of an inscribed stone marker, arranging for it to be sent from the Island.
The following year I flew back and re-visited the farm. The marker was already carefully sited, facing the area where grandfather’s remains were laid.
There is little known of my grandfather’s home life. Family reports were that he was “Army mad”. For him it was “God, King, Country and family” in that order. My grandmother, with their only child in her arms, waved her final goodbye as he set off for the front. He never turned around; he saw army comrades marching ahead and ran to join them. This was the last they saw of him.