http://www.cooganresearchgroup.com/crg/index.htm

19 December 2021

COOGAN story written about the Battle of the Somme [France] (World 
War I), including letter excerpts from Private Harry Coogan of 
Mancester, England (extracted from "Middleton Guardian", 29 JUN 2006):


OVER THE TOP, BOYS!
by Martin Purdy and Ian Dawson

SATURDAY is the 90th anniversary of what historians still refer to as 
"the blackest day" in British military history - the start of the Battle 
of the Somme. As part of our ongoing series about Middleton and the 
First World War, we look at what happened on that infamous first day of 
July in 1916...

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"I FOUND the body of your son on the battlefield opposite Montauban 
(France) this morning. He died with his face to the enemy."

These were the words of a Lieutenant Farr to the parents of Private 
Percy Wade of Sedgley House, Middleton Junction. Percy had been serving 
with the Manchester Pals and been killed during "the great advance" of 
July 1, 1916.

The Deputy Town Clerk of Middleton Council, he had played for Middleton 
Cricket Club and represented the town in rugby matches. His was a 
promising life cut short ... he wasn't alone.

"We went over the top and it was an awful experience. Lots of very good 
fellows are now sleeping their last out here. I shall never forget the 
sights I have witnessed for as long as I live. The dead and dying were 
all over the place," wrote Private Harry Coogan, also of the Manchester 
Regiment, in a letter home to his family in Rhodes describing the events 
of July 1.

Yet even this does not start to capture the horror of the first day of 
the Battle of the Somme.

As reported last week, this was meant to be "the big push", the decisive 
breakthrough that would snap the German line after 18 months of hellish 
trench warfare and mark the beginning of the end for the enemy on the 
Western Front.

The Germans had held the high ground of the agricultural lands around 
the River Somme, in northern France, since late 1914. However, the 
British high command had failed to recognise just how complex and 
comprehensive the German defensive positions were. Intricate networks 
of trenches and strongpoints surrounded by belts of deep barbed wire 
presented a formidable barrier.

To make matters worse, the Army commanders were far from convinced that 
Kitchener's civilian army - which had spent the past two years in 
training - was up to the job. As such, they decided to try and make life 
easier for them by pounding the German lines relentlessly for seven days 
prior to the attack with heavy shellfire.

Around 2,000 artillery pieces would keep up the pressure, with 1.7 
million shells fired in a week. Mines had been tunnelled under 17 enemy 
strongpoints that would be blown up prior to the men going "over the 
top". At the end of this there would be no Germans left alive and the 
troops could walk across no man's land and take their objectives with 
minimal loss along a 25-mile front.

In reality, the German defensive positions included deep dugouts that 
protected them physically, if not mentally, from the intense bombardment.

On the eighth day, when it stopped, they knew exactly what was coming 
and clambered out to man their trenches with rifles and machine guns. 
They were stunned by what they saw - thousands of heavily laden British 
troops strolling across the open ground in broad sunshine, some even 
kicking footballs as they went. It was suicide, and by the end of the 
day there were 60,000 British soldiers dead, wounded, missing or taken 
prisoner. Nearly a third of these were dead. Many Germans were reportedly 
sickened by the carnage they had inflicted.

The attack had been an abject failure with one or two exceptions. One 
success was the attack of the Manchester Pals on Mantauban, where the 
men had managed to get into the fortified village.

Private H Battison, of Rochdale Road, was in the attack by the 
Manchesters and said: "You would have thought it impossible for anyone 
to get through alive amidst the great hail of shells, bombs and machine 
gun fire. It is just as though we were walking through a sheet of steel."

Private Joshua Beswick, of Wince Brook, was also in the thick of it: 
"We went into action at 7.30am on July 1. I shall never forget it. We 
took four lines of German trenches and a village. It was the first 
charge I had been in. The Germans were crying for mercy. I got blown up 
(and wounded) by a shell."

Private Harry Coogan was in the second wave of the attack and wrote: 
"We lost many officers and a great many men. After we got into their 
trenches the Germans swarmed out of their dugouts and cried 'mercy' and 
would give you anything to spare their lives. I had never seen a German 
before but I have seen enough now and I do not want to see any more. I 
am very glad to say I came through all right, though the Lord only knows 
how I managed it.

"I did not go over in the charge with the other fellows on account of 
my job, though I followed shortly after. It was awful going across. We 
ran for a few yards and then down we got in the nearest shell hole and 
took what cover they could afford. The machine gun and rifle bullets 
whistled about and how they missed me I don't know. One of the three 
fellows who set out to go across with me was shot, and as he was one 
of my best friends; it upset me very much."

He continued: "The first sight I saw on entering the German trench was 
one of my best friends all huddled up in a heap and dead. It was a 
heartbreaking sight to go around the trenches and see the dead and 
wounded lying about and to learn that 'so and so' had been either 
killed or wounded. Men whom I have lived and slept with for close on 
two years are now no more. It almost makes me cry when I think of them 
lying in their last resting place on the battlefield. My platoon 
officer was killed, also our commanding officer. I saw my platoon 
officer after he was killed and later on helped to carry him to his 
last resting place. Do not worry, but try and be patient and remember 
that God's will, not ours, will be done."

Among those comrades of Coogan's killed were the previously mentioned 
Percy Wade, as well as Signaller Marshall Heaton. Marshall, a worker 
with the Union Bank, was 22 years old, lived at Durnford Street and was 
secretary of the town hockey club.

Private Fred Turner, also of the Manchester Regiment, lived at 
Grimshaw Lane, Middleton Junction, and was aged 20. He was an only son 
and worked in the tailoring department at the Co-op in Middleton. He was 
dead.

So too was Private Fred Clarkson, of the Manch-esters, who lived at 
Cross Street and was a member of the Amateur Dramatic Society at the 
New Jerusalem Church.

Sergeant Edward Whitelegg, of Oldham Road, had received fatal wounds 
in the July 1 attack of the Manchester Pals. He was 26 and worked at 
the Albany Mill.

Private Robert A Hall was 23 and lived at Wood Street West. He would 
not be returning to his job at Schwabes in Rhodes. Neither would his 
workmate and father-of-three Private Harry Turner, of the Manchester 
Pals.

The list of the dead and wounded was relentless - more than 20 killed 
from Middleton alone and dozens more wounded. Kitchener's great idea 
of 'Pals' battalions had been a huge success when it came to getting 
men to enlist, but here was the downside. Whole towns and villages 
had lost dozens of men in one swift blow. The first day of the Somme 
sent shockwaves across tight-knit communities and laid the foundations 
for the common and, at times unfairly held belief, that the troops of 
Britain were 'lions led by butchering donkeys'.

As for Lord Kitchener, he did not learn of the fate of the civilian 
army he had personally inspired. Kitchener had been killed a month 
before, on June 7, when a British cruiser was sunk by a German mine 
in rough seas.

At a memorial service at Providence Congregational Church to mark 
his death, the Rev Wood said: "One of the greatest things in our 
history was the way in which the call of this single-hearted soldier 
had been responded to by millions of men who have taken upon 
themselves the life of a soldier."

Many more memorial services would now follow for those local men 
who had followed his call, with the Battle of the Somme to rage for 
a further five months until November 18. Come the onset of winter, 
the British and Commonwealth casualties amounted to nearly 500,000.

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