Poem from B Company Royal Irish Rifles 1916.

While going through some old newspapers tonight I came across this piece in the Carrickfergus Advertiser from August 4th 1916.

Dear Sir - Would you be so kind as to publish our few lines in your weekly paper which we are glad to receive "Somewhere" at present; also to express our sympathy to the parents of those who fell in action July 1st 1916, belonging to Carrick and district.  These lines will catch the eye of some boys belonging to us in various hospitals who know the places mentioned.

A few CARRICK Boys.  

Hamil Trenches

July the first in Kentish caves,

After the break of dawn,

Our Company it did rally,

The German lines to storm.

The hours moved on but slowly,

And the boys, eager for the fray.

Started to sing such old-time song

As "No Surrender" and "Dolly's Brae."

The appointment time, it came at last,

We moved in a single array,

Some went to a place called Bastion Point,

And the remainder by Dolly's Brae.

As the hands of the watch reached half-past seven

Along there came the call-

Over the top and the best of luck, boys

And may God defend you all.

C.S. Murray, our Company Captain---

No better could have been---

Fell when doing his duty

Leading his men for Country and King.

Lieutenant Lemon led his platoon

This officer loved by all,

Was shot by two German officers,

But a bomb gave them their call.

So Carrick, Whiteabbey and Monkstown ,

Your sons have played the game.

They fell where the battle was thickest,

Upholding England's name.

Captain T.S Adamson - Royal Irish Rifles

Appeal for information folks: I have found this picture of Captain T S Adamson of Whitehead, Co. Antrim. As you can see he was a Captain in the RIR and a POW at some stage during the Great War. He was also a member of County Antrim Yacht club. I have checked the census but can find no record of him, all i could find out from the 1910 Town Directory is that he worked as a commercial trader. If anyone has any information please get in touch. thanks Js.

 

 

John Beattie Dumigan - S.S. Fort Bellingham

At 00.16 hours on 26 Jan, 1944, U-360 (Becker) fired a spread of three FAT torpedoes at the convoy JW-56A in the Barents Sea north of North Cape in 73°45N/24°48E and heard three hits. In fact, only the ship of the convoy commodore Cmdr I.W. Whitehorn RN, the Fort Bellingham (Master James Ninian Maley) was hit and fell behind the convoy, where she was sunk by U-957 with a T-3 torpedo at 06.53 hours the same day. The master, the commodore, four naval staff members, 22 crew members and seven gunners were picked up by HMS Offa (G 29) (LtCdr R.F. Leonard, RN) and landed at Murmansk. Two crew members were taken prisoner by U-957. 18 crew members, 16 gunners and two naval staff members were lost. Of the crew members who were lost was Signalman John Beattie Dumigan from Carrickfergus.  A comprehensive report on S.S. Fort Billingham and a full Roll of Honour is available here

NAME; Dumigan, John Beattie

RANK; Convoy Signalman

SERV. NO; C/JX 234041

UNIT/SERVICE; Royal Navy

REGIMENT; S.S Fort Bellingham

BORN; Carrickfergus, 1921

LIVED; Carrickfergus

ENLISTED;

FATE; Killed in action -25th January 1944

CEMETERY; Body never recovered, lost at sea

CHURCH; 

MEMORIAL; Chatham Naval Memorial, 76,3

REMARKS: Son of John and Martha Dumigan; husband of Rhoda M. Dumigan, of Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland.

S.S. Fort Bellingham

Chief Officer Norman Oakes

 At 11.15 hours on 23 Jan, 1941, the unescorted Lurigethan (Master M. Kennedy), a straggler from convoy SLS-61 due to bad weather, was bombed and set on fire by a German Fw200 aircraft of I./KG 40 in 53°46’N/16°00’W, about 280 miles west of Galway Bay, Ireland. 15 crew members and one gunner were lost. The survivors abandoned ship in the lifeboats, but a boarding party later returned aboard in an attempt to save her. They managed to extinguish the fire amidships, but the fire in the cargo of cotton in #4 hold was out of control, the engine room was wrecked and the ship was slowly settling by the bow. The wireless operator rigged a temporary aerial and sent emergency messages that were heard by Milos, another straggler from the same convoy, which picked up 14 men from two lifeboats about four hours after the attack and landed them at Oban on 27 January. Norman Oakes of Carrickfergus was one of 16 crew members that perished on board. 

NAME; Oakes, Norman

RANK; Chief Officer

SERV. NO;

UNIT/SERVICE; Merchant Navy

REGIMENT; S.S. Lurigethan (Belfast)

BORN; 1905, Carrickfergus

LIVED; Carrickfergus

ENLISTED;

FATE; Killed in action - 23/01/1941

CEMETERY; Body never recovered

CHURCH; Methodist

MEMORIAL; Tower Hill Memorial, London Panel 66

REMARKS: Son of Thomas and Elizabeth Oakes, husband of Norah Oakes. 

Lurigethan under her former name Celaeno

Corporal Robert Smyth - 12th Battalion R.I.R

19th October 1918 - 18795 Corporal Robert Smyth 12th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles died of wounds sustained during the Battle of Courtrai.  Corporal Smyth was a member of Joymount Presbyterian Church in Carrickfergus and lived in Woodburn.  He was born in Carrickfergus C1897 and enlisted with the Rifles in 1916.  He is buried in Duhallow A.D.S. Cemetery - Duhallow Advanced Dressing Station, believed to have been named after a southern Irish hunt, was a medical post 1.6 kilometres north of Ypres. The cemetery was begun in July 1917 and in October and November 1918, it was used by the 11th, 36th and 44th Casualty Clearing Stations. There are now 1,544 Commonwealth casualties of the First World War buried or commemorated in this cemetery, 231 of the burials unidentified. 

DUHALLOW A.D.S. CEMETERY

NAME; Smyth, Robert

RANK; Corporal

SERV. NO; 18795

UNIT/SERVICE; 12^th Batt

REGIMENT; Royal Irish Rifles

BORN; Carrickfergus

LIVED; Woodburn Carrickfergus

ENLISTED; Carrickfergus

FATE; Died of Wounds, France, October 19^th 1918 aged 21

CEMETERY; DUHALLOW A.D.S. CEMETERY (Belgium) - IV. J. 4.

CHURCH; Joymount Presbyterian

REMARKS; Son of Robert Smyth, of Woodburn, Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim

Gunner Sydney Allcock

Today 1917 Gunner Sydney Allcock 8673 19th Heavy Battery Royal Garrison Artillery of Unity Street was killed in action  in the Ypres area of Belgium during the third Ypres Campaign Battle of Passchendaele. 
 

He is buried in Canada Farm Cemetery along with 906 other British and Canadian Great War soldiers.  The cemetery took its name from a farmhouse used as a dressing station during the 1917 Allied offensive on this front. Most of the burials are of men who died at the dressing station between June and October 1917.  

Sydney Allock was born in Newport, Isle of Wight but moved to Ireland with his family in the late 1800's.  By the time he came to signing up for the war effort in 1915 he was living in 16 Unity Street Carrickfergus.  He was well known around the town and part of the congregation at St Nicholas Church.  News of his death in 1917 was reported with great sadness in the Carrickfergus Advertiser noting that "great lose is felt with at the death of Gunner S Allock... he was well known to many locally and will be sadly missed".  

CANADA FARM CEMETERY – Belgium - III. E. 3.

Confirmation of Sydney's death in the Belfast Telegraph 1917

NAME; Allcock, Sydney

RANK; Gunner

SERV. NO; 8673

UNIT/SERVICE; Royal Garrison Artillery

REGIMENT; 19th Heavy Bty.

BORN; Newport, Isle of Wight

LIVED; Unity Street, Carrickfergus

ENLISTED; Carrickfergus

FATE; Killed in Action – France and Flanders 19^th October 1917 aged 29

CEMETERY; CANADA FARM CEMETERY – Belgium - III. E. 3.

CHURCH; St Nicholas Church of Ireland, Carrickfergus

MEMORIAL;

REMARKS; Son of Richard and Jessie Allcock, of Church View, Tuam, Co. Galway

Rifleman James Baird

Today 1916 Rifleman James Baird of Woodburn Carrickfergus was killed in action during the Battle of the Somme specifically the Battle of Le Transloy.  Many often forget that the Battle dragged on for so long with history tending to focus on the 1st July 1916, the first day of the Battle when the British suffered over 60,000 casualties. The Battle actually lasted until the middle of November 1916 by which time there had been some 419,654 British casualties and over 1 million on all sides making it one of the bloodiest military operations ever recorded.  

James Baird 17224 - 12th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles (Central Antrim Volunteers) was originally from Ayr but lived and worked in Carrickfergus were he enlisted in 1915.  He was a member of 1st Carrickfergus Presbyterian Church and is buried in La Plus Douve Farm Cemetery – IV. A8 http://www.cwgc.org/find-a-cemetery/cemetery/51300/LA%20PLUS%20DOUVE%20FARM%20CEMETERY 

NAME; Baird, James

RANK; Rifleman

SERV. NO; 17224

UNIT/SERVICE; Royal Irish Rifles

REGIMENT; 12^th Battalion

BORN; Larne, Co. Antrim

LIVED; Ayr / Woodburn, Carrickfergus

ENLISTED; Carrickfergus

FATE; Killed in Action – 16^th October 1916 – France and Flanders

CEMETERY; La Plus Douve Farm Cemetery – IV. A8

CHURCH; 1^st Carrickfergus Pres.

MEMORIAL;

REMARKS; Son of Mrs Baird, 27 Claines Street, Ayr