Sapper George Ellis was born in Middlesex in 1896. He was 19 years old when he was sent to fight in the trenches of Northern France; first in 1915 and a second time in 1917. He married Kate Maud on 20th August 1915 before his first journey to the Somme, where he was injured.
Spr Ellis set off for the trenches of Northern France with 104th Field Company on Tuesday 20th March 1917 – his second time out. This is his personal account of the journey to Ypres shared 100 years to the days of his diary entries.
August 1917
They were just outside Nieuport, and by Jove we knew it! We hadn’t been there half an hour before one chap was war wounded. I thought Ypres was bad but Nieuport beats it. It’s the hottest place I’ve been in. The chaps used to say any port in a storm, but B- this port.
Site of the ruined village of Thiepval, 30 June 1917. Copyright: © IWM.
We could only work at night and then we couldn’t do above half an hour’s work, for he shelled us heavy every night. One night we were lucky to get back alive. He shelled us all the way home. The worst part was we had five bridges to pass over and he shelled them day and night. RE were always repairing them.
After a fortnight in the trenches we were put on repairing bridges, well my section clicked. We had nine bridges to look after, but they were at the rear of Nieuport. And we only had two bridges hit, but they were long jobs for they were stone bridges.
He planted two 12-inch shells on one bridge leaving about 18 inches of road to walk on, but we repaired it and made a good job of it. Well old Fritz found out where we were billeted and he let us have it. He gave us gas shells every night, and bashed in one of our own dug outs. Half the Coy got gassed. I had a good mouth full of it too. Talk about excitement.