WW1 Lucky Escapes

WW1 - Lucky Escapes

My grandfather, Wentworth William Beresford Ward (always known as Wenty), was born in 1894 in the cottage known today as Braeside on Lower Moor Road, Coleorton. At age 14 he followed the same predictable route as his father and forefathers before him to become a coal miner, but events elsewhere were to change that.

On the 28th June 1914 two shots rang out in Sarajevo, fired by Gavrilo Princip a Bosnian nationalist, at the end of which Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie lay dead, the first of many to come. As a consequence of this assassination and a complex series of military and political alliances the nations of Europe declared war, one on another, culminating in the British Empire’s declaration of war against Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire on 14th August 1914. The madness of the first World War had begun!

Just one month later Wenty (right) had enlisted in the Leicestershire Regiment 5th Battalion Territorial Force (The Tigers). Whether this was through patriotism or the opportunity for adventure (before it was all over) I cannot say. I do not know when he was transferred to France, but at some point, in 1916 he was reassigned to the 1st North Midlands Field Company Royal Engineers (RE). It was not to be the short adventure as many believed, but a long and hard experience. Death and hardship were ever present, no cosy barracks in the battle field, you often had to sleep in makeshift arrangements as best you could. My grandfather found a cosy spot for himself and became accustomed to sleeping in a large dry land drain sheltered for the night from the wind and the rain. However, one night he found he had been beaten to his favourite spot, another man had claimed it before him and Wenty was forced to sleep out in the open. The Germans were in the habit of dropping mortar bombs on the British lines during the night, as much with the intention of denying their enemy sleep as anything else. On that night a mortar fell directly on Grandad’s land drain and the interloper was killed outright instead of him!

On 14th March 1918, after almost 4 years of the war and following injury in a gas attack, Wenty was discharged, unfit for further service. One week later, in a last desperate attempt to turn the tide of the war, Germany, reinforced by 50 divisions released from the Eastern Front, launched its ‘Spring Offensive’. Although the German offensive ultimately failed, in the early phase, the British suffered heavy losses with many units including RE units surrounded and overwhelmed as the British were forced back. Without his discharge, Wenty might have been amongst these casualties but by then he was on his way home to his wife and daughter.

Like all men who were honourably discharged after service, he was awarded ‘The King’s Certificate of Discharge’ and the ‘Silver War Badge’ (left). The badge could be pinned on the right hand side of a man’s lapel to show that he had ‘done his duty’ and protected him from the ignominy of being approached in the street by a woman offering him the ‘white feather of cowardice’.

Terry Ward
member of the Coleorton Heritage Group
October 2025

WW1 - Lucky Escapes

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