Fred Martin (1897-1918)

Post date: Sep 27, 2017 4:41:25 PM

Frederick Walter Martin was born in Lambeth, London in 1897 to Thomas and Elizabeth Martin. He was one of 4 sons. Buy 1901 they had moved to Old Road, Pizenwell where in the census his father's occupation is recorded as a "Brewers Dray Man." By the 1911 census his mother had died, his father, Fred and one of his older brothers, George were all working in a brewery. They had moved to The Hollow, off Bow Road, more convenient to either Wateringbury brewery, and had a female servant or housekeeper at home.

Fred went to Wateringbury School and is on the school war memorial. He is never recorded in the school log although his father and bothers get mentioned. He joined the Wateringbury Scouts and in 1919 is one of the five Wateringbury Scouts killed in WWI commemorated at a service at the Church.

He had joined up by January 1917 and is on the vicar's list of men from the village serving (along with a younger brother, Alec, and an elder brother, Thomas).

At the memorial service held in April 1921 to dedicate the cross in the village and memorial in the Church Fred is listed and described as a Driver, Army Service Corps. However the Commonwealth War Graves Commission lists only one F. Martin from the A.S.C. killed in WWI and it is not our man. Over 70 F. Martins from the British army were killed in WWI. More likely is the F. Martin killed on the last day of the war (11.11.18) and buried in Cologne Southern Cemetery. No age or next of kin are recorded for him by the CWGC but he is identified as service number 204394 from 2/6th Battalion South Staffordshire Regiment. Under the terms of the armistice allied P.o.W's were to be released immediately- no reciprocity for German P.oW's. In practice many were still being held in January 1919.

Over 1,000 Commonwealth P.O.W.s were buried here during WW1 and after the war Cologne was occupied by Commonwealth troops from 6th December 1918 until January 1926 and during this period further graves of P.O.Ws were transferred here from other parts of Germany. There are now 2,500 graves here.

George Burrluck is the only other known Wateringbury P.O.W. and he also died in captivity, but on the Middle Eastern front. The following is an extract from a CWGC note

Between the outbreak of war in August 1914 and the Armistice of November 1918, the German forces captured almost 300,000 Commonwealth servicemen on the Western Front. Approximately one third of these prisoners were held in German occupied territory in France and Belgium, but most were transported to camps located throughout Germany. In common with the other belligerent states, Germany was poorly equipped to house, feed and clothe large numbers of enemy troops, but prisoners of war had been granted certain rights under international agreements established at Geneva in 1864 and at The Hague in 1899 and 1907. The Red Cross also monitored conditions in the camps and ensured that food, clothing, and personal correspondence sent from Britain was safely delivered to prisoners. In June 1917, and again in July 1918, the British and German governments agreed to exchange prisoners who were too badly wounded to fight again, and hundreds of prisoners were repatriated through the Netherlands. Finally, the fear that the thousands of German prisoners in Britain and France would be mistreated in retaliation meant that Allied POWs often enjoyed quite humane treatment. This was especially the case for officer prisoners, who were segregated into separate camps and not forced to work. Despite these various checks on the mistreatment of prisoners, conditions in German camps varied widely and as many as 12,000 Commonwealth servicemen died in captivity. Some of these men were badly wounded when taken prisoner and died shortly after arriving in Germany. Some prisoners also died as a result of violence perpetrated by their captors, but although violence was common, particularly during the first year of the war, the killing of prisoners was rare. Non-commissioned officers and privates were often forced to work and some died of exhaustion or accidents while labouring in coalmines, stone quarries or steel works. Yet by far the most common cause of prisoner death in wartime Germany was disease. Prisoners weakened by wounds, poor diet, or fatigue were particularly susceptible to the effects of disease and an outbreak of typhus in 1915 and the influenza epidemic of 1918 had a devastating effect on the Allied prisoner population.

"The War behind the Wire" by John Lewis-Stempel is an account of allied Prisoners of War during WWI. Of the 300,000 Commonwealth P.o.W's 172,000 were British. 600 escaped home. Most were taken during the periods of most movement during the war, August-November 1914 and March-June 1918. Troops who lost their commander were more likely to surrender but most British capitulations were forced (no mass breakdown in morale). Over 11,000 British P.o. W's died in captivity, 3,000 after the armistice.