| On the 31st June 1916 Herbert
Ernest Chillmaid joined up for the duration of the war. He was 17years and 1o
months at this time and by trade he was a dog trainer. He lived in Town House
Farm , Ingatestone with his father and mother, Edward and Emily. Herbert had
three brothers, Arthur aged 20 who was with the 1st Essex in Ireland, Charles
aged 17 who was in the 20th Hussars in Tidworth, and Walter aged 16 who was
still on the farm. |
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| Herbert was
just over 5foot tall and weighed 104 lbs when he joined up, his physical
development was described as good. As he joined he seems to have moved around a
bit as his record shows him in the army reserve on 2nd June 1916, just one day
after joining, which would have been because of his age. It wasn’t until
February 1917 that he was mobilised and sent to the Cycle Regt 7th Kings Own
Royal Regt, Norfolk Yeomanry. On 2nd September he embarked from Folkestone, but
had moved to the Suffolk Regt yet within the next nine days he had made yet
another move, and this was his last, to the 6th Battalion Yorks and Lancs Regt
service number 33701. He must have returned to England as he was in Ripon when
on the 15th March he had a dirty rifle on parade and received 2 days confined
to barracks, five days later he was posted to the B.E.F France on the 20th
March 1918. |
| The regiment
was involved in the Battle of the Canal du Nord which lasted four days at the
end of September. The British part in the great general attack upon the whole
German front was to begin in the early morning of September 27th. On the
evening before a great bombardment opened on a thirty-mile front, from a point
about two miles northwest of St: Quentin, as far as the Sensee River northwest
of Cambrai. On the 29th Two corps of the Third British Army of which the Yorks
and Lancs were part attacked at the St. Quentin Canal at Marcoing. This was the
decisive day of the great battle and was marked by many glorious feats of
arms. |
| Herbert
Ernest Chillmaid aged 19 was killed on 29th September 1918 and was buried at
Quarry Cemetery, Marquion.,which was captured by the 1st Canadian and 11th
Division on 27 September 1918. Quarry Cemetery (called also the Chalk Pit
Cemetery) was made by fighting units after the battle and used during the
following month for burials. After the war, the Army bureaucracy swung into
action and Emily Chillmaid received a series of letters sending her Herbert,s
effects, his war medal entitlement and his plaque and scroll. An end of yet
another young life. |