Name:

CARRINGTON, CHARLES

Rank:

Lance Sergeant

Regiment/Service:

Royal Welsh Fusiliers

Unit:

4th Battalion

Age at death:

29 years 5 months

Date of Death:

9^th May 1915

Place of Death:

Rue du Bois, France

Service No:

6137

Additional information:

On 9th May 1915 the British field artillery commenced heavy bombardment at 5am with shells and howitzers. The 4th Battalion left the trenches at 5:40am acting as "mopping battalion" to the Brigade. The distance to the enemy trenches was only about 100 metres and almost immediately they came under heavy machine gun fire, and in some places were cut down as soon as they left the trenches. In advancing from Support Breastworks to Front Line Breastworks six officers and sixty-five other ranks from the 4th Battalion were listed as killed, wounded or missing, of which L/Sgt Carrington would most certainly have been one of the first casualties. The 4th Battalion Commanding Officer, Lieutenant-Colonel F C France-Hayhurst was killed very early in the assault as he led the soldiers onto the battlefield.

The order to cease the attack was given at 6am but there were many more casualties as the hundreds of soldiers trapped in no man's land with no escape were impaled on the barbed wire, and were easy targets for the German artillery that pounded them relentlessly with machine guns.

Private C Bryan from Johnstown, one of the soldiers from the 4th Battalion who lived to fight another day, described the battlefield carnage in a letter to a friend:-

"I shall never forget Sunday, May 9th, as long as I live. Talk about hell on earth, it was not in it. We lost a few men that day. I am not sure how many out of the Company were killed, but I know Charlie Carrington was killed, because I saw him fall".

A second assault was ordered at 3:20pm and at 4pm was delivered and failed once more, but this time the 4th Battalion only suffered very slightly.

By the morning of the 10th May any further advancement was out of the question because of the huge numbers of casualties. It took three days to transfer the wounded of 9th May to the field ambulances on the second line, and the transfer and identification of the thousands of dead soldiers on the battlefield would have been a dreadful duty to perform.

L/Sgt Carrington was posthumously awarded three medals - The British War Medal, The Allied Victory Medal and The 1914 Star. His family also received a bronze Memorial Plaque which was awarded to all serving personnel who were killed in the First World War. Upon his death on 9th May 1915 he had served for a total of six years and 306 days.

On the 8th May 1915, the day before the battle, L/Sgt Carrington sent five Belgian pennies home and wrote in a letter to his wife "We have had three weeks' rest, and we had some fine weather out here, but we are going up to the trenches tonight and I pray to God that He will pull me through this for once. Glad to tell you that all the boys are all right, but our hearts are at home".

Grave/Memorial Reference:

Panel 13 and 14

Cemetery: