Motor Driving - Some Rushden Recruits

Mr Ted Lockie, Mr Charles Ette, Mr Ernest Catlin, and Mr P Scott (Rushden) have joined the forces. Each has to qualify in motor driving in order to be able to use a motor cycle and side car bearing a Maxim gun. The pay is at the rate of £3 a week.

Rushden Echo, 27^th August 1915

Rushden Mechanic -€“ Home From the Front

Petty Officer Edward Lockie, Royal Naval Air Service, son of Mr. Lockie, tinsmith, Newton-road, Rushden, has been home on leave from 'somewhere in France.'€ He came here on Saturday last and went back on Wednesday. He has been on the advanced repair staff, repairing motor-cars. He politely refused to '€talk shop,' as he called it, to our representative, saying that it was a pledge made amongst the fellows in his camp to recount nothing of their experiences. All he would say was that he saw the bombardment of Ypres from the top of a big hill.

Petty Officer W. E. Lockie, of the Armoured Car Section of the Royal Naval Service, son of Mr and Mrs W Lockie, of 8, Ebenezer-terrace, Rushden, has been home on eight days' leave after having seen service in France, Belgium, and latterly in the Far North.

Interviewed by a representative of the "Rushden Echo" he said:

"You have previously published an account of my experiences in France and Belgium, so there would be no object in my again recounting them. The experience I have had latterly has been rather more exciting. We left Liverpool on Dec. 3rd and when three days out ran into a most terrible storm, which resulted in our losing a couple of lifeboats, in addition to having several temporary buildings on the well decks smashed to splinters by the tremendous seas that broke over us.

"On the Sunday evening the situation became absolutely critical, although it was not known amongst the majority of the men at the time, as over 500, including experienced sailors, were as sick as horses. The captain never left the bridge for over 24 hours, and at one time the ship listed to port so far that it was feared she would capsize. To add to our discomfort, with so many men aboard the sanitary conditions were bad, and the water froze, the ship also being covered with snow and ice.

"After three days the fierceness of the storm abated, although the sea was still rough, but we were thankful to know that we had won through. The men's sleeping accommodation consisted of hammocks slung on the deck head down the holds fore and aft, and we were not allowed any "heat" at all, nor were we allowed to smoke on account of the ammunition stored beneath us. The only place we could smoke was on the quarter deck. As we got farther north and were rounding North Cape, which is the most northerly point in Europe, we experienced severe cold, 40 degrees of frost, and we touched the Arctic Circle. Also we had only about 1½ hours of semi-daylight at midday. We did not see the sun at all.

"We arrived in Ukansky Bay in Lapland about ten days after we sailed, and we were kept there ten days, during which time a Russian patrol boat came up and supplied us with water and instructions as to our route. Whilst we lay in the bay we were surrounded by ice. As a matter of fact, it was so thick that we could not break it by dropping a bucket overboard. Here, for the first time in my life, I saw a seal in its natural element on the ice. I suppose the Russians informed our captain that we could not proceed through the White Sea to Archangel, so we set off again and arrived at Alexandrovsk on Christmas day.

"On Christmas day we had the usual festivities, the men had Christmas pudding, and the piano was taken out of the saloon and put on deck and dancing was indulged in until the early hours of the morning.

"The Christmas delicacies were very welcome, as during the voyage out the food was very rough. For instance, one morning when in the Arctic regions and the pumps had frozen, we had tinned sausages as hard as iron and bottles of pop for breakfast. The only way to thaw the sausages was to get them inside you. On several occasions we saw the magnificent spectacle of the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights.

"It was at Alexandrovsk that we started to land men. They were put into houses and schoolrooms amongst the Laplanders. Although everywhere is covered with ice and snow and all stores have to be carried on sleighs pulled by fatigue parties, the houses are very warm built, with double wood walls, with grass packed between.

Water is obtained from the lakes by boring a hole in the ice, and the water is also is carried by sleigh.

"As we had been so long on the journey, rations ran rather short, and the meat we were expected to eat was reindeer flesh and black bread. I didn't appreciate either, as the meat is bitter and the bread unpalatable. When I left there the men were getting white bread three days per week. There is a beautiful church there, although small. The religion is the Greek Oorthordox, and the Laplanders are very devout. In the post office there are about 18 telegraphists, some of whom speak English and French. These are the more educated Russian officials. The impression I got whilst there is that the Laplanders themselves are hardly aware that a war is taking place.

"Whilst on the voyage out many of the cars we were carrying were damaged by the rolling of the ship, and also many of the men became medically unfit, so it was decided to bring back the repair staff and such of our men as were unfit for service, together with other men who were also physically unfit on British ships in the harbour there. Among these were the three survivors out of 27 of the "Sapho" which, as has been reported, was frozen up in the White Sea. One of these men had three fingers of each hand amputated and half of his foot, the operation being performed by our own doctors in the hospital that we had established ashore in one of the houses in Lapland.

"My work during the voyage out and back lay with the sick berth staff, and coming home they could not spare any man from the hospital, so we had a busy time. On the voyage home we called at Lerwick in the Shetland Islands and discharged a patient there. We arrived at Newport on Feb 26th, and after a week discharging cargo and the remainder of the patients to various hospitals I was given leave."

Mr Lockie brought home with him copies of "The Archangel Herald," a small newspaper printed on board and described as "the official organ of the R.N.A.S., Russian Squadron," "printed and published twice weekly (weather permitting)." The newspaper is headed:

"Our motto: 'Fear God and fear nought.'" The contents are most interesting. The first article is a message from King George to the squadrons:—"I know they will up­hold that high reputation which they have already earned in the western theatre of war." The reply sent to his Majesty expressed "feelings of encouragement and gratitude."

Another paragraph reads: "Last Sunday morning the Armoured Car Squadrons established a record by singing 'God save the King' farther north than any British Field Force on active service has ever done before. The scene was most impressive. There in the half-light, gazing straight before us over the lonely waters to the dim-lit eastern sky, where the sun seemed to be struggling to rise, although he never does so at this time of the year, we sang lustily in melodious tones, with all our hearts behind the words we uttered."

Commander O. Locker-Lampson contributes a fine message "To the officers and men of the Armoured Car Squadrons," in the course of which he says:-

"Our task is no light one. Upon our lonely shoulders falls the duty of maintaining the prestige of British arms and traditions. And I would ask if there is any effort we would not make to preserve and improve this? Assuredly not. In matters of money, therefore, in our dealings with men and women, in the daily economy of life, let us see we exercise honour and discretion, courtesy and self-restraint. Even in our conduct towards the enemy we can reveal our origin and prove ourselves sons of an idea as ennobling as any that ever put arms into English hands.

"For this war was not of our seeking. As a nation we entered it in no spirit of aggrandisement or conquest. It would, therefore, ill-behove even our small unit to treat it as some personal difference between Britons and Germans. It is something far finer than that. It is a duel between rival religions; it is once again a battle of beliefs; it is the age-old contest between the Dominion of Darkness and the Kingdom of Christ. We fight that liberty may live, that love may never perish from the earth. And inasmuch as the strength of the fighter is the strength of his faith, our cause must in the end prevail."

The little newspaper contains some most cheery tit-bits, of which the following is a sample:

"Never mind if our lights go out, we still have our Lampson."