By his own account, he would never have volunteered, having no inclination to fight, much less to kill anyone. Nevertheless, he proved a natural rifle shot and qualified for the coveted cross-rifles marksman badge by the end of his basic training. Such skill often led to selection as a sniper, but it seems that lacking the individual ruthlessness required Patch was assessed as best suited to be part of a team. He was trained on the American-designed Lewis machinegun, introduced into the British Army on a scale of two per battalion, increased to two per company and finally to one per platoon during the course of the war.
On going to France in 1917, Patch joined 7th DCLI as a reinforcement following the battalion’s serious losses in earlier fighting. Hearing a call for someone trained on the Lewis gun, a comrade volunteered Patch for the post. He consequently became the Number 2 of a Lewis gun team in ‘C’ Company. The team consisting of the Number 1 who fired the gun, No 2 who was the loader, and the remaining three who carried the ammunition to refill the 50-round circular magazines. The Number 1 would normally fire the gun but if he were wounded or killed the Number 2 was trained to take over.
As often happened, his first group of close friends remained the most prominent in his memory. Eighty years on, Patch would recall sharing a parcel from home with his gun team members: half the packet of Royal Seal tobacco to the only other pipesmoker, thirteen cigarettes each for the other three from the two packets of twenty and socks to the one who needed them most. Everything was shared without hesitation.
Fire from the Lewis gun was strictly controlled by the officer in charge of the stretch of trench where it was situated. This was to conserve ammunition and limit the chances of the enemy identifying the position from gun flashes and retaliate with artillery fire. Prolonged firing demanded a hasty move to a new position and overheating also presented difficulties. The gun was gas-operated, so that draughts of air were driven back between the barrel and the outer casing, but it would become too hot to touch after firing the hundred rounds from two magazines.
During the preliminary stage of the British advance in the Third Battle of Ypres, which began on July 31, 1917, Patch’s battalion took part in the attack on Pilckem Ridge, the scene of bitter fighting in the first autumn of the war. The 7th DCLI went over the top of their assault trenches with ‘A’ and ‘B’ companies leading and ‘C’ and ‘D’ companies following in immediate reserve. They ran forward over the dead and wounded of earlier waves of infantry lying in no-man’s land, but no time could be spared to help them.Patch’s Lewis gun team was struggling towards an enemy second-line trench when three German soldiers climbed out of it, one advancing on them with bayonet fixed. Guessing correctly that the man had used all his ammunition, Patch drew the Colt revolver the Number 2 carried and shot the man in the shoulder then, as he still came on, in the leg. As a good shot with the Colt, he could easily have killed him, but he chose to spare his life.
Six weeks later, after his battalion had been relieved in the line and was withdrawing at night to the support trenches, Patch lost the three supporting members of the Lewis gun team to a single shell burst, one of his comrades disappearing completely in the blast. He was wounded in the groin by shrapnel. For the rest of his long life Harry Patch held his own private day of remembrance recalling the three friends he lost on September 22, 1917.
He was evacuated to hospital in England and after recovery from his wound was sent to a reinforcement camp on the Isle of Wight to wait return to France. He and other soldiers awaiting drafting were on the rifle range on the morning of November 11, 1918. They had heard talk of a possible ceasefire in France and told that if an armistice was signed a rocket would be sent up from camp headquarters. Just after 11 o’clock they saw the rocket soar into the air, filling everyone with a huge sense of relief that they would not have to return to the trenches.
The countries of the then British Empire lost one million men in all the battlefields of the First World War, by far the largest proportion on the Western Front in Belgium and France. Of this awful figure, the bodies of approaching 500,000 either were never found or could not be identified. France lost 1,700,000 killed and Germany around two million.
To Patch and to the thousands who had lost family members in the war, the conflict was just a terrible waste of lives, provoking the question: “Could war have been avoided?”. The answer is probably “yes”, but placing the blame is more difficult. Austria’s ultimatum to Serbia, following the assassination of Crown Prince Franz Ferdinand, was uncompromising, but had the Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey made clear to France that Britain would stand by her only if she urged restraint on her treaty ally Russia, then Germany might have paused. Kaiser Wilhelm asked his army to slow down the rate of mobilisation against France but the Chief of Staff, von Moltke, argued this was impossible without upsetting the schedules of the 11,000 trains involved. Hence a vital signal for peace was not sent.
On demobilisation in early 1919, Henry John Patch returned to Bath, Somerset, where he had been born. He worked for the local Fire Service and was awarded the British Fire Services Association medal on retirement. Together with other surviving British veterans of the First World War, he was appointed to the Légion d’Honneur by the French Government in 1999 in recognition of his services to France in 1917.
He maintained his connections with his old regiment through the Light Infantry Regional Office in Cornwall until shortly before his death.
His wife Ada, née Billington, whom he married in 1919, predeceased him, as did their two sons.
Henry J. Patch, the last “Tommy” of the First World War, was born on June 17, 1898. He died on July 25, 2009, aged 111
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