Writing home for someone who can't

This is a story about a boy... actually, a young man, if you can really call a 16-year-old that... who was in an awful hurry to grow up.  His name was Sidney William Watts, a big name that seemed to mark him for big things.  It was a name appropriate for a bank manager... a chairman of the board, maybe... but perhaps a bit too big for a boy in his mid-teens. 

Maybe his friends called him Sid, or Bill or some nickname unrelated to his given names.  I don't know that part of the story because Sidney William Watts was in too great hurry to leave his boyhood behind and make his mark on the world. 

At the age of sixteen when most boys are absorbed with childish pursuits, this young Sidney was looking hungrily out towards a world in turmoil... a world at war. 

How many sixteen-year-olds do you know that follow the news and concern themselves with problems half a world away, much less entertain any illusions of being able to have some personal impact on the world stage?  To put this in perspective,  at that age my biggest concern was getting my driver's license so I could finally take girls out in my parent's car. 

Sidney, on the other hand, seems to have set his sights a bit further from home.  He ran away, lied about his age to a recruiting officer, and joined the army.  It was a time when such things were still possible... when record-keeping was a cumbersome thing of hand-written pages... a time when an able-bodied young man was taken at his word - with a wink and a nod - if he was ready to volunteer to wear a uniform and carry a gun for his country.

Sidney was assigned to the storied West Somerset Yeomanry, trained long and hard alongside men many years his senior, and upon completing training was sent with his unit to Egypt where he quietly celebrated his seventeenth birthday.  As will soon be made clear, by this time his comrades and officers were certainly aware of his real age.

Once in Egypt, his unit was tapped to form the 12th battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry and officially became part of the 229th Infantry Brigade, 74th (Yeomanry) Division, XXI Corps. Palestine.

All around them war was raging.  It was 1917, and although Sidney couldn't know it, the insanity that would later be called the first world war would end in just a few short months.  In fact, it would end, in part, due to his unit's heroic efforts against the Turks defending the seam-line between British strongholds in Gaza and the heart of Ottoman Palestine; Jerusalem. 

Of the 19 battalions raised under the banner of the Somerset Light Infantry during WWI, nearly 5000 men would be killed in battle, and countless more maimed for life.  But to a seventeen-year-old, I'm sure the possibility of a tragic outcome was beyond consideration.  I mean, what teenage boy isn't immune to danger... completely immortal... the center of the known universe?   Surely he was slated for greatness after distinguishing himself in the war!

In late 1917, word arrived on the doorstep of 21 Church St., Sturminster Newton, Dorset, that young Sidney had indeed achieved greatness.  It was a letter informing John William Watts that his son, Private Sidney Watts, had been killed in action against the Turks on November 6th, and that he'd been interred in the Commonwealth War Cemetery in a place called Beer Sheva alongside many of his fallen comrades. 

It was the custom of the time to allow next of kin to select an inscription for their loved one's headstone... and this task now fell to the grieving parents of a young man who ran away to seek adventure, and who would now never have the opportunity to grow into his name.  They settled on "Rest in Peace", likely too distraught to formulate anything more elaborate.

I came upon the details of this small heroic tragedy thanks to someone doing a Google search stumbling across a couple of my posts about the importance of Commonwealth forces in defeating the Turks in Beer Sheva, and how that victory laid the foundation for the British Mandate... and on its heels, the formation of the Jewish State.

The reader who wrote to me was seeking information about a great uncle of his who had run away to join the army and who was buried in Beer Sheva.  He wanted to know if I could visit the grave of this young man and find out a bit about his final resting place. 

What a silly question. 

It was both an honor and a privilege for me to be able to 'write home' on behalf of this young man... and in some small way, put his family's mind to rest as to his whereabouts

Sidney's grave is situated in the front, right-hand block of graves Row 'L' grave 85... very near the great stone monument upon which annual commemorations are conducted by various Commonwealth military societies that visit this far-flung corner of the former British Empire. 

His final resting place is among the friends and comrades with whom he served, and who fell with him during that fateful autumn.   He lies between two fellow privates in his regiment - one aged 29 and the other 36 - with whom he died that day in early November 1917.

 

Sidney and his comrades were killed in the fighting that raged durinig the weeks following the fall of Beer Sheva on October 31st.  The fighting was especially heavy as the Turkish forces tried desperately to keep the British and Anzac troops from consolidating their control of the area and advancing towards Jerusalem.  In just over a month General Allenby marched into the old city of Jerusalem and the Ottoman Empire's rule was finished in Palestine.

To the gentleman who wrote to me (and any of Sidney's family who may read this), please know that this brave young man rests in a well-tended cemetery in the heart of a grateful country that might never have come to be without his sacrifice.

Thank you, Sidney William Watts.  You didn't get to grow into your name in the way that your parents would have preferred; as a bank manager... or as a chairman of the board.  But to those with whom you served and died, you were a man... and can rest proudly upon the great things you achieved in your short life.

As you can see (below), his correct age appears on his tombstone.