WHILE FIGHTING in the first World War, John Carswell was shot and then bayoneted. He was left for dead until some German stretcher-bearers happened upon him and he was then taken prisoner.
This was, for many years, the only significant information that I had on my grandfather. It came from stories my father told me and a newspaper cutting – an obituary – that I found in my late father’s flight logbook (he was in the Royal Air Force) published at the time of his death in 1944.
Intrigued about my grandfather’s history, I set about several years ago trying to dig up more information. As an amateur historian armed only with a home computer and a strong desire to find out more, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that it is easy to find real-life drama in an otherwise unknown history.
The television show Who Do You Think You Are?– in which celebrities trace their family histories with the help of professional genealogists – encourages people to climb into their family tree to see what's up there. The publication of the 1901 and 1911 censuses online allows budding genealogists to reach for the first branches on that climb on their own.
From my grandfather’s obituary I knew that John Carswell was born on July 28th, 1890, and was the only surviving son of Henry and Sarah Carswell. The couple – my great-grandparents – had three other sons, all of whom died in infancy. The oldest lived to just 28 months. John’s only surviving sibling was Lizzie, who was six years older than him.
The 1901 census lists John Carswell as a 10-year-old. Lizzie and her mother, Sarah, worked as spinners in the linen mills that dotted west Belfast. By the 1911 census, Lizzie was married to Samuel Alcock, a labourer in a foundry. Sarah was widowed in 1906 when Henry – John’s father, my great-grandfather – died at the age of 47.
John doesn’t appear in the 1911 census, but Sarah is listed, along with her daughter, Lizzie Alcock, and Lizzie’s husband, Samuel. There are two new additions to the house since the earlier census – Elizabeth Crawford and a lodger named Samuel Faloon. Elizabeth Crawford was 19 years old and not yet married. She would become John’s wife, my grandmother.
Trying to find more about my grandfather's involvement in the first World War, I contacted the Great War Forum online and I posted a topic seeking help. There were several helpful replies. One said that a John Carswell is listed in the Belfast Newsletter. There is an excellent archive of the newspaper, which has been published since 1737, in the Belfast City Library.
I visited the library and came across the edition of Thursday, June 24th, 1915, which listed John as missing. That edition listed another 113 members of his battalion as missing.
The newspaper gave a rank and serial number and a battalion – 9315 Carswell Sgt J, the Royal Irish Rifles. From his medal card, John was first in the 3rd Reserve Battalion before being shipped to France in March 1915, where he joined the 1st Battalion of the Royal Irish Rifles. It seemed that the next step was to find the battle that led to such losses.
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s search facility allows searches of the “fallen”. I searched the database using the names of the soldiers listed as missing in the Belfast Newsletter, cross-checking their names with the regiment, the Royal Irish Rifles.
I hoped the names would not appear on the list of the “fallen” in the belief that perhaps those initially recorded as missing were somehow later found alive and well. It wasn’t to be.
Each time I pressed my enter key, I found that most of the missing had died in battle. It was an unsettling feeling. As I flicked through web page after web page, it seemed as if these sons, husbands and fathers were in some way being subjected to the repeat of the ultimate sacrifice they gave that day as I crossed them off the list of missing.
The youngest of the missing was James Haveron, aged 16, from Glynn Road, Larne. He had died on the May 9th, 1915.
After further research, I found the Battle of Fromelles was fought on the Western Front at this time and that on May 9th, 1915, the taking of Auber Ridge marked the second major loss of life for the Royal Irish Rifles in the war, wiping out almost 80 per cent of the battalion.
John’s capture was the start of nearly 3½ years of captivity. From a database at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Geneva, I discovered that John Carswell was in German hands in Lille in France before being moved from Valenciennes, a town in northeastern France near the Belgian border, to a reserve hospital in the German city of Münster, where he is recorded on a list on June 26th, 1915. He was moved to Minden in northeastern Germany and finally to Soltau, the largest German prisoner of war camp of the first World War in Lower Saxony, according to a list dated September 6th, 1916.
My grandfather was finally interned in Holland, according to a list supplied to the ICRC on April 9th, 1918. John was repatriated to First London General Hospital in Camberwell on October 24th, 1918, a few weeks before the Armistice. From there he travelled back to Belfast.
John Carswell returned from the horror of a new type of war, a young man still under the age of 30. In the same way as John had outlived his brothers in his early years of life, John had again survived his 20s, while his “brothers in arms” lost their fight.
Thankfully, it is getting easier to learn more about the lives of John Carswell and soldiers like him from the increasing availability of online archives.
It’s amazing how much you can discover from a scrap of paper and a high-speed broadband connection. I am still climbing into my family tree.