|
Sapper Lewis Martyn
446894 64th Field Company Royal Engineers
Died 26 May 1918 Aged 33
 Lewis Martyn was the son of William and Emma Martyn and lived on the High Street in Farndon village. When Lewis signed on for the war he joined the Royal Engineers as a sapper.
Training
At the beginning of the war the Royal Engineers had two main training establishments; the School of Military Engineering, Chatham and RE Training Depot, Aldershot, but the rapid expansion of the Army (from 7 to 70 Divisions) and the demands that that imposed on the need for training soon overwhelmed these establishments so the School of Military Engineering was expanded and two satellite establishments were set up to provide the extra capacity required to deliver training.
- Newark, Lincolnshire - opened Spring 1915. By August 1915 the establishment was training 3,000 men.
- Deganwy, North Wales - opened September 1915.
Both of these establishments were closed at the end of the war, and the School of Military Engineering, Chatham resumed sole responsibility for training.
Lewis would have spent around 6 months in training before embarking for the Front.
|
 The war of 1914-1918 relied on engineering. Without engineers there would have been no supply to the armies, because the RE's maintained the railways, roads, water supply, bridges and transport. RE's also operated the railways and inland waterways. There would have been no communications, because the RE's maintained the telephones, wireless and other signalling equipment. There would have been little cover for the infantry and no positions for the artillery, because the RE's designed and built the front-line fortifications. It fell to the technically skilled RE's to develop responses to chemical and underground warfare. And finally, without the RE's the infantry and artillery would have soon been powerless, as they maintained the guns and other weapons. Little wonder that the Royal Engineers grew into a large and complex organisation.
(photo: examples of shelters and duckboards built by the Royal Engineer field companies - 1917. Source: IWM) |
 |
 |
British sappers constructing a communication trench |
Creeping barrage, near Meteren, 18 August 1918. The clouds are partly from smoke shells (25 percent of the barrage) and partly from dusty ground. Source: IWM photo Q6990. |
|
 |
Trench map, Meteren, May 1918. The hamlet of Le Roukloshille is just off the map, centre top. |
 |
 
Lewis Martyn, Tyne Cot Memorial Panels - Royal Engineers. |
Tyne Cot Memorial Panels - Royal Engineers. Lewis Martyn is recorded on the centre column, 6th from the bottom. |
|
|
|
Tyne Cot Cemetery, Ypres Salient, Belgium, with Memorial Panels to the rear |
The enormity of the cemetery is only really grasped when viewed from the air
|
Tyne Cot Cemetery
Lewis Martyn is recorded on the memorial panels to the missing at Tyne Cot Cemetery, along with around 35,000 soldiers who were never found following the battles around Ypres and the Salient. Yet on the memorial gravetone in Farndon Churchyard, the Martyn family have recorded that Lewis was killed in action on 26 May 1918 and interred at La Roukloshille in France.
Le Roukloshille, Meteren
METEREN MILITARY CEMETERY, Meteren is a village 17.5 kilometres south-west of Ieper (Belgium) and 3 kilometres west of Bailleul on the main road to Cassel, just inside the French border. The cemetery is 200 metres further up this road on the left hand side and is situated to the rear of the civil cemetery. Meteren was occupied by German forces early in October 1914 and on 13 October, their entrenched positions covering the village were captured by the 10th Brigade of the 4th Division. The village then remained in Allied hands until the German offensive of April 1918. The 33rd Division held it against heavy German attacks on 13 April, but it was lost on the 16th. The sector was then taken over by French troops for a time, but on 19 July, the 9th (Scottish) Division (2nd Royal Scots Fusiliers and South African Composite Battalion) recovered the site of the village after a fortnight's bombardment which completely destroyed the houses. By May 1918 Lewis had lost his life, probably in the battle for this area.
The cemetery was made in 1919 by the French authorities, who brought in Commonwealth, French and German graves from the neighbouring battlefields and from other cemeteries, which included the following:- BERTHEN CHURCHYARD, in which 13 soldiers and airmen from the United Kingdom, two soldiers from Canada, and one soldier from Newfoundland were buried (by Field Ambulances or fighting units) in 1916 and 1918. LE ROUKLOSHILLE MILITARY CEMETERY, METEREN, a little South of the hamlet of Le Roukloshille, between Meteren and Godewaersvelde. Here, in April-August 1918, 38 soldiers from Australia, 26 soldiers and airmen from the United Kingdom and one French soldier were buried by fighting units. Meteren Military Cemetery now contains 768 Commonwealth burials and commemorations of the First World War. 180 of the burials are unidentified but there are special memorials to five casualties believed to be buried among them.
So why is Lewis recorded on Tyne Cot Memorial Panels to the Missing?
It must be remembered that although soldiers were buried during the war, cemeteries did not escape destruction by shelling. It may be that although it seems Lewis was identified and buried in May 1918, possibly in Le Roukloshille, this cemetery could have been damaged or it was part of the reinterrments once the Meteren Military Cemetery was constructed. Could it be at that time Lewis' grave was no longer identifiable, and hence his listing among the missing? |
|
Meteren Military Cemetery is numbered 99 (bottom left),
while Tyne Cot is to the top right numbered 149 (click to enlarge) |
Lewis Martyn - Commonwealth War Graves Commission Record
|
