Lest We Forget
Whitley Bay Rockcliff RFC have created a new war memorial.
LEST WE FORGET
As Remembrance Day approached, the astro-turf beside the Twickenham Stadium pitch was being replaced, a piece between the tunnel and the turf bearing the inscription R Poulton 1889 – 1915.
Skipper and centre, Ronnie Poulton, one of the world’s best players at the time, captained an unbeaten England team in the season before the outbreak of World War I, in their last international beating France 39-13 and scoring four tries. Poulton was killed on the Western Front by a sniper in 1915, his last words were reported to be: “I shall never play at Twickenham again.”
England legend Lewis Moody visited Poulton’s war grave, bringing back soil to bury beside the Twickenham pitch and burying soil from the pitch in the grave. Players run out over it for every Test.
LOST - FOUND - BROUGHT HOME
As rugby clubs across the country prepare to remember their players who made the ultimate sacrifice, Whitley Bay Rockcliff RFC’s two-year project 'We lost them - We found them - We have brought them home' has created a new war memorial at the club.
With no existing memorial to commemorate their fallen players, they wanted to put this right and, when initial research uncovered four names of players who died in World War I, a group of club members visited the Ypres Salient in 2021 to pay the club’s respects.
Since then, painstaking research, spearheaded by Richie Bloomfield, Eric Brooks and Micky Knott, has revealed 14 names of players who fell in the Great War. Those forgotten players will now be remembered and celebrated on an outdoor memorial containing soil from the Somme battlefields. Names of players who fell in World War II are also listed and a remembrance brochure has been created telling the stories of the fallen.
Today’s generations of players at Whitley Bay Rockcliff RFC will now be able to remember those who sacrificed their lives. The memorial was unveiled by Ed McNaught the Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Tyne & Wear with local and national dignitaries in attendance.
This took place on Saturday 4 November, when the first XV played Hartlepool Rovers at home in Counties 1 Durham & Northumberland league, the closest league game to Remembrance weekend, with both teams playing for the Royal British Legion Poppy Sword.
27 ENGLAND PLAYERS FELL IN WORLD WAR 1
Ronnie Poulton was one of 27 England players who died in World War I, all commemorated on Twickenham’s Rose and Poppy Gates, which is an official war memorial. Poppies within roses climb the gates, representing every player and once going ‘over the top’ become poppies fashioned from battlefield shells.
Players who never returned to the pitch include hooker Frederick Maynard, who recovered from being shot at Gallipoli only to be killed on the first day of the Battle of Ancre in 1916. Wing James Dingle’s body was never found after the second attack at Scimitar Hill during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915.
Surgeon James Henry-Digby 'Bungy' Watson, a fine centre, was among 500 who died when the HMS Hawke was sunk by a German submarine in 1914. Scrum half Francis Oakeley died when his HMS D2 submarine was sunk in 1914.
Awarded the Victoria Cross was rugged forward Lieutenant Commander Arthur Harrison, a serving naval officer who played against Ireland and France before going to war. Harrison was in the sea battles of Heligoland Bight in August 1914 and Jutland in 1916. He died leading a landing party against enemy positions in a raid on enemy positions at Zeebrugge in 1918.
He was killed leading a landing party against heavily-defended enemy positions, for which he was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross. Playing flanker alongside Harrison when they took on France was Robert Pillman who died in 1916 when attempting to bring his men back from a night raid.
Edgar Mobbs played seven times for England before recruiting a 264-strong Sportsmen's Battalion and rising from the ranks to earn the commission he was denied at the recruiting office. As Lieutenant-Colonel, a company commander just recovered from wounds, he insisted on leading his men in an attack on a Belgian village where he died. His body was never recovered, but his name lives on as one of 54,896 inscribed on the Menin Gate.
WORLD WAR II
Reverend Christopher Tanner was on the wing for five Tests before joining the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as chaplain to the battle cruiser HMS Fiji which was sunk in 1941, Tanner staying on board to save injured men and repeatedly jumping into the sea to help men to rafts and floats, saving more than 30 men before he died.
Prince Alexander Obolensky who fled the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 and played on the wing for England, his debut in England’s 13-0 first victory over the All Blacks in 1936 died in a training accident when his Hawker Hurricane overshot the runway at Martlesham Heath Airfield in Suffolk.
Norman Wodehouse who captained England to a first Grand Slam in 1913, came out of retirement to serve in the conflict. He had been awarded a medal for bravery in the First World War and was commanding merchant fleet in the Mediterannean in 1941 when attacked by German U-boats. He ordered the fleet to scatter and in doing so, saved many lives. His own vessel, the Robert L. Holt, was sunk and Wodehouse went down with all onboard.
Scrum half Paul Cooke died protecting the British Expeditionary Force on the beaches of Dunkirk, serving with the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry who held back the Germans' advance for two days, allowing more than 338,000 British and French troops to be evacuated.
Countless rugby players from across England gave up their lives in the two world wars, there will be no autumn international at Twickenham this year with the Rugby World Cup being held in France. But there beside the hallowed turf lies a reminder of all who made the ultimate sacrifice.
At the Going Down of the Sun and in the Morning, We Will Remember Them
