Irwin Family of Cootehill: Jim Irwin’s War Experiences

Times Past

Jonathan Smyth

In the second half of the 19th century, Philip Irwin, and his wife Bridget Brogan Irwin from Cootehill had four children and three of them went with the father to England. In 1880 Phillip took them to America and that same year, his son Patrick left Cootehill and moved to Birkenhead, Merseyside, where he joined the Chicago Tannery company. When German industrialist Arnold Frommeyer needed expertise to help set up his belt production company (leather belts were necessary for driving factory machinery. The Chicago Tannery sent Patrick Irwin to Germany. Irwin’s wife and their eight children remained in Birkenhead, and they kept in touch through letters.

His descendant, Peter Halsall, told me that ‘Patrick Irwin’s son James endured some incredible experiences in WW1’ and added, ‘I am fortunate in having pretty much his complete story from when he was called to action while attending a musical variety show in Birkenhead to his eventual return four years later.’ James was born in Kirkdale on the 23 of October 1895 and when the Great war broke out in 1914 James was almost 19 years old. Peter Halsall has authored an interesting book, titled, ‘James Irwin, Fourth Battalion Cheshire Regiment, and Imperial Camel Corps’. He says that his grandfather was known better as Jim and for that reason I will also refer to him as Jim.

It is worth mentioning that a lot of young men from Cootehill also enlisted to fight on the side of the Allied Forces. Jim began work as a brass finisher at the Cammell Laird shipyard and at 17 he joined the Territorials and signed up to the e 4th Battalion, Cheshire Regiment. Everything changed for Jim one evening while at the Argyle Theatre, Birkenhead. Accompanied by his sisters Annie, Catherine, and some friends, they had gone to see a Variety show. During the event, ‘an official’ took to the stage and announced that Britain had declared war on Germany and ordered all men ‘who were in the Army or 1st Line Territorial battalions to report to headquarters immediately rather than return to their homes.’

Jim enlisted on 23 October 1914. For the next couple of months, he stayed with the 4th Cheshires in Suffolk to train in trench digging and other necessary skills needed on the battlefield. They got a dramatic call, completely ‘out of the blue’ to prepare for service in India. They arrived in Northampton for kitting out ‘ in drill clothing and tropical helmets.’ His grandson observed that ‘their rifles were replaced with Japanese ones for some reason, probably due to a shortage of the standard issue ones.’ But, after all the excitement the India expedition was cancelled and it was a return to trench digging, this time at Stowmarket army camp where Jim and his mates spent Christmas 1914. In Spring of the following year, they were stationed in Royston & Baldock. Jim managed to take leave meet his sister Annie who was a nurse in London.

Warm and Sunny

In July 1915, the regiment set sail. All they heard, was that they would be going to somewhere ‘warm and sunny’. The beautiful place turned out to be Suvla Bay. On landing, The battalion crossed a salt lake under shrapnel fire where they encountered lots of injured men coming towards them. Rifle fire met them when they reached some thick scrub, leaving them with nowhere to retreat for safety. 500, 000 men lay dead or wounded at Suvla and the Turks left the corpses exposed to massive swarms of flies. On 28 January 1916, the London Gazette mentioned in despatches Lance-Corporal Jim Irwin. Having been wounded and suffering from dysentery, they sent Jim to Malta to recover for a couple of months. ‘He was injured, at Gallipoli’, said Peter, and ‘then recruited into the Imperial Camel Corps where he learnt to ride a camel.’

Salt to the wounds

In 1916, Jim and fellow evacuees from Gallipoli went to Alexandria and volunteered to join the newly formed Imperial Camel Corp (I.C.C.). Peter states that: ‘The Corps was organised into four battalions, the 2nd battalion being the British one. Within each battalion there were smaller units called companies. Jim was in one of the last to be formed, the 5th company, presumably because of his late arrival from Malta. The company had about 140 men, plus officers. They worked in teams of four, with the team eating, sleeping, and fighting together.’ The force included ‘200 burly Sikhs’ whose bravery and camaraderie proved great favourites with the soldiers. The I.C.C. was a diverse unit made up of soldiers of international origin.

According to his grandson, Jim saw action in North Africa and the near East during the time of Lawrence of Arabia. It was not all fun and games, as Peter explained: ‘Well, he was eventually captured while operating behind enemy lines at the Battle of Beersheba (celebrated annually in Australia) and they made him walk barefoot and shirtless for 450 miles to Aleppo in Syria.’ Added to the unbearable situation of the captured men, ‘at each village women would come out to rub salt into the prisoners blistered backs.’ Many died of exhaustion and dehydration during that walk.

From Aleppo, like human sardines, they were packed tight, standing upright, into ‘airless’ cattle trucks and transported to Gelebek labour camp in the Turkish mountains. Many men were ill, and dysentery was common. The captured soldiers were put to work constructing railways and rail tunnels; the y were building the German Kaiser’s Berlin to Bagdad Railway, needed to access Middle Eastern oil.

Escape

Cleverly, Jim made a daring escape from Gelebek with the aid of Greek assistance, disguising himself as an Arab woman. Philip Irwin recalled Jim talking about his escape on the roof of a train: ‘I remember asking him about that. He said he was in rags, dirty, and hardly distinguishable as different from the other travellers. Anyway, he did arrive at Constantinople … He did meet an English man there who helped him. Turkey had called for an armistice in October (1918), so he was no longer in hostile country'.

In Constantinople, the Dutch helped Jim and then finally, on ‘a rainy Autumn day’ he arrived back to Birkenhead where he met his younger brother waiting for him at the station. His mother, at first fearing Jim might have been in a ‘terrible state’ did not wish to see him that way in public and instead waited to see him when he came back to the family home. It was a joyous occasion. Her son had survived.