Jack’s Great War

THE secret diaries of a World War One Tommy have recently been published – and they reveal a fascinating insight into the war that was supposed to end all wars.

The account has been reproduced in a book called Sapper Martin: The Secret Great War Diary of Jack Martin.

Edited by historian Richard van Emden, who has interviewed more than 270 veterans of the Great War, the book gives a very personal insight of the experiences of Albert John Martin.

Known as Jack, he kept diaries throughout the war, even though this was forbidden for men on the front. If caught, he could have been court martialed.

The book shows Jack was a cultured man with a good sense of humour, who brilliantly captured how an ordinary Tommy lived and fought through the terrible war.

As a 31-year-old Admiralty clerk, Jack was called up to serve King and Country in 1916, joining the Royal Engineers – the Sappers – as a signalman.

The book charts his wartime record from his arrival in France, where he took part in the Battle of the Somme, to the slaughter at Messines and Ypres and the German offensive of 1918, leading on to the Armistice.

Four months into his service on the Western Front, Jack had a brush with death when a shell skimmed the top of the dugout where he had been sitting, exploding in the next dugout and killing a fellow Sapper.

Surviving more than two uninterrupted years on the Western and Italian fronts, Jack was ‘lucky’ to receive nothing more than a ‘cat’s claw’ scratch.

His grandson Laurence Martin, who lives in Kempshott, Basingstoke, has some memories of his grandfather from when he was a little boy, but feels he has got to know more about Jack by reading through his memoirs.

“It certainly opened a huge window on his life which none of us knew about, not even my dad,” said Laurence.

“Dad moved house three or four times before he looked at this bundle of books, tied up in string, 30 years after grandpa had died.

“Grandpa kept very detailed domestic accounts and I think dad may have thought there were more of them, but what he discovered was quite a gem.”

The book is not all about Jack’s time in the trenches as there were quiet times too.

“When they were on the frontline, there were probably shells going off on an hourly basis, if not more during 1916 and 1917,” said Laurence.

“During the spring offensive in 1918, grandpa is out in the field with a rifle in his hand, expecting Germans to come over the hill any moment. That’s an exciting part of the book, because you don’t know what is going to happen next.

“But after that, when the German war effort petered out in the summer of 1918, he had a really cushy time of it, as there was very little shelling. He was often on his own in his signal hut, making sure all the telephone lines were working.”

As well as covering the horrors of war, the book also demonstrated that there was an upside to Jack’s wartime experience when he travelled through France with his comrades on their way to Italy.

For men like Jack, a humble clerk, the chances of being able to see the French Riviera – the famous winter resort of the wealthy – must have seemed unimaginable.

After enduring the misery of cold and wet Flanders, Jack and his companions certainly enjoyed the warmth of the sun, as they saw the pristine Alps and the Mediterranean.

Of his train journey south, Jack wrote: “Steadily, we rolled through orchards of mulberry trees, maintained we were told for the breeding of silkworms, with a low range of hills on our right effectively blocking out the view of the sea. All eyes were eagerly strained to catch the first glimpse of the Alps and of the Mediterranean.

“It was about 11am when the snow-capped pinnacles of the Maritime Alps reared themselves above the horizon on our left front.

“We were all excited but soon turned our attention to the other side as it was becoming apparent that we were nearing the sea.

“The hills that blocked our view were getting lower and craning our necks until we nearly fell out of the train. We raised huzzas of delight as we caught sight of the sea shinning and glittering in the bright sunlight.”

Jack returned to England safely, became an accountant and wrote out his wartime diaries in 12 exercise books in the 1920s.

However, the war was not something he spoke about.

“It wasn’t the thing to do,” said Laurence. “He probably didn’t want to make a fuss and was more interested in the present day than dwelling on the past. We don’t know why he wrote his diaries and he never showed them to dad.

Maybe it was because he wanted a record for prosperity or perhaps it was a cathartic experience.”

Jack set up an accountancy firm in Bracknell, and when he retired he moved to live with his son Peter in Chequers Road, Basingstoke.

Peter re-established the accountancy practice in New Road and although there is no family connection today, the Martin names lives on with the firm Shorthouse & Martin.

Jack passed away in 1970, aged 85, but his memories live on in Sapper Martin, which is published by Bloomsbury and is available through most bookshops.

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