Lonesome Memorial #17: The NINE BRAVE MEN on the Somme Battlefield

 

By James Patton

On Tuesday 22 July 2025, at a crossroads in the former Somme battlefield, a private memorial was rededicated, after a major restoration paid for by the Cheshire Roll of Honour, The Western Front Association (UK), and several private donors.

Most private memorials on the Western Front commemorate wealthy and/or high-born officers, who died in circumstances often described as heroic. But this one is for nine  Royal Engineer Other Ranks, just a bunch of ordinary blokes who were steadfast in doing their duty, fortifying a position that was soon rendered surplus to needs.

This minor incident was mentioned in a footnote to The Official History of the Great War (Vol 2 1916) page 162:

No 3 Section of the 82nd Field Company RE, working under the 57th Brigade (19th Division) was engaged under fire in building strong points in front of Bazentin-le-Petit village during the night of the 29th/30th July. The infantry assisting the section was withdrawn to prepare for an attack next day, but the sappers volunteered to go on with the work and did so, until nine were killed and nearly all the others wounded. In the village there now stands a brick memorial "To NINE BRAVE MEN".

The memorial inscription reads:

TO THE MEMORY 

OF NINE BRAVE MEN 

JULY 29, 1916 

82ND FIELD COY R.E.

No 43639 SPR. R.F. CHOAT  — No 59287 SPR. W.HAVILAND 

No 58897 SPR. J.JOINER  — No 95180 SPR. A.ROBOTHAM 

No 21182 SPR. C.W.VERNON  — No 43609 SPR. C.D.ELLISON

No 47753 SPR. J.HIGGINS  — No 61876 SPR. F.BLAKELEY 

No 86972 PNR. F.TREDIGO

More detail about the background to this company's work is found in an account written by the unit's commanding officer, Capt. (later Lieut. Col.) Reginald Francis Amhurst Butterworth  CMG DSO  (1876–1960) who wrote:

Nos 3 and 4 Sections. . . has to go up at dusk through the little village of Bazentin to wire in some tactical points gained during the day's fighting. They had two or three men hit on the way up and then for three or four hours they carried on their work under a hellish storm of H.E. and machine gun fire. The work was considered vitally necessary, accordingly Lt Howlett carried on steadfastly with No 4 Section and C.S.M. Deyermond with No 3 Section till the work was through. . . 6 killed and 19 wounded out of 40. I added the names of three others, who died with great heroism 'sticking it' in the same way on the previous night, thus making up the tale of the NINE BRAVE MEN. Choate was a first rate carpenter and a most loveable man. Ellison just a boy from a North Country workshop, Vernon a fitter and a fine stalwart fellow. . .

Lt. Col. Butterworth in 1929

Three days later 82 FC RE left the area. Capt. Butterworth wrote: "However I had written to each of the next of kin of the nine men. . . adding that I marked the spot. . . and would go back some day and put up a little stone to their memory. I had a block of granite engraved in the [16^th (Irish)] Divisional workshop. . . in November 1917. . . we collected bricks from the ruins near by and so constructed our small tribute of affection and respecting to the memory of our nine brave comrades."

Since, as engineers they had been recruited nation-wide, these nine repesented a Hollywood-like cross-section of Englishmen. Seven of them, including Choat, from Essex, Joiner from posh Maidstone in Kent, the Londoner Robotham, Vernon from gritty Wakefield in Yorkshire, Haviland from Birmingham in Warwickshire, Blakeley from the gloomy mills of Preston in Lancashire and Tredigo, a Cornishman but from Nottinghamshire, have no known graves and are remembered on the Thiepval Memorial, Pier and Face 8a and d.

The other two are Ellison, from Staffordshire, who is buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) Caterpillar Valley Cemetery (Special grave 21) and Higgins, from Tyneside, Northumberland, who lies in the CWGC Becourt Military Cemetery, Plot I Row P Grave 9.

Vernon's and Robothams's dates of death are given as 30 July, Higgins's as 31 July, and the others as 29 July in both the CWGC Register and His Majesty's Stationery Office (HMSO) publication Soldiers Died in the Great War1914-19. In both sources, Ellison is spelled “Ellisson,” and in the CWGC Register Tredigo is spelled “Tregidgo.”

Bazentin Sector, July 1915

In the 1980s, the NINE BRAVE MEN memorial was refurbished and enclosed in a low wall by teenage boys from 82 Squadron,  Junior Leaders Regiment Royal Engineers, but after that program was discontinued, the memorial was once again neglected. Now, cleaned and touched up, the entire structure has also been moved a short distance to reduce the risk of damage from road traffic. The Bazentin Commune has accepted responsibility for its maintenance. 

Finding the Memorial: 

It now sits on a bend of the D73 highway, just down  the road from High Wood. The entrance to the CWGC  Bazentin- le- Petit Cemetery is just 500 ft. to the south.

Sources: The Western Front Association (UK); National Portrait Gallery