CULLYBACKEY CADETS REVEAL STORIES OF WW1 SERVICE AND SACRIFICE

A name engraved on the Ballymena war memorial and the little known tale of the heroism of a local minister have inspired Cullybackey Cadets to find out more about the local heroes of World War 1.  

Their research, carried out as part of a Northern Ireland wide history project, deepened understanding and earned them first and second place in the Army Cadet category of the competition. 

Ethan Keenan (17), Anna Henry (17) and Jack McGrath (14) chose as their inspiration Irish Guard, Lance Corporal James F Wallace. James was born in Ballymena in 1882 to John and Isabella Wallace, moving to London to work as a tailor before joining the Irish Guards in 1903, aged 21.  He married Clara and they had one daughter.  James left the military but, on August 6

1914, mobilisation notices were sent to every Irish Guard reservist, totalling over 1,300 men, and  James was amongst the first troops to go to war.

He deployed to France and almost immediately found himself embroiled in the trench warfare of the first Battle of Ypres.  He survived just a few months, killed in action on 24 October 1914. His body was never recovered but he is named on the Ballymena war memorial and is inscribed on the Menin Gate.

In the same competition 17-year-olds Ellen Rea and Ellen McCaw, also from Cullybackey Detachment Army Cadet Force, chose as their special ‘Local Hero’ The Reverend Horace Crawford Townsend who, at the outset of World War 1, was Rector at Craig’s Parish Church.

Following the outbreak of war, the Church of Ireland Gazette appealed for recruits, including clergy, and Rev Crawford left his wife and two daughters to play his part as a Chaplain in the conflict.

The bravery of Chaplains is rarely recorded in official histories but, as the girls, discovered, it deserves to be highlighted, not least because 179 Chaplains lost their lives at the front line.  Rev Crawford soon found himself at the forefront of military action in the Battle of the Somme, all the more terrifying because, as a Chaplain, he was unarmed.  In 1917 he was gassed and was sent home on sick leave, swiftly returning to the battlefield where he stayed on active duty until March 1918 when he returned home, remaining in service until 1920.

His service was exceptional and his bravery was marked with an entry in the London Gazette in which he was mentioned in an addendum to Sir Douglas Haig’s despatches of January 4, 1917. He was subsequently awarded the Military Cross, although sadly, no record can currently be found of the action which secured that honour. He passed away at the age of 70, back in his home parish.

Reflecting on the research, Ellen Rea said, “I was really pleased that Rev Townsend made it home safely, but it is hard to imagine the horrors he must have seen serving in the trenches at the Battle of the Somme.”  

Ellen McCaw added, “I am sure the sights and sounds which he witnessed in those trenches never left him. Researching his story really did encourage me to think more deeply about the people behind the statistics of WW1.”

Ethan Keenan agrees about the power of research.  He says, “We set ourselves quite a task when we tried to reveal the story behind, Lance Corporal James F Wallace’s war-time service, for there is very little information now available. Even so we felt specially connected to him and we were all genuinely sorry to think of him being killed in action, so far from home and family.”

Anna Henry adds, “Our research made us think more deeply about the real people who were caught up in the war, most of them not much older than we are now and many of them from our area.  When you learn about the First World War in school and at Cadets, you take in loads of statistics, but this reminded us that there is a real person behind every figure.”
  
Jack McGrath concludes, “Working on the Local Heroes project gave a whole new dimension to history lessons and it was an interesting and valuable challenge for us – a bit less adventurous than the majority of Cadet exercises, but something that we will always remember.” 

The information gathered by the young people will now become an important learning resource for others in the Cadet movement.