Name
Ernest Clarence J. Clements
Conflict
First World War
Date of Death / Age
25/09/1916
24
Rank, Service Number & Service Details
Private
15788
Bedfordshire Regiment
8th Bn.
Awards: Service Medals/Honour Awards
Not Yet Researched
Cemetery/Memorial: Name/Reference/Country
THIEPVAL MEMORIAL
Face 2 C.
France
Headstone Inscription
Not Researched
UK & Other Memorials
Standon War Memorial, St Mary’s Church Memorial, Standon, Puckeridge Memorial Plaque, Standon Village Hall, Standon
Biography
Clarry, as he was known, joined the 8th Battalion, the Bedfordshire Regiment. He was Private No. 15788 and was killed in action 25th September 1916 at the age of 24.
He is commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial, Somme, France, on Pier and Face 2C. He was reported missing in action and his body was never found.
Ernest Clarence Jason Clements was born in Worcester in approximately 1892 to Ernest and Marion Clements. His family moved to Standon when father Ernest became the blacksmith in the village in about 1900. During the war, father Ernest earned part of his living by shoeing horses for a Hampshire battalion camped on Lordship Meadow, and one of the Clements daughters, Marion, worked in the munitions factory at Barwick.
One of nine children, Clarry proved himself a keen and capable pupil, as he won a school prize in 1903 for attendance and progress, and according to a family friend who holds the Clements brothers’ letters from the period, Clarry was more literate than his brother Albert (Bert) although letters survive from both boys. Bert was also destined to lose his life in the service of his country, just seven months after his older brother.
The 1911 Census finds Clarry living with Alfred and Frank Sargent in Forest Gate, helping in their grocery shop. It seems he continued in that occupation back in Standon later, as is mentioned in the newspaper article below.
An article from the Herts & Essex Observer of 26th May 1917 (duplicated in the Hertford Mercury) gave the following information:
“The eldest son of Mr & Mrs Ernest Clements of Stortford Road, Standon enlisted with his brother Albert and a number of Standon lads, in the Bedfordshire Regiment early in September 1914. He went to France in August 1915 and proved himself a very efficient soldier. He had a number of narrow escapes, and has, we regret to say, been reported missing since September 25th 1916. So many months having elapsed it is feared little hope can be entertained that he is not among the roll of the Bedfordshire’s heroic dead. He was 24 years of age, and prior to joining the Army was a grocer’s assistant at Standon.”
Due to a combination of the many surviving letters Clarry wrote, and a very informative website dedicated to the Bedfordshire Regiment and their role in the war, we have a very full account of the brothers’ experiences. This is a précis and a full version can be found at : www.bedfordregiment.org.uk Thanks go to Steve Fuller for the website and Derek Wisbey, the guardian of the letters.
Clarry and younger brother Bert enlisted at the same time, 7th September 1914 at Hertford. The 8th (Service) Battalion was formed in October 1914. After a brief time at Brighton in early 1915, the next seven months of training was around Woking in Surrey. They left Dover in late August arriving in Boulogne on 30th August 1915.
The brothers had a rather confusing first experience of battle, marching up and down the front line the night before the Battle of Loos. Once battle had commenced, they followed their C.O., going to support another brigade, when the C.O. was wounded. Contact was lost with the battalions to their front, so they stayed put, enduring constant shelling, and were later withdrawn without having reached the front or firing their weapons.
Later, Clarry, Bert and their Battalion were transferred to 6th Division and spent many months in the trenches N.E. of Ypres. In a New Year’s Eve letter home, Clarry describes an uncomfortable Christmas Day carrying rations back and forth between a ruined village and frontline trenches, whilst eating bread and butter for his own meals, tea without milk, and having a spot of jam with his bread for dinner. He remarks on being upset because a friend called ‘Punch’ had been killed a few days earlier. ‘Punch’ was in fact Private 15306 Francis W Oakley (see his biography) who was another of the local lads that had enlisted the same day.
Acknowledgments
Di Vanderson, Jonty Wild
