A trouble’s a ton
A trouble’s an ounce
A trouble is what you make it
It isn’t the fact that you’re hurt that
counts
But just - how did you take it
7480 Pte R Pimble
1st Batt Gloucestershire Regt
Stopped two bullets at Ypres Nov 7th
1914
He
shares this page with Private W Brown of the 1/9th Middlesex Regiment, Private
41441 Thomas George Clarke of the Norfolk Regiment and 3655 Private Martin Donnelly of the 1st East Surrey Regiment.
Reginald was born in Ross Workhouse, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire on 22nd May 1888 . He was the son of Ann Pymble (born c1862) and
is probably the same three year old Reginald Pimble who appears on the 1891
census as a three year old “nurse child” living at 42 Suffolk Street , Gloucester
I
have been unable to locate him on the 1901 census but his entry on the silver
war badge roll at The National Archives in London 12th March 1904 . He would have been two months short of his
sixteenth birthday at the time and would have enlisted for boys’ service. His reckonable service would have counted
from his eighteenth birthday –
22nd May 1906 .
On
19th April 1909 he married Florence Helen Limbrick in Gloucester Gloucester
By
the time war was declared on Germany France Ypres on 7th November. The following information regarding
the 1st Gloucestershire Regiment in its early days on The Western Front,
is adapted from Part 6 of my Chailey narrative, The Hospital Way:
Although Reg Pimble arrived in France Marne and it was at Rozoy, on 5th
September that Pimble, amongst a draft of 100 men, joined his footsore
colleagues. This was the first
reinforcement that the battalion had received since leaving England and with it
came an inadequate supply of shirts, socks and boots which was nevertheless
gratefully received by a number of the men, the condition of whose boots had
reduced them to marching in bare feet.
Now though, they were in Flanders , rushed up to prevent the Kaiser’s armies from
breaking through at Ypres . On the 23rd October they’d successfully
repelled determined German attacks north of Langemarck and re-claimed trenches
recently taken by the enemy. Terrible
casualties had been inflicted on the advancing Germans, but the 1st Division,
to which the 1st Gloucesters belonged, had also suffered heavily. By the time it was relieved on the morning of
the 25th, the Division had suffered fourteen hundred casualties over the
previous few days’ fighting.
Four days’ later, they were back in the
thick of it, thrown into the Battle Inverness
Copse on the 1st of November the men from the Cotswolds had been shelled
mercilessly and suffered a further seventy five casualties during the
relief. The battalion was now reduced to
just 240 other ranks and they badly needed a rest.
Reg Pimble in fancy dress, seated second from left
The next few days however, were hardly
what they had in mind. On November 2nd
there were further casualties: three officers and fifty eight other ranks; some
of these caused by ‘friendly fire’ from the British artillery which was
unaware, during the ebb and flow of battle that the ground they were shelling
was back in Allied hands. On the 3rd November, 200
reinforcements arrived. “These numbers,”
recorded the author of the 1st Gloucesters’ battalion diary later, “were
particularly welcome after the previous week’s casualties and greatly helped to
put fresh life into the Regiment.”
On 5th November however, having been rushed back into the line and
ordered to hold it for twenty four hours at all costs, the battalion had
suffered a further forty one casualties from artillery fire which completely
destroyed many of the trenches and buried a number of the men.
The 6th was spent re-organising
the battalion, a task completed only just in time for there was a fresh
emergency south at Zillebeke. The
Germans had pushed back the French troops holding that part of the line and
were threatening to break through.
Leaving at four in the afternoon, the Gloucesters had arrived at their
new positions north of the village
of Zwartelen
“7th November,” says The Official
History, “was misty and marked the definite commencement of winter weather: mud
henceforth seriously interfered with operations and cold at night made sleeping
in the open difficult, if not impossible.”
Certainly, there had been little sleep for Reg Pimble and his pals on
the eastern edges of Zwartelen and in the woods further to the north. Now as the morning advanced, the order to
assist the neighbouring 22nd Brigade in a counter attack on the left had been
cancelled because it was just too foggy to see where they were firing. The 22nd Brigade however, had pushed ahead
and secured its objectives, reporting back that the trenches opposite the
Gloucesters were empty. Orders were
issued for an immediate advance and for the enemy trenches to be seized; the
rest of the 3rd Brigade would provide support.
The battalion pushed forward in two
lines but no sooner had they emerged from Zwartelen than they were met with
intense rifle and machine gun fire from German troops still holding on to some
of the houses in the village. “The whole
advance,” continues the battalion diarist, “had been far too hurried and no
definite orders had ever been given.
Officers and men were much too exhausted to do more than clear a few of
the houses. Most of the men had to lie
down in the open all day and only a few could get back to the trenches they had
dug the night before.” At roll call that
night, only three officers and 213 men answered their names. Private 7480 Pimble, R was not one of them;
shot twice, he’d received his Blighty wound and would not return to Flanders .
Although he does not state as much in Nurse Oliver's album, Reg
Pimble’s wounds were severe, as reported in the Gloucester Journal of 28th November 1914.
He was discharged from the army on 7th July 1915 as no longer physically fit for war service and in due course he would receive his silver war badge (number 98887) and later his 1914 Star and British War and Victory Medals. A number of photographs of him appear in Edith Oliver's album and Frances Blencowe's album, including the one of him playing billiards (below) at Hickwells in early 1915.
Three
more children were born to Reginald and Florence Pimble: Bertha Pimble in March
1916, Kathleen I Pimble in September 1918 and Violet Christine Pimble in June
1922. At one time the family lived at 6 St Paul's Street, Gloucester and in
civilian life Reginald was associated with Iron Acton and was a Gloucestershire
County Council Workman.
He was discharged from the army on 7th July 1915 as no longer physically fit for war service and in due course he would receive his silver war badge (number 98887) and later his 1914 Star and British War and Victory Medals. A number of photographs of him appear in Edith Oliver's album and Frances Blencowe's album, including the one of him playing billiards (below) at Hickwells in early 1915.
