1942-1943 ANECDOTES

June 1942 brought the news of a Military Cross for former Bath forward Major Peter Morley.

MANCOM 15/6/42

Re extensive blitz damage to North and West Stands, Mr F C Wills thought Club should approach members who might make a present of their shares, especially as there would be no ‘interest’ for several years. Coupled with this, was whether to continue ‘manning a side’ for season 1942/43, and also the travelling difficulties had to be considered. Match Sec to write to clubs who played Bath in 1941/42 to ask if they would be willing to travel.

MANCOM 13/7/42

Special meeting called for July 27^th to decide whether to continue during 1942/43.

MANCOM 27/7/42

Without guarantee of monetary support it was thought to be impossible to carry on. Other clubs had stated that transport was the main problem. Decided to write to Somerset and R.F.U. for advice. Miss Piper offered £25 to help Club carry on. Position not resolved.

Schoolboy Season Tickets issued at 7/-. Standard admission 1/-, with half price for Service men and women.

MANCOM 5/10/42

No monetary assistance was available from Somerset or R.F.U. It was proposed to release to Press that if

200 Supporters were prepared to buy £1 season tickets, rugby would be able to start around 24/10/42. Failing this, all money would be refunded, and the Club would be bound to close down for the season at least. Mrs Gerrard offered to ring up all the old subscribers to the Club. It was the express wish of her husband (now in the Middle East) that the game should be kept going during the war.

A letter had been received from Mr Wass with the names of most of the previous season’s players offering to pay all their own expenses.

Two teams could be accommodated at the Royal Baths at 6d per head.

Another meeting called for 12/10/42 to examine the results of these appeals, and if unsuccessful, it was decided to close the club for the season.

“It was decided to make all home fixtures, so that ticket holders should have a good chance to see plenty of rugger for their money.”

MANCOM 12/10/42

There was a long discussion to decide the fate of the Club. There had been a poor response to appeals. Nevertheless, it was decided that Rugby was to re-start on 24/10/42.

Evidentally, it was a “skin of the teeth ” decision by the supporters.

Season tickets would need to be sold. The Committee would make-good match deficits up to a maximum of £3 per Committee member.

RESTART

“Many will surely rejoice at this courageous policy and resolve to give their regular backing, even if the two stands are heaps of rubble, and the best that can be done is to place flower-pot stands around.

The Club, with a legacy of scrap iron and stone that is going for salvage, could not have been blamed for ‘packing up’ for the duration. They have lost both stands (one not nearly paid for) and have literally no visible assets. Those have ‘gone with the wind.”

MANCOM 17/10/42

Club to run a Draw.

15 matches fixed up.

Club elected John Wass captain for the season.

Chippenham R.F.C. donated £2 to help club carry on.

RUGBY AGAIN

24/10/42 v 5^th Battalion Home Guard. Home. Won 24-0. Team:- J Hodder, C Porter, J de Wolf, A Beasley, R Giles, Dr. Leahy (ex Prior Park College), M. Rees, J Wass (Captain), C Woodward, L Harding, Rogers, Dr Milne, W R Stewart, Davies, and  K Weiss.

Norman Matthews continued to organise the Home Guard team, but was giving up playing.

It was a somewhat inauspicious restart to Rugby on the Rec. There were no stands, no changing rooms, but the players soon adjusted to the circumstances, changing at the Royal Baths and walking, as in the old days, down through town to the pitch.

Cyril Porter had joined the R.A.F. and put on 2 stone in weight. He had an early run, lost the ball, regained it and punted ahead – just right for him to trundle on and touch down. He missed with the kick.

The Home Guard retaliated with a couple of sturdy and exciting bursts. Porter again came into the picture with another kick and chase. He had judged correctly and added a second try. This time he added the extras with a finely directed kick. Bath went on to consolidate their hold on the game, and ended with a comfortable win.

Most importantly – they’d started again.

MANCOM 26/10/42

12/12/42 Ground made available for an Army Welfare game organised by Capt. Ledbury.

Aware of Bath’s plight, Combe Down R.F.C. donated £2 and an offer of two players.

1/11/42 * Chronicle Headline: ‘BATH LOST A RUGBY FIXTURE’

“Because an Army unit sent a soccer team in error to the Recreation Ground, Bath lost a very good fixture on Saturday. Players and spectators alike were disappointed.

The army unit in question seemed to have tripped up over the word ‘Football’ in the Bath Football Club’s title. In the title “rugby” is not included and never has been.

Even as late as Saturday morning the unit were wired to repeating the time of the kick-off, saying they would change at the Royal Baths and signing it  -Bath Rugby Club.

Perhaps the wire went astray. Anyhow, it was a chapter of accidents.”

Bath & Wilts Chronicle & Herald – November 1942

D.S.O FOR MAJOR R.A. GERRARD

BATH RUGBY STAR SHINES IN EGYPT

Major R.A. Gerrrard  R.E of Bath, the former England and Bath Rugby player has won the immediate D.S.O in the Middle East, it was announced on Wednesday night.

The citation says “ On the first night of the El Alamien offensive he led the first wave of sappers detailed to clear three lanes through minefields, He moved from lane to lane regardless of his own safety”.

It was a representative of the Bath and Wilts Chronicle and Herald who informed his wife Mrs Gerrard that he had won the D.S.O  on the battle field of EL Alamien. She was naturally thrilled as will be thousands of Rugby and Cricket players and supporters. Mrs Gerrard heard from him on Monday a letter written on Nov. 10. In it he said nothing of his own part in the Battle of Egypt, He simply said that his unit had been congratulated on their magnificent effort and how thrilled he was to have been in the big battle that settled Egypt’s future.

A “TERRIER”

A Territorial before the war he held a commission in the Wessex R.E and was mobilised at the outbreak of the war. He spent much of the time on the South East Coast, but volunteered in May to go to Egypt.

Early in November a war correspondent gave Bathonians the story of what he was doing in these words:

“A field squadron of the Royal Engineers attached to an armoured division (their commander is an English Rugby international born in Hong Kong and his home is in Bath) is among the units which have done very fine work.

“Gerry” is the son of the Police Chief of Hong Kong and but for his death, he would have gone into the Police Service there himself. Instead he came to England, was educated at Taunton School and became a member of the Bath City Engineer’s technical staff.

SAVED HUNDREDS

The war correspondent already quoted also wrote “Magicians with delicate hands, sensitive feet, and an uncanny instinct for hidden evil” he says “are saving hundreds of British lives during the offensive by removing booby traps and mines in the battlefield”.

“Officially they are sappers, dusty, sunburnt men of the Royal Engineers but in this battle they have had one the trickiest tasks ever known. The Germans and Italian’s have spent the recent lull in the fighting in methodically sowing the ground with booby traps of every kind.

“One arete was so filled with lurking death that a notice board was placed beside it with the grim warning inscription in German and Italian ‘Devils Garden’.

NONE OF OUR AIRCRAFT WAS MISSING

The Bath Chronicle of the 21^st November 1942 reported Bath wing three-quarter, Wing-Commander B V Robinson’s frightening adventure in the sky over Turin in Italy. A flare in the bomb bay caught fire, and on his orders, the whole of his crew bailed out. Undaunted, he brought his Halifax bomber plane back alone and touched down safely on an airfield near the English coast. However, his crew were captured. In possession of his aircrew, the Italian propaganda authorities maintained that one of the Allied planes had been shot down.

Not so – all aircraft, including B V Robinson’s were back in Britain.

Obituary Bath & Wilts Chronicle & Herald 11^th February 1943.

BATH RUGBY INTERNATIONAL

Major R.A. Gerrard, D.S.O

            Killed In Action          

Played Vital Part in Great African Adventure

We deeply regret to record that Major R.A. Gerrard D.S.O, the former Bath, Somerset and England international centre-three quarter, was killed in action in the Middle East in January, four days after his 31st birthday.

So passes a great sportsman and a great solider who won honour on the field of play and on the field of battle. The grievous news came on Tuesday night in a telegram from the War Office which conveyed the deep sympathy of the Army Council. The wire was diverted to Capt. Stanley Amor, the Chairman of the Bath Rugby Club and captain of the Bath Cricket Club by whom the news the news was broken to Mrs Gerrard with whom and her baby son sympathy of all Bath citizens and of a wide circle of friends elsewhere will go out. Major Gerrard volunteered for service in the Middle East last May and was awarded the D.S.O in November last for gallant and distinguished work in disposing of mines and booby traps in advance from El Alamein.

AT SOMERSET SCHOOL

Ronald Anderson Gerrard was born in Hong Kong where his father was Assistant Commissioner of Police. But for his father’s death he would probably have gone into the Police Service in Hong Kong himself.

Instead he came to England with his mother and was educated at Taunton school. His prowess at all athletic sports soon won him renown. He won the Public Schools putting the shot championship in 1929 and 1930 and was lawn tennis, table tennis and five’s champion of his school.  A capital all round cricketer he headed the school batting averages for three years was a first class rifle shot , and a member of the school water polo team.

When he arrived in England he was 15 and up until that time he had never seen nor played rugby. But he had played soccer in Hong Kong.

RUGBY HONOURS

Once introduced to rugby he took the game up with the same enthusiasm and success as he did all other athletic pursuits. On leaving school he was articled as a civil engineer to Messrs Coles Bros., of Bath and he soon became a regular member of the Bath rugby team, his first game being at Plymouth on Oct. 11 1930. His progress to International status was meteoric.

In 1931 the English selectors awoke to the fact that in him was to be found the almost perfect centre strong, heavy  (he then weighed 14 Stones), fast, clever and resourceful, with a terrific hand off.  Accordingly they put him in both the English trails that season.

They soon decided he was a “find” and he made his debut in International  football playing for England against the Springboks at Twickenham on January 1932. His display on that occasion brought him high praise and his place in the England XV hence forward as assured.

Although he gained 14 caps for England, appearing against Scotland, Ireland and Wales in 1932-33-34 and 1936 against New Zealand in 1936, he captained Bath and Somerset . His one disappointment as a footballer was that he never captained England.

One of the hardest players in the game to bring down in his prime he scaled over 14 stones he could smash his way almost any defence. Possessing an eminently safe pair of hands he was a sturdy and resolute if not fast runner and a tower in defence with deadly tackling and sure kicking.

SCHOOLBOYS HERO

He was one of the most unselfish players who ever represented England. He truly “played the game  hHhhjjHhg” and became a hero to schoolboys. He received several offers to go “North” and play league football. Once a cheque for four figures was dangled in front of him but he spurned the idea.

HIS MARRIAGE

He married on a Friday Nov 19 1937. His bride was the talented Bath architect Miss Molly Taylor, daughter of the late Mr A.J Taylor F.R.I.B.A, Architect to the Spa Committee of the Bath City Council. It was a brilliant wedding. The bride designed her own ensemble of grey and silver and also the huge three tier bridal cake on the top of  which was a model of the Twickenham Rugby ground, scene of many of  the bridegroom’s triumphs. Weighing nearly 1½ cwt.. the cake was square, instead of the usual round and the tiers were supported by replica girders. It also bore architects’ and surveyors’ emblems.

The best man was H.G Owen-Smith who the previous season had captained England.

“Gerry” (that is how he is known to his friends) was in the Wessex R.E.s (Territorial) before the war and recruited a number of Rugby players from the Bath and other clubs in the neighbourhood. Mobilised when war came, he won speedy promotion. He trained R.E units in the South East, but he longed for active service volunteered and went to Egypt. For his share in the push from EL Alamein he received the immediate award of the D.S.O – a rare distinction.

CLEARED THE MINEFIELDS

On the first night of the great offensive Major Gerrard’s field squadron formed the first wave of sappers detailed to clear three lanes through enemy minefields. On reaching the first field, heavy machine gun fire was encountered.

Major Gerrard nevertheless led his sappers in lifting the mines which included anti-personnel apparatus. He moved from lane to lane regardless of his own safety, encouraging his men in their dangerous work. Having cleared the first lines Major Gerrard and his squadron dealt with other enemy minefields beyond, until they reached the objective of the division. During this time he and his men were continuously under fire.

The successful piercing of the enemy minefields in this sector was officially stated as largely due to his personal efforts and example. It paved the way for the triumphant push which changed the course of the war.

Major Gerrard addressed himself to all dangerous tasks with utter fearlessness. Now he sleeps on the battlefield in a spot that will be “for ever England”. One can hear him cry to those who are left “Chin up, carry on”.

Major Gerrard left a Widow, Molly and a baby son – Duncan Robin, whose godfathers were  “Robbie” (Wing Commander B.V. Robinson, D.S.O, D.F.C, the Bath, Somerset, Wilts and Durham winger) and Capt. Pottinger of Bath who was a captive in the Graf Spee at the Battle of the River Plate.

Sadly, Wing Commander Robinson was to perish just seven months later.

THE WOODWARDS

8/3/43 News that Albert ‘Dilly’ Woodward who played Rugby for Bath and Somerset and as a professional for Oldham, and for Bath City at Association Football had died. He was 45 years old. He had served in India during the First World War, but had been dogged by ill health, surviving four major operations. He was the licensee of the Rising Sun, Camden Road for 16 years. Of his brothers, Jim played for Bath Rovers, George for Bath, Charlie for Bath and Frank for Stotherts. One of the seven brothers, William was killed in France.

Albert was “quick as lightning and hard as nails.” He stayed with Oldham Rugby League for 3 years and returned to Bath to play soccer and played a great part in cup successes. He was a potential match winner at whatever code. He was a clubmate of the late and great Arthur Mortimer of Bath City.