“He had seen the men through the trauma of Dunkirk, and had won the love and respect of both officers and men.”

By Michael Somerville

ONE HUNDRED BRITISH army chaplains gave their lives in the Second World War.

While researching the history of the 2/5th Battalion Sherwood Foresters, I came upon the story of one of them who died in Tunisia on Feb. 4, 1943. It illustrates how these men put their lives at risk to carry out their calling.

The 2/5th Battalion Sherwood Foresters was a Territorial Army unit formed in March 1939. In February 1943, few officers had served in the battalion longer than 32-year-old Reverend Harold Norman Barratt, Chaplain (4th Class).

Before the war Barratt had been a curate in the parish of Acomb outside York, where he was a stalwart of the local scouting movement, and had been ordained a priest at York Minster in 1938.

Barratt joined the Royal Army Chaplaincy Department on May 24, 1939, and been posted to the 2/5th Foresters on March 19, 1940. For nearly three years he had administered to the spiritual, moral, and emotional needs of the battalion. He had seen the men through the trauma of Dunkirk, and had won the love and respect of both officers and men. Regimental Sergeant Major (RSM) Robert Hennessy, a former Grenadier Guardsman, told one group of men constructing dugouts in the front line in Tunisia “this is for the padre, let’s make it a bit special”, and on its completion placed a wooden sign marked ‘THE RECTORY’ above the entrance.

Shortly after the battalion arrived in North Africa – its last Sunday in Algiers before moving up to the front line – there had been a service in a brick factory where they were billeted. Although voluntary, the service was attended by most of the battalion, with some watching the proceedings from the factory’s gantry – unlike typical army church parades. Both religious and non-religious alike found the service very moving, and it would remain in their memory.

Barratt had married in October 1939, and back at their home in Edinburgh his Scottish wife, Katharine, was expecting their second child. Their son Michael had been just a few days short of his first birthday when the battalion left for North Africa on Christmas Day 1942.

Barratt’s routine was to alternate weeks spent in the front line with a week seeing to the needs of the wounded and sick in the Main Dressing Station (MDS) in the mining village of Sedjenane, some 15 miles to the rear where the Foresters had their supply depot and rest area. On Feb. 4, 1943, he was at the front, and Barratt travelled from Battalion HQ to the forward trenches to conduct Holy Communion. It was a Thursday, so his congregation that day was small, only four men. Twenty-year-old Lieutenant ‘Ginger’ Martin, commanding number 14 Platoon, “B” company, had just returned from 36 hours leave in the rest area and had persuaded Barratt to hold a service. He also persuaded his Platoon Sergeant, Maurice Enser, to go with him. The last members of the group were Corporal Bert Pinnock and Private John Blake. It was contrary to regulations for both the platoon officer and platoon sergeant to be away from their men at the same time, but it would only be for half an hour. Barratt selected for his chapel a small hut belonging to one of the local Arab villagers, which sat on top of a hill about 150 yards in front of the slit trenches held by “A” Company. Lieutenant Willoughby Gilliver, commanding one of the “A” company platoons, advised him against holding the service in such an exposed position, but the padre insisted. The hut was made of mud, with branches supporting a roughly thatched roof. Barratt laid out some ration boxes for a communion table, and started the service.

At 10:30 a.m. the enemy began to shell the Foresters’ positions. Barratt tried to continue with the devotions for several minutes, but the noise of the crashing shells became too great, and he told everyone to take cover. Moments later a shell smashed into the little hut, and the air was filled with smoke, fumes, and dust.

Enser and Pinnock had dived for cover in one corner and, emerging unharmed from the rubble, their first reaction was that miraculously no-one had been hurt. Enser got up and went to remove some of the debris from Lieutenant Martin, but as he turned the unconscious body over, he realized the young officer was dead. Blake had also been killed instantly in the explosion. Blake, like Martin, was 20 years old. Barratt had been partly protected by the makeshift altar, but was badly wounded, with both his legs broken. Stretcher-bearers hurried forward to the hut and Enser helped them put the injured padre onto one to carry him down the hill; dispatch rider Steve Loach was sent back to the MDS to get an ambulance. German shells continued to fall around Loach’s motorcycle on the way there, but having fired 52 shells, including the one that hit the hut, the guns fell silent as he and the ambulance wound their way back up the valley. The medics were too late, Reverend Barratt died of his wounds two hours after being hit.

For the first time in the war, Sergeant Enser had the duty of reporting casualties to his company commander. Captain Frank Holbrook told him to take command of the platoon, after which Enser returned to the platoon’s command dug-out and got drunk on the contents of a bottle of Ginger Martin’s whisky. The loss of the popular padre was a great blow to morale and brought home to those still untested in a real battle just how dangerous life at the front was. Not even a man of God was safe.

Footnote. Harold and Katharine’s daughter was born after his death. They had originally planned to name her Mary, but she was christened Norma Mary in memory of her father. Her son has followed in his grandfather’s calling of spiritual and physical care, and since 2002 has worked for Middle East Christian Outreach (MECO) and then Serving in Mission (SIM). He is currently aiding Syrian refugee children in the Lebanon. My thanks to Norma and her family for their help in my research.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Dr. Michael Somerville is the author of Bull Run to Boer War: How the American Civil War Changed the British Army, published in the UK by Helion and distributed in the U.S. by Casemate. He graduated with a first-class degree in History from Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University. He is President of the American Civil War Round Table U.K., for which he has produced a number of presentations and articles. In August 2017 he was awarded a doctorate by the University of Buckingham for his thesis on the influence of the Civil War on the Victorian British Army, which forms the bases in his book. He lives in Wimbledon with his wife Gillian who fortunately shares his love of American history and war cemeteries.