Festive fallen: World War Christmastime Casualty Stories

Christmas is a time to embrace peace globally but for the men fighting the World Wars, the holidays bought little respite.

Join us for a look at some of the World War casualties sadly killed during the festive period.

Christmastime World War casualties

Christmas in the World Wars

Image: British troops eating their Christmas dinner in a shell hole, Beaumont Hamel (IWM (Q 1630))

Forget the picture postcard, Christmas advert vision of peace in No Man’s Land and guns falling silent in combat zones that come when we think of Christmas in wartime.

Combat did not stop for Christmas during the World Wars.

In fact, the miraculous truce amid the trenches of the Western Front, complete with carols lilting gently over the battle-scarred landscape and football match, is a bit of a myth. 

In December 1914, some spontaneous ceasefires broke out along the line, but for the vast majority of First World War soldiers, the holidays were mostly business as usual.

As one member of the Grenadier Guards wrote in a letter home to his family: “Perhaps you read of the conversation on Christmas Day. It is all lies. The sniping went on just the same; in fact, our Captain was wounded, so don’t believe what you see in the papers.”

Likewise, no Christmas truce was recorded between Commonwealth forces and their Axis opponents during the Second World War.

A Soldier’s Christmas

Image: A crewman of trawler HMS Turquoise with his celebratory cigar, Christmas pudding and bottle of beer (IWM (A 21072))

Frontline services differed from unit to unit, but Christmas cheer still managed to weave its magic on troops at the front in wartime.

As well as cards and notes from their loved ones, soldiers, airmen and sailors on service opened gifts from loved ones, charities, and even the Royal Family. 

Tobacco, clothing, games, reading material, and sweet treats were all presents loved by frontline servicemen in the World Wars at Christmas.

If lucky enough, a unit may have also received special Christmas dinners, complete with turkey, mince pies, and puddings, plus a few bottles of beer or brandy, to get them in the festive spirit.

Frontline soldiers may not have been so lucky. If manning the line, troops could look forward to their usual rations, supplemented by whatever gifts and treats they’d been sent by friends and family.

Writing in 1915, Private William Boyer described his experience: “On Christmas Eve we have a short voluntary service and communion in a bell tent, very strange singing “peace on Earth” and off to kill all we can early next morning… 

“We had a few comforts given out, including a piece of Christmas pudding… Our Colonel wishes us a happy Christmas and we move away into the night, passing other bodies of troops moving off, with artillery rumbling along... We have a cessation mid-day for our Christmas dinner, bully and biscuits.”

The story was the same in the Second World War. Where possible, troops were offered more creature comforts, entertainment and, where possible, respite from gruelling combat and frontline duties.

Historian Karl James wrote that, in the oppressive humidity of the Far East at Bougainville, the Australian II Corps enjoyed: “Turkey, ham, fresh potatoes peas and onions, followed by plum pudding and sauce. The 26th Battalion held a Christmas Eve concert party that included a jazz performance, and went swimming on Christmas Day, and the 27th Battalion ate fresh fish and roast pork from wild pigs.”

By the Second World War, global strides in mass communication brought Christmas to those serving in far-flung corners of the globe, including the high seas.

For many, this forged a strong connection between those fighting overseas and those at home.

For example, Lieutenant W.P. Brooke-Smith of HMS Belfast described listening to the King’s Speech on the radio on Christmas Morning 1943: “At 3 p.m. the King’s Christmas speech was relayed over the ship’s broadcast system and, although the wind drowned much of it, the homely words that we heard, as we sat huddled up in our “goon skins” and balaclavas, brought us closer to our families, especially as we knew that they too would be listening to that same voice at home."

But where some units and crews were able to find festive respite, others were not so lucky. Thousands of servicemen were lost on or around Christmas Day during the World Wars. Below are some of their stories.

World War Christmas casualty stories

Gunner John Gerard Heath Ledger

Image: Gunner John Ledger (Shrewsbury School)

John Ledger was born in Liverpool on 7 July 1907.

John was educated at Shrewsbury School where it appears he developed a passion for rowing. With Shrewsbury, John competed at the 1924 Henley Regatta, winning the Ladies’ Challenge Late at the prestigious rowing competition.

After Shrewsbury, John continued his studies at Trinity College, Cambridge. He continued to row, joining the First Trinity Rowing Club.

John’s high level of performance for Cambridge won him selection for the Great Britain Olympic Team for the 1928 Amsterdam Summer Olympics.

With the Great British coxless four crew, John came away from Amsterdam with a Gold Medal.

After his triumph in the Netherlands, John was expected to be called up as a Cambridge blue. However, he was overlooked by selectors in favour of Tom Brocklebank for the centenary Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race.

After leaving university, John settled as a businessman in Hong Kong.

With the Imperial Japanese invasion of Hong Kong in December 1941, John enlisted with the Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Force.

The Commonwealth forces garrisoning Hong Kong fought valiantly but were completely outclassed by the invading Japanese army. The city was surrounded and, on Christmas Day 1941, forced into submission.

The British Empire lost up to 2,275 killed, missing, captured, or wounded in the Fall of Hong Kong.
Gunner Ledger was among their number. He was killed in fighting near St. Stephen’s College on Christmas Day, 1941 and is buried at Sai Wan War Cemetery.

John Ledger was the only British gold-medal-winning Olympian to die in combat during the Second World War.

Corporal John Watson Wishart

Image: Cap badge of the Gordon Highlanders (Public domain)

John Wishart was the second of eleven children born to parents John and Mary Wishart. He was born on 9 April 1888 at Rose Cottage near Luthermuir, Kincardineshire, Scotland.

Before the First World War, John worked as a banking clerk. In 1911, he contracted a bout of rheumatic fever, an event that would have later tragic repercussions for the young Scotsman.

In 1912, John volunteered with the 5th (Deeside Highland) Volunteer Battalion and, with the commencement of hostilities in Europe, enlisted alongside his brother for full military service in 1914.

John joined the 7th (Deeside) Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders. Training commenced immediately and, by April 1915, John had been promoted to Lance Corporal. He reached full Corporal rank in August.

John’s service with the Gordon Highlanders was restricted to northern France. The regiment arrived in France in May 1915. From then on, John was exposed to the stresses, privations, and harsh conditions of trench warfare.

At Festubert in mid-June 1915, the Highlanders experienced one event where German soldiers dressed in British uniforms crossed No Man's Land and entered the trenches, where they began killing the wounded from an attack the previous day. One man was even observed shooting one soldier, bayoneting another before using his rifle butt to kill a third.

As summer turned to autumn and autumn turned to winter, conditions at the front worsened. The battalion war diary recorded that trenches were regularly knee-deep with mud.

John’s earlier illness had weakened his heart. The stress of frontline warfare and the brutal conditions of the trench affected John’s health. He was pulled from the front in February 1916 and invalidated to the UK for recovery.

John was transferred to the Mater Misericordia Hospital, Dublin, for inspection by heart specialists. Treatment allowed him to walk for small distances, but John continued to experience heart palpitations after even the smallest exertions.

On 31 July 1916, John appeared before a medical board and was found permanently unfit for military service, his condition exacerbated by his time in France. He was officially discharged on 15 August 1916.

John saw out the remainder of the war at home in Scotland, unable to work. Weakened by his Western Front experiences, John contracted influenza in late 1918, passing away on Christmas Eve.

John’s death was deemed connected to his war service and as such he was buried in a CWGC war grave in Marykirk Churchyard.

Christmas 1918 would be extremely sombre for the Wisharts. In addition to John, and his brother James who had been killed in 1915, parents John and Mary lost their three remaining sons to the war in its last 12 months. 

Our thanks to Scott Wishart for sharing John’s story.

Lieutenant Walter Erskine Prior

Image: Lieutenant Walter Prior (Image courtesy of Gary Broad)

Born to Reverend Clement Prior, Walter grew up in the village of Upton Warren, nestled on the banks of the River Salwarpe near Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, in 1922.

The academically gifted young Walter was educated at the prestigious Bromsgrove School. At Bromsgrove, Waler excelled at English literature and proudly served in the school’s Officer Training Corps (OTC).

Walter left education in December 1939 but appears he was only biding his time until he was old enough for service. He very soon enlisted in the Royal Navy Coastal Forces.

Coastal Forces was staffed predominantly by peacetime volunteers. It was originally formed to protect the UK’s coastal waters but, as the Second World War progressed, CN forces found themselves increasingly in the Royal Navy’s vanguard as naval engagements and obligations changed.

Earning an officer’s commission, Walter was first assigned to Coastal Forces services in the Faroe Islands, which had been by the British military in response to the German invasion of Norway and Denmark.

In the Faroes, Walter volunteered for the dangerous work of minesweeping and disposal, which saw him subsequently saw him reassigned to HMS Vernon in Portsmouth, UK.

Vernon was a shore-based establishment tasked with protecting southern England’s civilian population from naval threats. Among its many duties was mine clearance, expected to deal with rogue explosives washing up on the south coast or bobbing maliciously into civilian waters.

As a major navy and military base, Portsmouth was targeted relentlessly by German bombers during the Second World War. The Vernon complex was struck several times, with over 100 service personnel killed in the Portsmouth Blitz, so several departments were moved to other facilities along the south coast.

Walter was moved to HMS Vernon (R) at Roedean School, Brighton, working tirelessly along the whole length of England’s south coast - tracking, isolating, and making safe mines that had slipped their riggings and mines that were either dangerously positioned at sea, or mines that had beached, threatening the civilian population.

Three days before Christmas in the final year of the war, Walter was called upon yet again to inspect a beached mine; this time a British coastal protection mine that had slipped its moorings and was sitting against a groyne (breakwater) on the foreshore at Aldwick, a region of Bognor.

Having inspected the mine and assessed the situation thoroughly (including the atrocious weather conditions and rough sea) Walter immediately understood the threat that it posed to his accompanying team members and the crowd that had gathered on the promenade. 

He sent his colleagues away and directed them to assist the attending civilian Police officers to push the crowd further back from the scene – bravely deciding to disarm the mine himself, alone.

Lieutenant Prior lost his life as he attempted to disarm the mine, dying of his injuries shortly after the explosion. He is buried in Upton Warren (St. Michael) Churchyard.

Eyewitness accounts make it clear that, throughout the whole process, Walter’s primary concern was the safety and well-being of his naval ratings and the civilian population on the seafront.

With thanks to Gary Broad for sharing Walter's story.

Lieutenant Leonard Castel Campbell Rogers

Image: Lieutenant Leonard Rogers (IWM HU 125125)

Born in Cuttack, Orissa, India, on 29 January 1886, Leonard Castel Campbell Rogers was educated at Blundells, excelling in cricket and football.

A career military man, Leonard was commissioned into the Bedfordshire Regiment in 1906. He later transferred to the Indian Army, joining the 7th Gurkha Rifles in November 1908 where he was promoted to Quartermaster in 1913.

During Christmas Time 1914, Leonard was serving around Festubert, France, with the 1/9th Gurkha Rifles. 

The section of line looked over by the Gurkhas had previously been occupied by the Loyal North Lancashire and Northamptonshire Regiments. 

The two British regiments had put in a counterattack on 22 December 1914, which had been repulsed. The bodies of dead and dying men littered No Man’s Land.

On Christmas Eve, Leanord noticed a wounded man in front of the Gurkha’s trench line. The man had been lying in No Man’s Land for some time, around 48 hours, but no opportunity to safely rescue him had presented itself.

Leonard, alongside his orderly Rifleman Panchbir Mal, led a group of men to rescue his wounded comrade under a terrific burst of enemy gunfire. 
Unfortunately, Leonard was struck by an errant bullet and was mortally wounded. He died on Christmas morning.

The 9th Gurkha Rifles by Lieutenant-Colonel F.S. Poynder gives the following details of Leonard’s actions:

“A shallow ditch ran forward from the Coldstream Guards' trench some distance to the right of that held by the Battalion, in the direction of the wounded man. 

“Lieutenant Rogers crawled along this, and running forward about one hundred yards reached, and with difficulty picked up the man and started to return. 

“Unable to carry the weight, he fell some forty yards from the end of the ditch where Panchbir had been told to remain. The latter at once rushed to his assistance and together they lifted the wounded man on to Panchbir's back and restarted. 

“Heavy rifle fire had now been opened and Rogers fell, hit through the back, while the wounded man was again hit in the leg, and the orderly had two bullets through his greatcoat. 

“Undeterred, Panchbir carried him to the ditch, and then, retracing his steps, in turn brought back Lieutenant Rogers. Lieutenant Murray had now reached the spot, and with his assistance both were then successfully brought into the safety of the fire trench. 

“This particularly gallant act took place in broad daylight, at 3pm on a still quiet afternoon, when conditions did anything but inspire cold-blooded deeds of bravery.

“Unfortunately, Lieutenant Rogers died of his wounds the following morning. Both were strongly recommended for the Victoria Cross. Lieutenant Rogers, however, received the Military Cross posthumously, while Rifleman Panchbir received the I.O.M. 2nd Class, and was promoted Havildar.”

Leonard is buried in Le Touret Military Cemetery.

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