Casualties at Christmastime: remembering the fallen in the festive period

The Christmas Truce grabs all the headlines, but the holiday period was not totally peaceful during the World Wars.

Christmas time casualties

Did the fighting really stop on the Western Front at Christmas?

Image: British troops eating their Christmas dinner in a shell hole near Beaumont Hamel on Christmas Day 1916 (© IWM Q 1631)

Christmas is indelibly linked with the story of the First World War.

The story goes that, on December 25, 1914, the guns miraculously stopped, and men from both sides crept trepidatiously from their trenches, to meet in No Man’s Land in a stunning display of humanity amongst the slaughter.

The real story of the Christmas Truce is a little bit more complicated than that. It is true that, in some sectors of the Western Front, peace did reign for several hours. Spontaneous get-togethers between German and Commonwealth troops did take place – but these were far from universal occurrences.

As of December 1914, British and Indian troops were attacking across a wide front in Belgium, in support of the French with the 2/Grenadier Guards. A seaborne air raid of Cuxhaven was also launched on Christmas Day 1914. Peace was far from reigning.

According to CWGC records, some 148 military personnel were killed worldwide on Christmas Day 1914.

No truces, at least none that have captured the public imagination quite like the 1914 event, took place for the rest of the war. Christmas day casualties when split by year look like this:

• 1915 – 209
• 1916 – 287
• 1917 – 283
• 1918 – 191

Christmas and the Second World War

Image: A British soldier with his Christmas sack, Holland 1944 (© IWM TR 2567)

There are no major recorded Christmas truces of the scale scene on the Western Front between Commonwealth and Axis forces during the Second World War.

From the Merchant Marine to the Air Force to the Navy to the Army, the men of the Commonwealth were engaged on battlefields far from home during the festive periods.

Throughout the war years, actions large and small were taking place at Yuletide.

For instance, in December 1941, the Imperial Japanese Army launched its attack on Hong Kong. Despite a valiant defensive effort from its defenders, the Commonwealth forces were swept aside with Hong Kong capitulating on December 26th.

In Hong Kong alone, 216 servicemen fell on Christmas Day.

When we look at Christmas Day casualty splits by year for the Second World War, we can see the following, according to CWGC records:

• 1939 – 37
• 1940 – 196
• 1941 – 363
• 1942 – 248
• 1944 – 205
• 1945 – 78

Although the fighting had stopped by December 1918 and 1945, casualties were still being taken. Sickness, accidents, and wounds sustained in combat would all lead to the loss of life detailed above.

Christmas across the globe during the World Wars

Image: Men of the 2nd Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders in a frontline trench on Christmas Day 1914 (© IWM HU 128733)

The situation worldwide obviously differs from conflict to conflict, but the festive periods of the war years were busy as you can imagine.

Let’s look at 1914 for instance. We know the Grenadier Guards were under fire for most of late December in positions around Festubert and Cuinchy. The Hertfordshires were also involved in combat on Christmas Day, with the battalion war diary noting it ignored the Imperial German pleas for a temporary ceasefire.

But elsewhere, wartime activity was taking place too. For example, in the Middle East, British and Commonwealth Forces were engaged with Ottoman Empire opposition for the duration of the festive period.

It was the same story in the other main years of the First World War. 

In 1915, At Kut in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), for instance, the British garrison was under siege by Ottoman forces throughout the Christmas period. In Gallipoli, the ANZACs and British forces had begun to withdraw from the peninsula. 

In 1916, we see similar activity. The British Desert Column had been pursuing and pushing back Ottoman forces throughout the Sinai and Palestine throughout December 1916. The Battle of the Somme had just wound down, as had the Battle of Verdun, so the Western Front was in a period of reorganisation and recuperation.

Similar sights were seen later in 1917. Three Royal Navy Vessels were sunk on December 23rd when the destroyers HMS Surprise, Tornado, and Torrent, all ran into a minefield off the North Sea with the loss of 252 souls.

The point is that, after the miraculous spontaneous truce of 1914, warfare resumed in all its chaos, cruelty, and carnage.

In the Second World War, we see events large and small result in casualties throughout Christmas and New Year. 

For example, Canadian soldiers fighting under British Eighth Army in Italy in December 1943 spent their Christmas Day engaged in bitter hand-to-hand combat on the streets of Ortona. 61 would never see another Christmas morning.

Christmas is traditionally a time to come together and embrace peace on Earth, but sadly during wartime this wasn’t a luxury many of the servicemen at the various fronts worldwide could afford.

Captain Clive Franklyn Collett 

Image: Captain Clive Collett (Wikimedia Commons)

Those who lost their lives during military service at holiday time didn’t always do so in combat. Many succumbed to illnesses while others died in training or testing equipment.

Captain Clive Franklyn Collett was one such man.

Clive was born in Blenheim, New Zealand on 28 August 1886, but was in Britain on the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

Clive had joined the Royal Flying Corps that year, earning his pilot’s wings in January 1915. In March, he was commissioned as an officer and was transferred to No. 11 Squadron in May. He was injured in an accident in July but by the end of the month, he had been assigned to No. 8 Squadron.

Following this, Clive moved again, this time transferring to No. 30 Squadron in March 1916, and then once more to No. 18 Squadron.

After a month of flying over the Western Front, Clive broke his nose and was returned to England. 

Clive’s career took an interesting turn when, on 13 June 1916, he was assigned to the RFC’s Experimental Station in Suffolk as a test pilot.

Clive was soon testing experimental aircraft as well as other areas of aviation. He performed the British military’s first parachute jump from an aeroplane, leaping from a Royal Aircraft Factory BE.2c from 180 metres in January 1917.

The Kiwi pilot was back to combat roles in July 1917, joining the Sopwith Camel-quipped No. 70 Squadron as Captain and Flight Commander.

He scored his first victory on 27 July, taking out a German Albatros D.V in the skies over Ypres, Belgium. Six more victories were notched up in August, making Clive a fighter ace (a pilot with 5 or more victories).

Throughout September 1917, Clive continued to rack up victories, including emerging victorious from three separate dogfights taking place in just one short 45-minute window.

During this tumultuous aerial escapade, Clive was wounded in the hand and subsequently removed from frontline duties. While recovering, Clive was awarded the Military Cross in September, with a Bar following in October.

Once his injuries had healed, Clive joined yet another new squadron when he was assigned to No. 73 Squadron but still undertook test pilot duties. Unfortunately, it was as a test pilot that Clive took his last flight.

On 23 December 1917, Clive was at the controls of a captured German Albatros, piloting the craft over the Firth of Forth in east Scotland. He was seen to dive inexplicably into the sea and killed on impact.

Clive Collett is buried in Comely Bank Cemetery, Edinburgh.

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