PRIVATE THOMAS LITTLE
SOUTH WALES BORDERERS
10TH NOVEMBER 1917 AGE 21
BURIED: PASSCHENDAELE NEW BRITISH CEMETERY, BELGIUM
Thomas Little's inscription comes from Psalm 73 verse 15 in the Book of Common Prayer. In the psalm, the speaker cannot understand how it is that the ungodly always seem to prosper compared with those who live good lives. Is this what Little's family were referring to? Perhaps, or perhaps they were making a veiled comment about the war and the death of their son - 'Then thought I to understand this but it was too difficult for me'. It's the same sentiment as the many families who chose 'Some day we'll understand' for an inscription. It's a way of questioning what they had been fighting for. In fact it was not uncommon for people to quote the Bible, or Prayer Book, as a way of covertly making a comment on the war, see for example "To what purpose is this waste, or 'Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity', which has to have a certain irony to it in a cemetery dedicated to the war dead.
Little was the son of a prosperous marine and mechanical engineer. Interestingly, the 1911 census describes his mother as an architect. She wasn't an architect in the 1901 census. However, the Littles built an Arts and Crafts house, Daweswood, in Patterdale, which was begun in 1908. It's possible that Elizabeth Little was responsible for the design.
Not much is known about Thomas Little, other than the fact that he served with the 1st Battalion the South Wales Borderers and went missing on 10 November 1917. The History of the South Wales Borderers relates what happened that day. Having taken Passchendaele Village on 6 November, the British were desperate to secure the high ground behind it. The date was fixed for the 10 November and the Borderers were detailed to take part in the attack. On the night of the 9th the regiment moved up to the front:
"The night was pitch dark, with rain at intervals, the country was a mixture of glue and water, churned up indescribably by the bombardments so that off the duck-board tracks a footing was hard to obtain. In places the duck-boards themselves were under water, and if a man slipped off he usually fell into a deep shell hole full of water and would be lucky to escape alive."
Add to this the fact that the men were weighed down with rations, ammunition and equipment, that the German artillery had all the duck-board tracks accurately registered so that it's not surprising that the men were in trouble before the fighting even began. Zero hour was at 5 am. At 7.15 am the first counter-attack began. The regiment held out all morning, harassed by German aeroplanes, but didn't achieve its objectives. By the time the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment relieved it that evening it had suffered almost 400 casualties killed, wounded and missing. Little was one of the missing, his body not discovered until 23 March 1920 when it was identified by his disc.