The Tenth at the Time of the World Wars

Brian Boyd of the 14th Rifles with his younger brother Denis, 1915

At the outset of World War 1, many of the Tenth’s old boys enlisted in the 14th Battalion Royal Irish Rifles (Young Citizen Volunteers).  The YCV movement had been started in Belfast in September 1912, to encourage good citizenship along the lines of the Scouts and the Boys’ Brigade but for an older age group.  A large number of the young businessmen in its ranks were later commissioned in the British Army.  Ostensibly non-sectarian and non-political, the organisation was drawn by the Home Rule crisis into the arms of the Ulster Volunteer Force.  Thus, when war with Germany (rather than civil war) broke out, Young Citizen Volunteers became soldiers of the 36th (Ulster) Division.  They gained the nickname of ‘Young Chocolate Soldiers’ because of their comfortable, middle class backgrounds.  But there was nothing soft about the training at Shane’s Castle and at Finner in County Donegal, as they learned to use the rifle and bayonet, dig trenches, and sleep in the open.  Nothing could have prepared them for the Battle of the Somme, though, which erupted on 1 July 1916.

Seven 10th Scouts would die in the war, among them two of the original Owl Patrol, Harry McCracken and Brian Boyd.  Harry was related to the Henry Joy McCracken who led the United Irishmen at the Battle of Antrim in 1798 and was hanged in Cornmarket.  (Stewart Parker of the Tenth would later write a play about him, entitled Northern Star.)  A Royal Flying Corps pilot, he tested new machines after their delivery to France.  He received a posting to Egypt where, almost on arrival, he contracted dysentery and quickly succumbed.  Brian won the Military Medal on 1 July 1916 – one of four 10th Scouts to be decorated for gallantry that day – for carrying a wounded officer to safety under heavy fire.  He became an officer himself, remarkably remaining with the 14th Rifles.  On 7 June 1917 he went over the top at Messines, carrying the battalion flag, and was one of the first to fall.  On the same day W. C. Hill, who won the Military Cross at the Somme, was giving first aid to a German officer when he was shot dead by a prisoner.

The 10th Scouts who fell in World War 1

Meanwhile, back in Belfast, the Scouts did what they could in the way of home service.  In the innocent days before the Somme they held a cake-baking competition: the entrance fees went to the Belgian relief fund and the cakes went to the 14th Rifles at Randalstown.  In 1916 George McFall arranged the collection of ‘some millions’ of glass bottles, sorting them in a workshop on the Newtownards Road loaned by Mr H. J. McCracken.  This was part of a Local Association project that raised £1,100 for a Belfast Scouts’ recreation hut in France.  An ex-10th Scout, Percy Davis, helped man the hut.  Initially sited at Bailleul, it was later relocated to Bethune.  It was destroyed in April 1918 during a German bombardment.  Finally, in the summer of 1918, the Tenth and six other Troops helped bring in the flax harvest at Tullymurry, near Downpatrick.

The outbreak of World War 2 in 1939 again saw Scouters head off to join the Forces.  Home Guard and Air Raid Precautions units began to operate from the Scout hall, which had its windows painted and covered up for the black-out.  Then, in the summer of 1940, the evacuation began of city children to rural areas.  Camping was prohibited too.  This resulted from a ruling by the Ministry of Public Security, affecting all longer camps that needed to have fires lit for cooking. 

10th Scouts bringing in the flax harvest at Tullymurry in 1918 as part of their war service

The Tenth’s war service took several forms.  Waste paper was collected for recycling and the hall railings went with the paper.  Some boys aged fourteen and over joined the Belfast Scout Messenger Service, carrying notes for the civil defence workers, assisting at ARP posts, and helping to fill in emigration forms at the docks.  Once, when the Scouts acted as first aid casualties, two of the boys ended up on the roof of the Northern Whig building being told they had to jump and be rescued by the firemen below.  Another time the Scouts spent Troop night at Strandtown police station, wearing gas masks and going through de-contamination drills.  ‘It was possibly one of the things he did with which we didn’t agree,’ said Larry Walker, but Harry Howe remained ready to volunteer the boys for civil defence preparations.