CAPTAIN JOHN LINDSAY KELSALL
ROYAL FIELD ARTILLERY
28TH AUGUST 1917 AGE 26
BURIED: THE HUTS CEMETERY, YPRES, BELGIUM
There's something about this inscription that I find very moving. I'm not sure why, other than the fact that it epitomises the role of a junior officer during the war. One of his main duties was to look after his men, to maintain their morale. This was done both by winning their respect and by discipline. The little book, A General's Letters to His Son on Obtaining His Commission, published in 1917, offers the following advice:
"Your men will obey you because you are their officer, but you will succeed in getting infinitely more out of them if you can win their love and respect. Let your Platoon always be your first care. Put yourself in the position of your men, and never ask them to do what you would not be ready to do yourself in like circumstances.
In a disciplined company when the Captain has given the word to advance, the individual obeys, certain that whether he advances or not his comrades on either side will do so, and whatever his own feelings may be, he cannot but obey. Having done so, and believing himself a hero among a band of heroes, he acquires the courage which comes from discipline, and becomes a brave man though he was not born one."
Zillebeke was already an appalling and dangerous place to be in August 1917 before 34.9 mm of rain fell over the 26th and 27th of the month. Keeping the guns firing became a herculean task, not made any easier by the fact that the Germans had the range of the British guns and kept up a constant bombardment.
The Rochdale Observor announced Kelsall's death in their 5 September edition; his family were partners in the Rochdale firm of Kelsall and Kemp, big employers in the town, which did good business during the war making khaki cloth for the army. After recounting the details of his education and army service if finished its report with the words: "He was popular, loved and respected alike by officers and men". Kelsall had succeeded in fulfilling his duty to his men.