PARKES, Charles Isaac

Charles Parkes was born in Brierley Hill and volunteered for the South Staffordshire Regiment. He was transferred to the Royal Engineers, perhaps because he was a miner, and joined the 254th Tunnelling Company. By the Spring of 1916 this unit was at Givenchy in Artois where there was great activity in tunnelling under enemy lines. On the 22nd June a section of the Shaftesbury Avenue mine was blown in by German counter-miners in their Red Dragon tunnel and Sapper William Hackett was awarded a posthumous VC for rescuing three of the four surviving men trapped. His was the only VC for a tunneller and his actions formed the basis of ‘Birdsong’, the novel of Sebastian Faulks. All the men of the Company would have been aware of the dreadful tragedy which is told in the words of the citation and which illustrates the dangers faced by all of them: For most conspicuous bravery when entombed with four others in a gallery owing to the explosion of an enemy mine. After working for twenty hours, a hole was made through fallen earth and broken timber, and the outside party was met. Sapper Hackett helped three of the men through the hole and could easily have followed, but refused to leave the fourth, who had been seriously injured, saying, ‘I am a tunneller. I must look after the others first.’ Meanwhile, the hole was getting smaller, yet he still refused to leave his injured comrade. Finally, the gallery collapsed, and though the rescue party worked desperately for four days the attempt to reach the two men failed. Sapper Hackett well knowing the danger of falling earth, the chances against him, deliberately gave his life for his comrade. The London Gazette, 4th August 1916 During the rest of 1916 the emphasis on the Western Front concerned the Battle of the Somme and after the blowing of the great crater of Lochnagar at La Boisselle on the first day the emphasis was mainly on mobility. In 1917 the tunnellers were very active in the Ypres Salient preparing for the Third Battle of Ypres, where the famed series of blasts at Messines in June 1917 marked their greatest success. Thereafter, as warfare became more mobile some Companies were converted to the more usual Engineers’ duties of digging trenches and building communications. During the Third Battle of Ypres Sapper Charles Parkes was probably engaged in such duties and was seriously wounded. He was taken to a Field Ambulance where he died of wounds on the 30th November 1917. He is buried in Vlamertinghe New Military Cemetery (IX A 28) and is commemorated on the Brierley Hill and Brierley Hill church Memorials and the Delph District Roll of Honour.