Walter Frederick Farrar (b. 1893): Walter was born at H.M. Penal Settlement, Mazaruni, British Guiana, while his father was Chaplain there, on June 12^th, 1893. Prior to the outbreak of World War I, Walter worked for The Royal Bank of Canada, formerly The British Guiana Bank. His name is included in a list of 1,495 bank employees (worldwide) that enlisted for active service during the war and who were guaranteed employment after the war―if they survived!   

 In 1925, he married Nora Ironmonger (b. 1881), daughter of Frank and Adelaide H. Ironmonger. Frank Ironmonger was an exchange broker. Norah was born in Addiscombe, Surrey.  

Walter was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry during the British offensive at Cambrai in November 1917 while serving in ‘F’ Battalion of the Tank Corps, which he had joined in May 1917. ‘F’ Battalion was part of 36^th Brigade of 12^th (Eastern) Division. The award was gazetted on February 18^th, 1918 and he was decorated on November 25^th, 1920. 

The following is a description of what it was like for members of the crew inside a World War I Mark IV tank at Cambrai :  

Crouching inside ‘Behemoth’ in their leather helmets and chain visors, they were exposed to unimagined extremes of noise, smoke and heat from sometimes red hot engines—a ‘near pandemonium’ in which ‘a language of pantomime was perfected. One hit a man to catch his attention and then conveyed one’s meaning by gesticulation.’ Enemy fire brought red-hot splinters of ‘bullet splash’, which would pour through the gun port and sighting slits or come sparking off the inside of the tank’s metal hull—each strike ‘for all the world like a miniature Catherine wheel’, as one tank man remembered it. The facial burns caused by ‘bullet splash’ may have been reduced a little by the issuing of special chain-mail visors. Yet those inside this ‘pocket hell’ also risked wholesale incineration, especially the commander and driver who, in the early Mark I models, sat with petrol tanks on either side of them in the front of the cab. ^[1] 

Communication methods were also quite crude:  

To the extent they communicated at all, the tank crews did so by squeezing carrier pigeons out through a hole in a gun sponson, by brandishing a shovel through the manhole, or by frantically waving coloured disks in the air. The navigation systems were even more primitive. Each landship had a compass, and a periscope that was liable to be shot off in the early stages of any engagement. The two portholes or sighting slits at the front might appear to wink at war correspondents, but they were no joke to the men who had to navigate them. Vision was highly restricted at the best of times, and when enemy fire necessitated the closure of the portholes, the crew could only peer out of tiny holes the size of a pea…. ^[2]

At 6.20 a.m. on November 20^th, 1917, the artillery opened fire with a brief but intensive bombardment, and nineteen divisions of the British Third Army, under General Sir Julian Byng, were poised to advance, and they did so almost immediately; one other reason for the brevity of the bombardment being that it was vital not to break up the terrain over which the attack was to be made. There was a special need for this, for the advance was to be spearheaded by a massive force of tanks. Fighting under the personal command of the GOC of the Tank Corps, Brigadier General Hugh Elles (he himself went into battle in one of his own machines), some 300 tanks rapidly crushed the barbed wire of the Hindenburg Line and by the end of the short winter’s day an advance of three to four miles had been achieved on a six-mile front. ^[3]

As previously stated, Walter commanded one of the 381 Mark IV tanks that took part in the Battle. That tank was identified during the British assault by the name of F22 Flying Fox II.  His tank battalion, consisting of twelve Mark IV tanks, was commanded by Major Philip Hamond D.S.O., M.C. Late on the morning of November 20^th 1917, ‘F’ Battalion entered the town of Masnières, its objective was to assist in seizing and holding the bridgehead on the St. Quentin canal. On reaching the only bridge across the Masnières River, it was found that the bridge had been partially destroyed by the Germans. F22 Flying Fox II, commanded by Walter, was ordered to attempt to span the gap with his tank. Unfortunately the weight of the tank caused the bridge to collapse further and F22 Flying Fox II crashed into the river below. All of the crew escaped safely, but the tank blocked the progress of other tanks and cavalry units that were attempting cross the river in order to exploit the British breakthrough.

 German and British casualties during the Battle of Cambrai (regarded as a German tactical victory), were 41,000 men and 44,000 men, respectively. The Royal Newfoundland Regiment alone lost nearly all of its officers and more than half of its other ranks. The Regiment was accorded the title ‘Royal’ by His Majesty King George V. The distinction is unique in that it is one no other regiment in the British Army was to have conferred upon it during the First World War while fighting was in progress.       

 Walter’s Military Cross citation reads:  

T. / 2^nd Lt. Walter Frederick Farrar, Tank Corps.

For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. He destroyed an enemy machine gun position in an attack, killing the crew and taking the guns on board his Tank. When he found an important bridge partially destroyed he drove his tank over it in an attempt to span the gap and keep the crossing open, and when this Tank sank in the river he got all his crew out safely. He showed the greatest initiative and determination. ^[4]  

 Walter continued to serve in the army until late 1920, at which time he held the rank of Captain. After he was demobilised, he went to Trinidad where he probably worked for The Royal Bank of Canada since he had been guaranteed a job by the Bank after the war. On February 18^th, 1921 he was presented with the Military Cross at Government House by the Governor of the Colony, Lt.-Col. Sir John Robert Chancellor, C.B.E., G.C.V.O., K.C.M.G., D.S.O. It is not presently known where or when Walter died. His wife Norah, who was born in England on March 3^rd 1881, lived for a number of years after Walter’s death in Eastbourne, Sussex. She was a long time friend of Alfred and Millie Waterfield (née Bosch Reitz) and used to come for Christmas at the Bavin family home in Hankham, Sussex, and later at the at the Smellie family home in Polegate, Sussex, when Millie was still alive (Alfred having died in 1948). ^[5] On these occasions, Norah is remembered as a delightful lady with a sense of fun who was always game in joining in charades after dinner. Norah died at her home at 23, Upperton Gardens, Eastbourne, Sussex, on September 20^th, 1970.

 Walter and Norah had no children.  

References:

^[1] Tank – The Progress of a Monstrous War Machine, by Patrick Wright. Published by Faber and Faber, p.48.

^[2] Ibid. p. 48.

^[3] The Imperial War Museum Book of the Western Front, op. cit., p.278.

^[4] The London Gazette, July 18^th, 1918.

^[5] Doreen Eileen (‘Doddles’) Bavin (1908–1998)  and Elsie Doreen Smellie (1905–1999) , were daughters of  Jack and Millie Waterfield. Doddles was married to John Herbert (‘Jack’) Bavin (1901–1982), and Elsie was married to Geoffrey Haward Smellie C.B.E. (1895–1979).

Thomas Inniss Farrar (1896–1934):  Thomas was born in British Guiana on June 17^th, 1896. He volunteered for active duty in the army at Worthing, Sussex, on September 12^th, 1914, was enlisted, and served initially with the 19^th (Service) Battalion, Royal Fusiliers; on October 26^th, 1914, he was commissioned into the 5^th Battalion, Royal Devonshire Regiment. The very brief period between the dates he enlisted and the date he received his commission would lead one to presume that Thomas had already received military training before enlistment, probably at school. We do not know with certainty where he served before he was seconded in October 1916 to the 6^th (Reserve) Battalion, Machine Gun Corps. However, according to his son Ewan, his health was affected because of poison gas, and it is therefore possible that Thomas fought with the Devonshire Regiment at the Somme, where the Germans employed gas for the first time.  

Reaching the front line ten days after the Battle of the Somme, a British officer recorded in his diary the information he was given by the Padre concerning the attack on Mametz Village by the Devonshires:  

His news was ghastly— everyone I care for gone: all four officers of my company killed: dear Harold died most splendidly before the German lines. He was shot through the stomach and Lawrence killed behind him by the same shot. Iscariot was shot through the heart below Mansel Copse and all his staff killed around him; Smiler killed about the same place, getting his bombs up. No single officer got through untouched. The men did grandly—going on without officers and reaching all objectives. ^[1] 

Thomas was wounded at Kut (or more precisely Kut al Amara), in Mesopotamia (now Iraq), and in the same action was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry. The decoration was gazetted on May 17^th, 1917, but it was not until April 22^nd, 1922, that he actually received it, by post. Unfortunately, the war diaries of Thomas’s regiment have not survived, and consequently the actual circumstances of the award are not known. As there was often a delay, sometimes several months, between the date on which the award was earned and the date it was gazetted, it is possible that Thomas’s act of gallantry occurred sometime in January or February 1916. Kut is about eighty miles south of Baghdad. In the spring of 1916, the Turks encircled it, and despite brave attempts to relieve it, the British were unsuccessful, and General Townsend surrendered to the Turks on April 29^th, 1916. The emaciated survivors were marched to captivity in Turkey. However, on February 25^th, 1917, the British retook Kut, and the Turks were pursued to Baghdad, which was captured on March 11^th, 1917. Thomas would have been attached to the 6^th Battalion Machine Gun Corps at the time. The ‘guns’ referred to in the citation (below) would have been Vickers medium machine-guns. The Vickers was a very potent weapon, and so well designed that it was used throughout the Second World War and in Korea with great effect. It was very portable, weighing, with tripod, only 73 lbs. Each belt of ammunition contained 250 x .303 inch calibre bullets, which were fired at the rate of 500 rounds per minute. The German counterpart was the Maxim. The Maxim was very similar in looks and firepower to the Vickers. It came to be known as the ‘Slayer’ because of the casualties it inflicted on July 1^st, 1916, the opening day of the Allied infantry offensive at the Battle of the Somme. Its devastating firepower accounted for 90% of the 60,000 Allied casualties (mainly British) incurred on that one day. In the battle for Mametz Village, a single German machine-gun killed 159 men of the Devonshire Regiment. ^[2]

Thomas’s citation, published in The London Gazette on May 17^th, 1917, states: 

2^nd Lt. Thomas Inniss Farrar, Devon. R.

For conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty. Although wounded in two places, he remained on duty and took his guns up to the captured trench, where he behaved with the utmost gallantry, although he was again wounded in the hand.  

At the end of the war, Thomas held the rank of Captain. 

Thomas married Lady Sidney Mary Catherine Anne Hobart-Hampden-Mercer Henderson (1900–1987), daughter of Sidney Carr Hobart-Hampden-Mercer-Henderson (1860–1930), 7^th Earl of Buckinghamshire, and Georgiana Wilhelmina Haldane-Duncan-Mercer-Henderson (1873–1937), Countess of Buckinghamshire, on June 14th, 1924. They were married at St. George’s Church, Hanover Square, London. Thomas and Lady Sidney emigrated to Kenya where they owned a farm in Mau Summit, about seventy miles north of Nairobi. Thomas, in failing health because of having being gassed during the war, died on October 21^st, 1934. During World War II, Lady Sidney served with the East African Women’s Territorial Service in East Africa and the Middle East, achieving the rank of Major. She was mentioned in despatches and for her military service was awarded the M.B.E. (Military Division). After Thomas died, Lady Sidney remained in Kenya with her son, where she continued to farm and took an active part in local politics, being elected to the Legislative Council in 1938 and serving until 1942. Known as a kindly but firm employer who stood no nonsense, she was an active indomitable champion of settler values and showed no fear of the Mau-Mau terror campaign when she was known to be on a list of intended victims.

References:

^[1] First World War, by Martin Gilbert, published by Harper and Collins, p.260.

^[2]  Ibid. p. 260. This may not have been an isolated event, given the way battles were fought in those days. It is therefore probable that the Germans also suffered similar horrendous casualties from Vickers machine-gun fire.