The real-life Band of Brothers: A good news WW1 story!

A strange thing happened this week whilst researching for my upcoming WW1 book, I came across a good news story!  In a war that saw much of an entire generation of young men lost forever, the story of the Calpin brothers is even more amazing as not just one or two joined up but 10 and miraculously they all returned home at the war’s end.

1914 saw the famous poster of Lord Kitchener plastered over the entire country urging young men to join-up and the men of the Calpin family in York like so many others were obliged to fight for God, King and Country.

The fact that ten of them joined up seems to make them the biggest Band of Brothers yet known and their dedication earned them a public thanks and a congratulations from King George V and Prime Minster Asquith.   They set an example for their city and country and they were used as part of the massive recruitment drive.Aged between 18 and 37, the brothers fought in both the Royal Navy and the Army in WW1.  Their parents, a lowly builders labourer and a housewife received a letter from Buckingham Palace and told that:

‘His Majesty had heard the news ‘with the deepest gratification’. He offered the new recruits ‘best wishes for success, health and  happiness in their noble career’.

After the war, members of the family were saddened that they didn’t receive any recognition for their sacrifice and soon they passed into obscurity but now with Britain preparing to remember the dead of The Great War they are at long last beginning to get recognition with the Imperial War Museum in London investigating the possibility of holding a special exhibition for the 10 brothers.

 

It appears they beat overwhelming odds to survive with one brother being on-board a navy vessel that was sunk by a U-Boat and another being targeted in a German poison gas attack.  Others were wounded in action and at least one mentioned in dispatches.

In a different but equally intriguing story I came across the tale of Lt Colonel John Malcolm ‘Mad Jack’ Churchill.  Mad Jack was a Scotsman who fought in WW2 and would rouse his men by playing bagpipes.  He insisted on wearing his Officers Sword into battle as without it he would be improperly dressed!

Mad Jack apparently once captured 42 enemy soldiers and a mortar battery armed with just his sword.  He is also recorded as being the last man in modern warfare to kill an opponent using a bow and arrow no doubt partly helped by the fact he competed in the 1939 Archery World Championships.

He had a total disregard for danger and was wounded, captured and escaped on numerous occasions before finally walking 150 miles to freedom.  His feats didn’t stop there as he later saved 500 Jewish doctors and patients from a massacre in 1948 and motor-cycled across Burma and starred in several major movies! Yet he was reluctant to talk about his achievements and always respected his wife in her role as head of the house-hold.