Rudyard Kipling (1865 – 1936) – British journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer.

 

Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay, India on 30th December 1865.  He began writing poetry at an early age while he was at the United Services College and his first collection was published privately in 1881.   He joined his parents in India and worked as a journalist. In 1892, Kipling married Caroline Balestier, an American, and they lived in Vermont from 1892 until 1896 when they moved to Sussex, UK.  

Kipling turned down the offer of the role of Poet Laureate, however, in 1907, he became the first English writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. 

In 1914, Rudyard Kipling was one of 53 leading British authors – a number that included H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Hardy – who signed their names to the "Authors' Declaration." This manifesto declared that the German invasion of Belgium had been a brutal crime, and that Britain "could not without dishonour have refused to take part in the present war."

Kipling wrote pamphlets and poems enthusiastically supporting the UK war aims of restoring Belgium, after it had been occupied by Germany, together with generalised statements that Britain was standing up for the cause of good. In September 1914, Kipling was asked by the government to write propaganda, an offer that he accepted. Kipling's pamphlets and stories were popular with the British people during the war, his major themes being to glorify the British military as the place for heroic men to be, while citing German atrocities against Belgian civilians and the stories of women brutalised by a horrific war unleashed by Germany, yet surviving and triumphing in spite of their suffering.

Kipling’s only son John Kipling (17 August 1897 – 27 September 1915), known as Jack, was killed

2nd Lt. Jack Kipling

fighting on the Western Front. He had only been in France for three weeks and because of his very poor eyesight had initially been rejected by the army. It was only because of the intervention of his influential and famous father that he was subsequently accepted and commissioned into the Irish  Guards Regiment.

Rudyard Kipling died on 18th January 1936.

My Boy Jack” (1915)

"Have you news of my boy Jack? "

Not this tide.

"When d'you think that he'll come back?"

Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

"Has any one else had word of him?"

Not this tide.

For what is sunk will hardly swim,

Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.

"Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"

None this tide,

Nor any tide,

Except he did not shame his kind---

Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.

Then hold your head up all the more,

This tide,

And every tide;

Because he was the son you bore,

And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

Rudyard Kipling’s entry in Catherine W. Reilly’s “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliography” runs into three pages – from 188 to 191 and his poems were included in 24 WW1 anthologies.

“THE CHOICE”

THE AMERICAN SPIRIT SPEAKS:

To the Judge of Right and Wrong

  With Whom fulfillment lies

Our purpose and our power belong,

  Our faith and sacrifice.

Let Freedom's land rejoice!

  Our ancient bonds are riven;

Once more to us the eternal choice

  Of good or ill is given.

Not at a little cost,

  Hardly by prayer or tears,

Shall we recover the road we lost

  In the drugged and doubting years,

But after the fires and the wrath,

  But after searching and pain,

His Mercy opens us a path

  To live with ourselves again.

In the Gates of Death rejoice!

  We see and hold the good—

Bear witness, Earth, we have made our choice

  For Freedom's brotherhood.

Then praise the Lord Most High

  Whose Strength hath saved us whole,

Who bade us choose that the Flesh should die

  And not the living Soul!

Rudyard Kipling

"FOR ALL WE HAVE AND ARE"

For all we have and are,

For all our children's fate,

Stand up and meet the war.

The Hun is at the gate!

Our world has passed away

In wantonness o'erthrown.

There is nothing left to-day

But steel and fire and stone.

    Though all we knew depart,

    The old commandments stand:

    "In courage keep your heart,

    In strength lift up your hand,"

Once more we hear the word

That sickened earth of old:

"No law except the sword

Unsheathed and uncontrolled,"

Once more it knits mankind.

Once more the nations go

To meet and break and bind

A crazed and driven foe.

Comfort, content, delight—

The ages' slow-bought gain—

They shrivelled in a night,

Only ourselves remain

To face the naked days

In silent fortitude,

Through perils and dismays

Renewed and re-renewed.

    Though all we made depart,

    The old commandments stand:

    "In patience keep your heart,

    In strength lift up your hand."

No easy hopes or lies

Shall bring us to our goal,

But iron sacrifice

Of body, will, and soul

There is but one task for all—

For each one life to give.

Who stands if freedom fall?

Who dies if England live?

Rudyard Kipling

From: A TREASURY OF WAR POETRY: BRITISH AND AMERICAN POEMS OF THE WORLD WAR 1914-1917 Edited, With Introduction And Notes, By

GEORGE HERBERT CLARKE Professor of English in the University of Tennessee (The Riverside Literature Series, Houghton, Mifflin) 

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8820

John Hunter Wickersham, Medal of Honor (1890 - 1918) – American soldier poet

With thanks to Dr Connie Ruzich* for reminding me that I had not written a post about John H. Wickersham

Born in Brooklyn, New York on 3rd February 1890, John Hunter Wickersham’s parents were Mary E. Damon and her husband, John Edgar Wickersham.   John Hunter moved to Denver, Colorado when he was little and was educated at Manual High School.  He then joined the Army.

In May 1917, a month after America entered the First tWorld War, John Hunter Wickersham graduated from the First Officers Training Camp at Camp Funston on Fort Riley, Kansas. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant and assigned to Company H, 353rd Infantry, 89th Division.  By 11th September 1918, John was serving on the Western Front in France. In the first week of September 1918, American forces prepared to attack German positions in the St. Mihiel sector of northeastern France.

Before the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, John wrote his last letter home to his mother in Denver. The letter contained a poem entitled "The Raindrops on Your Old Tin Hat".  By the time his mother received his letter, her son was dead - John Hunter was mortally wounded near Limey, France on 12 September 1918.

The poem was published in an Oregon newspaper - the “St. Helen’s Mist” -  on 13th December 1918. The paper noted that the author had been killed in battle and gave it the title “Its Patter Touches the Heart” - Wickersham's aunt and uncle had shared the poem.

 “Raindrops on your old tin hat.”

The mist hangs low and quiet on a ragged line of hills,

There's a whispering of wind across the flat,

You'd be feeling kind of lonesome if it wasn't for one thing --

The patter of the raindrops on your old tin hat.

An' you just can't help a-figuring--sitting there alone --

About this war and hero stuff and that,

And you wonder if they haven't sort of got things twisted up,

While the rain keeps up its patter on your old tin hat.

When you step off with the outfit to do your little bit,

You're simply doing what you're s'posed to do --

And you don't take time to figure what you gain or what you lose,

It's the spirit of the game that brings you through.

But back at home she's waiting, writing cheerful little notes,

And every night she offers up a prayer

And just keeps on a-hoping that her soldier boy is safe --

The mother of the boy who's over there.

And, fellows, she's the hero of this great big ugly war,

And her prayer is on that wind across the flat,

And don't you reckon maybe it's her tears, and not the rain,

That's keeping up the patter on your old tin hat?

John Hunter Wickersham’s Medal of Honor:

Rank and organization: Second Lieutenant, U.S. Army, Company H, 353rd Infantry, 89th Division. Place and date: At Limey, France; September 12, 1918. Entered service at: Denver Colorado. Birth: February 3, 1890; New York, New York. General Orders: War Department, General Orders No. 16 

(January 22, 1919).

Citation:

Advancing with his platoon during the St. Mihiel offensive, Second Lieutenant Wickersham was severely wounded in four places by the bursting of a high-explosive shell. Before receiving any aid for himself he dressed the wounds of his orderly, who was wounded at the same time. He then ordered and accompanied the further advance of his platoon, although weakened by the loss of blood. His right hand and arm being disabled by wounds, he continued to fire his revolver with his left hand until, exhausted by loss of blood, he fell and died from his wounds before aid could be administered.  He was buried in the Saint Mihiel American Cemetery and Memorial in France (Plot B, Row 19, Grave 12). 15 American women nurses who died while serving in WW1 are also buried in that cemetery.

John Hunter’s family placed a cenotaph for him in the Fairmount Cemetery in Denver, Colorado.

Sources: 

Find my past

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Wickersham-297

https://stacyallbritton.com/2012/08/07/the-raindrops-on-your-old-tin-hat-by-john-hunter-wickersham/

https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/john-h-wickersham

Catherine W. Reilly “English Poetry of the First World War: A Bibliograph” (St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1978) p. 401.

*Dr Connie Ruzich’s wonderful website Behind their Lines:

https://behindtheirlines.blogspot.com/2017/01/rain-on-your-old-tin-hat.html

https://www.talesofhonorpodcast.com/stories/john-h-wickersham

Painting by Augustin Gabriel Maurice Toussaint (1882 - 1974) - French artist known as
Maurice Toussant 

Born in 1882 in Fontenay-aux-Roses, a town in the Hauts-de-Seine region of France, southwest of Paris, Maurice’s father was painter and engraver Henri Toussaint (1849-1911), known for his prints depicting the architecture of Paris and other French cities.

St. Mihiel

A soldier sitting on top of a hill, overlooking a valley and a bridge. The Germans had held St. Mihiel and surrounding areas since the first battle at the Marne in 1914. At last, in 1918, under the command of General Ferdinand Foche (1851-1929), the Allied forces broke through the German hold on St. Mihiel and it was safely under France's control once again.

https://www.loc.gov/item/99613528/