Nursing a bullet wound he wrote to the BFP

It demonstrates quite clearly how much servicemen appreciated receiving copies of the Bucks Free Press, which were usually sent out to them by members of their own family.

This letter also paints the picture that despite all the deprivations they had to endure, some were lucky enough to serve in regions which gave them an opportunity to encounter new experiences.

Tom wrote:

“Dear Sir, Thinking that perhaps a few lines from one whom is not unknown in Flackwell Heath & District might be of interest, I forward the same. I receive your paper each mail, which is sent me by my wife.

Needless, perhaps, to add, it is read and much appreciated by myself and several chums who hail from Bucks and are now on active service in British East Africa.

Unfortunately I have not seen as much of this country as I should have liked to have seen, having spent three months in hospital due to a bullet wound received last June at Bukoba, in German East Africa.

I am pleased to be able to state that I am now as well as ever I shall be, and am out of hospital. I was potted by a cross fire from an enemy machine gun (strafe it !) in a place where I noticed it most and was least likely to see it.

It made me cross too, in fact I nearly crossed the border where alas so many of our braves and best have gone.

For obvious reasons I can say nothing of the military situation here. This is a place in the sun all right, and Kaiser Bill looks like losing the only specimen now left him very shortly.

This is a country of absorbing interest. It’s just a natural zoo, being over-run with game of every variety – lions, cheetahs, zebra, elephants, rhino, hippo, giraffes, and buck of all sorts – to name only a few of the beasts of this wonderful country.

The town (?), or rather the place the inhabitants dignify by that name, is often visited at night by these animals, but the town is so spread out that perhaps they (like myself) are never sure of being in or not.

From here one can see the first, third, and fourth highest mountains in Africa – Mt Kilimanjaroo (19,00 odd feet) and Mt Kenya (over 18.000 feet), each being over 100 miles away, being visible to the naked eye, showing the rarity of the atmosphere.

I must add that my health remains splendid, but the altitude (6,000 feet) probably accounts for that.

On the coast and at lower altitudes, fever is easily contracted. The mosquitoes are pretty troublesome at times, and the heat, well !, it’s ‘conc’ heat, as the ‘’too-proud-to-fight’’ people say.

I often fancy that there’s only a fag-paper between me – and well, it’s the place where Kaiser Bill is going.

But for all the sunshine and interest here, England is good enough for me, and I trust that one fine day I shall be able to speak to my friends other than through the medium of cold print.

I am afraid of taking up too much space in your valued paper, so will conclude with best wishes for a happy and prosperous New Year to all, from yours sincerely, Tom Hobbs.’’

Private Tom Hobbs was serving with the Royal Fusiliers.

Tom Hobbs was a Private in the 25th Service Battalion in the City of London Regiment of the Royal Fusiliers, nicknamed the 25th Frontiersmen.

After being wounded his letter indicates that, following a lengthy spell in hospital, he recovered from his injuries, although his recovery may not have been complete. He survived the war.

Tom was serving in British East Africa which comprised the countries we now know as Kenya, Uganda and Zanzibar. German East Africa was made up of the countries of Burundi, Rwanda and Tanganyika.

At the start of the Great War in 1914 there were four German colonies in Africa and three had fallen to the Allies by early 1916. Hence Tom’s optimism that “Kaiser Bill looks like losing the only specimen now left him very shortly’’.

This was not to be and its garrison did not finally surrender until two weeks after the Armistice. The campaign therefore has the distinction of being the longest in the war in any of the theatres of conflict.

This was largely due to the resourcefulness of the German Commander, who received virtually no aid from Germany throughout the war. His troops therefore had to rely on what they could capture, scrounge or manufacture locally to sustain their resistance.

After the Treaty of Versailles signed in June 1919 Britain was awarded the German territory of Tanganyika. All these territories gained independence in the 1960s, and then Tanganyika united with Zanzibar in 1964 to form the present-day country of Tanzania.

The resistance by the Germans in East Africa tied down some 160,000 Allied troops, and resulted in around 10,000 British casualties.

Tom was wounded at the Battle of Bukoba, which began on June 21 1915. Bukoba was in German East Africa on the shores of Lake Victoria. The Allied raid was an amphibious assault across the lake, with the objective of destroying the town’s wireless station. 

Initially the raid did not go well, the attacking force having been accidentally landed in a large swamp.

But the town was captured on June 23, and the fort and wireless station destroyed. However this turned out to be counter-productive as the Allies were now deprived of the possibility of intercepting German radio transmissions. Bukoba was later abandoned.   

Tom Hobbs was born in 1873 in Poulton, Gloucestershire, so he was in his 40s when he enlisted, indicating that he had some special skill. His father was a mason and Tom followed him into the building trade, becoming a bricklayer.

Around the turn of the century he moved to Hanwell in Middlesex where he met Mary Frances Baxter. They married in 1904 and shortly afterwards moved to Flackwell Heath where Tom became the licensee of the Three Horseshoes.

After his service in the Great War Tom resumed his pre-war life, returning to the Three Horseshoes. Although it is today a public house, in the early 20th century it was classed as a hotel.

Being only 100 yards or so from the Golf Club in Flackwell Heath it would have been a popular ‘watering hole’ for the golfers who came from all around the area to play the course.

In 1920 the Artisan’s (ie skilled workers) section of the club established their headquarters at the Three Horseshoes, providing a further boost to trade.

The hotel was then described as ‘’The Golfing House of the Artisan’s Golf Club’’ offering ‘open-air Catering during summer months’. The telephone number was High Wycombe 1.

Being close to the golf club the Three Horseshoes was also conveniently placed to Loudwater railway station.

This was only two or 300 yards away down Treadaway Hill, so enabling people from High Wycombe, Bourne End and Maidenhead to easily get to the golf course, and to Tom Hobb’s hotel.

Feedback

Reader Mrs Doreen Bruce has been in  touch regarding last week’s article on the Wycombe Co-operative Society.

She was a milk monitor at Mill End Road school from 1939 to 1943, and had to hand each pupil one glass bottle of milk with a cardboard top.

To save spillage, immediately before handing the bottle over she had to pierce the cardboard top and insert a straw, which ensured that the whole contents were consumed.

Doreen points out that the milk was in one-third-pint, not half-pint bottles as stated in the article.