Christopher (Crissie) Bird





West Wycombe Road (picture from SWOP website)

Memorial for Christopher (Crissie) Bird in High Wycombe Cemetery





Christopher (Crissie) Bird 1894 - 1916

I was born in 1894 to Charles and Emma Bird and I lived with them in High Wycombe at 21 West Wycombe Road. When I was 10 years old, my mother died. It was a tough time for me and the loss was a great one. Four years later, my father remarried and my step mother was Esther Ellen. She was good to me although she could never replace my mother. My father worked as a chair maker but his low wages meant that we led a modest life. In fact, to make ends meet, I remember that we took in two lodgers.

After I finished school, I moved to Hastings, Sussex, to work as a cabinet maker. However, when the war started, I decided to sign up almost immediately. Encouraged by the fact that it was expected to be over by Christmas, I enlisted at Aylesbury and therefore was put in the local roll of honour on the 2nd of October 1914. I ended up in the 1/1st Bucks Battalion of the Oxford and Bucks Light Infantry. We trained really hard for about 7 months before we were actually mobilised for war. I was feeling quite excited at this time. My adventure to France was about to begin!

On the 30th March 1915, we landed in Boulogne, becoming the 145th Brigade of the 48th Division. After three months in the line near Ploegsteert we moved to the Hébuterne sector of France in July, for the opening offensive of what is now known as the Battle of the Somme. During the opening phase, known as the Battle of Albert, we were part of the reserve army, waiting in Couin Woods. The previous week had been so noisy that we hardly noticed the increased bombardment denoting zero hour.

While we were departing on the next day to Mailly-Maillet where we would bivouac in the plantations to the South-West, news was passed down that the attack was going well – Gommecourt Wood and Serre were ours. This highly increased our morale, even though later on, this information was proved inaccurate. There was also a proposed attack that afternoon, but then operations were cancelled just when the attacking battalions had formed up. We remained in these bivouacs until July 3rd, when we carried out one further tour of the Hébuterne trenches until the 14th, when we handed over the camp to the 11th Battalion Middlesex Regiment.

On the night of the 20th of July the Battalion was ordered to carry out an attack in conjunction with the 1/5th Gloucesters and 1/4th Oxfords against the enemy positions between Ovillers and Pozieres. By 10.30 p.m. company commanders had given their final instructions to us, and the battalion started for the front line, which lay some two and a half miles distant. The enemy trench was situated about 325 yards from our front assembly trench (known as Sickle Trench). Although the attack was fixed at 2:45 am, the enemy, apparently nervous, sent up flares at 2:30 and began firing their machine guns incessantly, still continuing when the time came for our machine guns to fire, which was also the signal for us to advance. It was then that I died, their barrage of bursting shrapnel scything us down. Few reached the objective during that battle, and of those that did, only a few returned. The attack had failed.

My body was later found and I was buried at the Pozieres British Cemetery in the Somme, France. ‘Faithful unto death’ was engraved on my headstone. My name was also displayed on the High Wycombe Memorial Hospital Plaque. Finally, it was added to the roll of honour a few years later. I was 22 years of age at the time of my death.





Researched by Neill George, Gill Evans, and the girls of Wycombe Abbey School

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