Edward Patrick Aylett ("Pat") Moore, MC

• Matriculated: Did not matriculate

• Born: 27 January 1899

• Died: 4 November 1918

• Regiment: Coldstream Guards

• Grave/Memorial: Villers-Pol Communal Cemetery (Extension): E.1.

Family background

b. 27 January 1899 as the only son (older child) of Alfred Aylett Moore, FCA (1863–1933), and Ella Constance Moore (née Letts) (1871–1958) (m. 1896). At the time of the 1901 Census the family was living at 8 King’s Bench Walk, London EC4 (three servants), and at the time of the 1911 Census, it was living at 15 Somerset Street, London W (six servants including a Swiss governess). It later moved to 40 Portland Place, London W, and also lived at “The Knowle”, Virginia Water, and 26 Victoria Road, Kensington, London SW.

Parents and antecedents

Moore’s paternal grandfather, Edward Moore (1827–91), was from Colchester where his father, also Edward (b. 1795), had been an ironmonger. At some time between 1851 and 1861 he moved to London and became an accountant. In 1866 he began to practise as a public accountant at East India Chambers, Leadenhall Street, at Moore and Wallis’s Mercantile Agency. In 1880 one of his sons, Edward Cecil, was made a partner and the firm moved to 3 Crosby Square as Edward Moore and Son. When Moore’s father was made a partner in 1890 the firm became Edward Moore and Sons. In 1922 it moved to Queen Street Place and in 1968 to Chiswell Street. It then merged with a number of practices and by 1989 was known as Moores and Rowland. Moore’s father specialized in being a receiver for bankrupt public houses and held licences for them all over London. He left £81,943 19s. 3d. in his will.

Moore’s uncle Sir Edward Cecil Moore (1851–1923) was a prominent accountant and member of the City of London. He became President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants; Alderman of Bishopgate Ward; Sheriff of the City in 1914, when he was much involved in recruiting; and Lord Mayor in 1922 when amongst other things he raised funds for a wedding present to the future Duke and Duchess of York (King George VI and Queen Elizabeth) and for the restoration of HMS Victory. But during his term as Lord Mayor he was “knocked down by a motor-omnibus outside the Mansion House” and never really recovered. He was made a baronet in 1922. He died a month after the end of his term of office as Lord Mayor. His eldest son, Edward Cecil Horatio Moore (1877–1917), Moore’s cousin, was a Lieutenant in the 38th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force and was killed in action in France on 9 April 1917 in the Battle of Vimy Ridge. At the time of his death he was an acting Major.

Another cousin, Aylett Cameron Cushen (1895–1916), a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Sussex Regiment, was killed in the Boar’s Head salient at Richebourg on 30 June 1916.

Moore’s maternal grandfather was Reverend John Davis Letts (1826–1902), the son of the Reverend John Letts (1800–57), Rector of St Olave’s, Hart Street, London, who was the brother of Thomas Letts (1803–73), who started Letts diaries. John Davis Letts was Vicar of St Ann’s, Stamford Hill, from 1861 until his death.

Moore’s uncle Gerald Arthur Letts (1870–1915) was one of the casualties when the Lusitania was sunk.

One of Moore’s cousins was Captain John Herbert Towne Letts, MC (1897–1918). He had been educated at Lancing College, Sussex, from 1911 to 1915, and entered the Royal Military College (Sandhurst) on 27 August 1915. On 26 January 1916 he was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the 1/2nd Battalion of the Royal Lincolnshire Regiment and immediately transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) to train as a pilot. After gaining his “wings” on 24 March 1916, he was promoted Flying Officer (Lieutenant) on 4 May 1916 and posted to France, where he arrived on 15 June 1916 to serve in 27 Squadron, which was equipped with the single-seat Martinsyde Elephant G100 (Scout) (cf. W.H. Williams). Although with its large wing areas and greater than average lifting power the Elephant could stay aloft for around five-and-a-half hours, it lacked the speed, manoeuvrability, all-round visibility and armaments of its most successful German opponents such as the Fokker DIII.

After a forced landing on 25 June 1916 Letts slipped on some greasy ground and dislocated some damaged cartilage in his left knee. But although after a week’s rest he was able to resume his duties, he repeated the accident on 27 July and was sent back to England, where he arrived on 4 August on the HMHS Brighton (1903–33; wrecked in Killarny Bay, in the west of Ireland, on 25 August 1933 with no loss of life).

He was hospitalized, surgeons removed the damaged cartilage, and on 19 October 1916, after the wound had healed, Letts was sent as an instructor to 47 (Reserve) Squadron at Waddington, Lincolnshire. On 12 February 1917 he was re-assigned to 48 Squadron, which had been formed at Netheravon, Wiltshire, on 15 April 1916 and recently become the first squadron to be equipped with the new Bristol Fighter F2(b). In March 1917 he went to France with 48 Squadron, where he was promoted Captain and Flight Commander (Flight Lieutenant) on 5 April 1917. Between 9 April and the end of September 1917 Letts was officially credited with shooting down 13 German aircraft in several engagements, including one with Richthofen’s “Flying Circus” – the Jagdgeschwader 1 – making him an “Ace”. He had also been awarded the Military Cross (MC) (London Gazette, no. 30,234, 14 August 1917, p. 8,374) and two of his observers/gunners had been killed during aerial combat.

On 19 September 1917 Letts was appointed as a test pilot and instructor at the Aeroplane Experimental Station at Martlesham Heath, Suffolk, about a mile and a half south-east of Woodbridge, Suffolk, and he was also Group Commander at the School of Air Fighting. During these appointments he flew and tested a range of new aircraft, including, probably, the fast, manoeuvrable and easy-to-fly Sopwith Dolphin, a prototype version of which was tested at Martlesham Heath in June 1917. On 1 October 1918 Letts was assigned to 42 (Training Depot) Squadron, which was stationed at Hounslow, but as he was keen to return to France, he was given permission to join 87 Squadron, one of the five Squadrons serving in France that had been equipped with the new Sopwith Dolphin fighter since February 1918. The Dolphin was clearly identifiable by its back-staggered wings and was, for the time, very fast with its maximum speed of 131 miles per hour, which enabled it to reach its service ceiling of 21,000 feet within 25 minutes. Over the preceding seven months, 87 Squadron had become the highest scoring of the five Dolphin squadrons. Letts flew to France on 10 October 1918, but when, on the following day, he borrowed an SE5A fighter to fly to his new Squadron and tried to roll it shortly after take-off, he was killed instantly, aged 21, when it stalled and nose-dived straight into the ground. He is buried in Bac-du-Sud British Cemetery, Bailleulval (nine miles south-west of Arras), in Grave VI.A.30.

Another cousin, Lieutenant Clive Goulding Moore (1896–1917), Royal Fusiliers and 43 Squadron RFC, was killed in France on 15 August 1917, aged about 20, while flying low over the German lines to disperse with machine-gun fire the enemy troops who were massing for a counter-attack. He has no known grave.

Siblings

Moore’s sister was Violet Ella Valentia (“Bay”) (1903–63); later Rowell after her marriage in 1932 to Geoffrey William Rowell (1903–92). They had three sons and one daughter (including twins). The couple were married by the bride’s maternal uncle, the Reverend Dr Frederick Homes Dudden (1874–1955), a theologian and academic administrator who was Master of Pembroke College, Oxford (1918–55), a Canon of Gloucester Cathedral (1918–37), Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University (1929–32), and Chaplain to King George V and King George VI (1929–52). In 1939 Geoffrey William Rowell was a brewery manager and director and the family was living in Braintree, Essex.

Education

Moore attended Mr George Egerton’s Preparatory School, Sandroyds, Cobham, Surrey, and then Harrow School from 1912 to 1917, where, according to a letter of condolence that his house master wrote to his parents, he developed “great gifts of command” in his final year that “would have carried him far had he lived, and which had already marked him out among his contemporaries”. Another master said that although he showed no sporting prowess, he possessed considerable “force of character & independence of spirit” which caused him to “stand high […] in the opinion of the less conventional masters”, and others commented on his generosity and thoroughness. A good pupil, he was accepted as a Commoner by Magdalen in April 1917, but did not matriculate, and there is no mention of his acceptance in either Harrow Memorials of the Great War, vol. 6 (1921) or Harrow School Register 1885–1949, 5th edn (London: Rivingtons, 1951), p. 340.

War service

While still at Harrow, Moore was very obviously “potential officer material”, and in 1917 he became a Cadet Officer in the Officers’ Training Corps. So it is not surprising that soon after leaving school, he was commissioned Second Lieutenant on 28 November 1917 in the 1st (Regular) Battalion, the Coldstream Guards, part of the 2nd Guards Brigade, in the Guards Division. He went to France in June 1918, about a month after G.R. Gunther had reported for duty as a subaltern with the 3rd Battalion, the Grenadier Guards, in exactly the same Brigade. Moore was assigned to the 1st Battalion’s No. 2 Company and his name first appears in the Battalion War Diary on 6 July 1918, after the Battalion had been resting and training for a month near the hamlet of La Bazeque, just south of Saulty and c.13 miles along the road that runs from Doullens to Arras. On that day Moore’s Battalion, together with the rest of the Brigade, marched north-eastwards towards Arras and took up position in the reserve trenches just south-east of the village of Ransart, around seven miles south-west of the city’s centre.

From 10 to 14 July, the Battalion occupied a line from the village of Boisleux-au-Mont to a point some 5,000 yards south-east of Boiry-St-Martin and opposite the village of Boyelles. The front was very quiet and the tour of duty uneventful, and when it was over the Battalion returned to the reserve trenches near Ransart until 24 July, when it began a second stint in the same stretch of the front line that lasted until 5 August. On 4 August, the fourth anniversary of the outbreak of war, the Battalion War Diary noted that only one officer who had been in the Battalion on that day was still with it, and that of the 226 officers who had since served with the Battalion, c.180 had become casualties. From 5 to 11 August the Battalion was in billets, and it returned to the front line from 11 to 15 August, when it was relieved by an American Battalion. On 18/19 August, during its next period out of line, the Battalion practised cooperation with tanks in preparation for the next push eastwards, the Battle of Moyenville-Hamelincourt (21–24 August 1918), the first phase of the Second Battle of Bapaume (21 August–3 September 1918), an assault on the Hindenburg Line that is regarded as the start of the Hundred Days Offensive and a turning point in the Great War.

As the name of the lesser Battle suggests, Moore’s Battalion was involved in the capture of two adjacent villages, and also the north–south railway line. The attacking British troops were supposed to be supported by ten tanks, but those that had been detailed to support Moore’s Company got lost because of thick fog and failed to arrive, and as a result the Company took many casualties between zero hour (04.55 hours) and 06.30 hours. Furthermore, as the whole Battalion had to tolerate heavy shelling, its casualties increased during the course of the day. So on the night of the 21/22 August, Numbers 2 and 3 Company advanced some 500 yards across the railway line and into the outskirts of Hamelincourt, where they established and maintained strong-points. The Battalion War Diary then continues: “Great credit for this is due to Captain R. D. Gamble [killed in action on 22 August, aged 21], 2nd Lieutenant J. Rowlett, who was wounded while carrying it out, and to Lieutenant W. G. Dixon and 2nd Lieutenant E. P. A. Moore”. On the morning of 22 August, the Germans counter-attacked in force with a Saxon Division, only to be “decimated by our artillery and Lewis Guns”. By the time the Battalion was relieved on 24 August, it had lost six officers and 197 other ranks (ORs) killed, wounded or missing and it withdrew north-westwards via the village of Ayette to the old German line between Ransart and Monchy-au-Bois. A further attack eastwards was planned for 3 September, but by this time the Germans had withdrawn eastwards and the Battalion was in bivouacs at Louveral Wood, c.15 miles to the east and just to the west of Cambrai.

On 15 September 1918 the Battalion went into the trenches between the nearby hamlet of Demicourt and the village of Graincourt-lès-Havrincourt, about three miles south-west of Cambrai, and on 19 September the 63rd (Royal Naval) Division appeared from the north with tanks and attacked Graincourt-lès-Havrincourt, whereupon the entire enemy garrison surrendered. Nevertheless, the action had cost the 1st Battalion ten officers and 161 ORs killed, wounded or missing. On 26 September the Battalion moved forward in preparation for a major attack by the 2nd Guards Brigade, whose task was to cross the north–south Canal du Nord and break through the main fortifications of the Hindenburg Line, 1,000 yards to the east. Although the attack on the following day was successful, the 2nd Brigade suffered heavy casualties because of enfilading machine-gun fire from the left flank. It is, however, probable that Moore did not take part in the fighting during the second half of September since the Battalion War Diary does not list him as one of the officers who went up into line on any of the relevant dates and on 30 September records his return to No. 2 Company from an unspecified detail. From 1 October 1918, like the rest of the Brigade, the 1st Battalion was out of line at the village of Boursies, some ten miles south-west of Cambrai on the D930, where it trained until 7 October, when it went into the trenches between Flesquières and Marcoing, about four miles south-west of Cambrai.

This move was the initial part of the Allied encirclement of Cambrai that would lead to its liberation, and the Battalion very quickly progressed to the trenches north-east of Marcoign that ran along the railway line which curved round westwards into Cambrai. Here Moore was selected as one of the five subalterns who were to reconnoitre assembly positions for the final assault on the strategically important town, and on 9 October, thanks to this information, the Battalion formed up behind the ridge one mile east of Rumilly-en-Cambrésis, between Seranvillers-Foranville and the cemetery south-east of Niergnies about two miles south of the city centre. But when Moore’s Battalion advanced northwards into Cambrai later on the same day, it encountered little resistance and soon reached what is now the D643, the major road linking the town with Le Cateau-Cambrésis, 16 miles to the south-south-east, having lost five officers and 32 ORs killed, wounded or missing. The Battalion was then ordered to concentrate in the valley just north of the hamlet of Igniel, about two miles outside Cambrai on the D643, and there, the War Diary records, “for the first time in many months did any part of the Battalion, when on duty, billet in anything that might be called a house. Here the buildings were actually standing.”

On 13 October the Battalion marched three miles north-east to billets in St-Vaast-en-Cambrésis, where Gunther’s Battalion would also be billeted on 17 October. But on 16 October Moore’s Battalion was holding the line near St-Python, with Gunther’s Battalion on its right and Moore’s No. 2 Company, of which he was now Commanding Officer (CO), in reserve east of St-Vaast-en-Cambrésis. Here, the 1st Battalion of the Coldstream Guards helped to repel a German counter-attack at a cost of seven officers and 34 ORs killed, wounded or missing, and after Moore’s death his Company Commander, a much older man, wrote to his parents of the “excellent” way in which he had proved his ability as a soldier during this action. On 21 October the Battalion moved back a few miles to the village of Boussières-en-Cambrésis and trained there, in close proximity to Gunther’s Battalion, for three days; on 24 October it marched a mile or so northwards to billets in St-Hilaire-lez-Cambrai; and on 31 October it uprooted yet again and marched six miles east-north-east to new billets in the little town of Vertain in preparation for the final push. On 2 November the advance north-eastwards towards the Belgian border began again on a roughly eight-mile front that extended from Valenciennes in the north-west to Le Quesnoy in the south-east; and the 2nd Guards Brigade was transported around four miles north-west via Escarmain and Capelle to the trenches east of Ruesnes.

Here, at 19.30 hours on 3 November, the 1st Battalion of the Coldstream Guards led an attack by the entire Guards Division. Its purpose was to advance a further four miles to the north-east, take the small town of Villers-Pol, cross the River Rhonelle, and break through to the high ground above Preux-au-Sart, just to the east of the town and only four miles from the Belgium border (cf. Gunther). The 1st Battalion was entirely successful and had, by midnight, reached the high ground and started to dig in for the night despite machine-gun fire and hand-to-hand fighting in the darkness and a heavy artillery barrage that began at 01.00 hours on 4 November. Nevertheless, at about 10.30 hours on 4 November 1918, the Battalion HQ was able to move into Villers-Pol while its Companies were still dug in about one-and-a-half miles east of the town and trying to push forward despite heavy and accurate fire from German field guns that were firing small-calibre shells over open sights. To avoid this and heavy machine-gun fire on the right, Moore’s Company crossed an orchard and came round a hedge, but were spotted and fired on at point-blank range by a field gun. Although the men took what cover they could, a shell fell fairly close to Moore and a large fragment hit him in the neck to the left of the throat, severing the left facial artery. Although a doctor was on hand, and applied a clip to stop the bleeding, he was unable to apply enough pressure on the wound to prevent Moore from bleeding to death in a few minutes, aged 19, just four-and-a-half hours before Gunther met his end in the same area, and a week before the Armistice brought the war to an end. 21 ORs of Moore’s Battalion were killed in action on the same day, and from 3 to 5 November the 1st Battalion lost a total of 173 of its members killed, wounded or missing. After Moore’s death the Guards’ advance eastwards continued until 11 November, when the 2nd Guards Brigade reached the Citadel at Maubeuge, 16 miles east of Villers-Pol.

On 7 November 1918 Captain Cyril Hubert Frisby (1885–1961), one of the Battalion’s Company Commanders, who would be recommended for the VC for his bravery at the Canal du Nord during the attack on the Hindenburg Line on 27 September 1918 and who was standing in for the Battalion CO, wrote a very kind and positive letter to Moore’s parents in which he spoke warmly of their son’s performance during the capture of Villers-Pol on 4 November and telling them that he had been officially recommended for the MC. The award was made on 2 April 1919 (London Gazette, no. 31,266, 1 April 1919, p. 4,330) and the citation reads:

For conspicuous gallantry and leadership in the night attack on Villers-Pol on 3rd/4th November, 1918. In command of the leading Platoon of his company, which was held up by enemy machine-gun fire, he sent his sergeant round to a flank with a bombing party, while he himself with another section made a frontal attack. As a result the company was able to continue the advance and cross the stream. The following day he did fine work right through, and it was while personally superintending the digging in of his men, that he was killed by shell fire. (LG, no. 31,680, 9 December 1919, p. 15,356).

The Regimental CO of the Coldstream Guards told his parents that “We can ill afford to lose men like he was” and the CO of his Battalion wrote to his parents:

Pat had done so wonderfully well and was a very fine soldier. His men would follow him anywhere and they are by far the best judges of what our officers should be. They were very fond of him and would fly to do anything he told them to do.

Bibliography

For the books and archives referred to here in short form, refer to the Slow Dusk Bibliography and Archival Sources.

Printed sources:

[Anon.], ‘Second Lieutenant Edward Patrick Aylett Moore’, The Times, no. 41,958 (27 November 1918), p. 4.

Harrow Memorials, vi (1921), unpag.

[Anon.], ‘Sir Edward Moore’ (Obituary), The Times, no. 43,519 (3 December 1923), p. 13.

Ross-of-Bladensburg (1928), ii, pp. 292, 352, 372, 466, 546.

Archival sources: 

MCA: Ms. 876 (III), vol. 2.

MCA: PR 32/C/3/871-875 (President Warren’s War-Time Correspondence, Letters relating to E.P.A. Moore [1918]).

WO95/1219.

WO 339/58343.

On-line sources:

Wikipedia, ‘John Letts (RAF Officer)’: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Letts_(RAF_officer) (accessed 19 January 2020).