Born on the 13th of March 1899 in Suton, near Wymondham, Albert was the eldest child of Arthur Attoe, a farm labourer, and Amy (nee Betts). Albert was still a baby when the family moved to Upper Street (now the Ipswich Road) in Tasburgh next to the Bird in Hand pub (now The Countryman) – this great photo is reproduced on the website Norfolk Public Houses (a fascinating resource https://norfolkpubs.co.uk)
Two more children were born to the couple whilst they lived in Tasburgh – Maurice and Ethel – but as a farm cottage was tied to the job, the family had moved back to the Wymondham area by 1907 before settling in Carleton Rode in 1911 when Arthur became cowman for farmer Ernest Brown at Folly Farm on Upgate Street. It is almost certain that oldest son, Albert, would have worked for the same farmer when he left school in 1912. There are no records of any of the Attoe children in the registers of Carleton Rode school, so they probably attended New Buckenham school which was closer to their home. Albert and his parents would remain living on Upgate Street in the village until their deaths – Maurice and Ethel eventually moved elsewhere.
Although ‘Attoe’ is an unusual surname, its origins appear to be medieval, relating to the topography of the place where the people lived – meaning near the spur of a hill or ridge – which is curious as 50% of all Attoes recorded in the UK lived in Norfolk during the 19th century – a place famous for its relatively flat lands!
Albert’s attestation papers do not survive (and he is not to be confused with other similarly aged Arthur/Albert Attoes who also served and lived in Norfolk) but we do know from medal rolls and the Absent Voter Lists of 1918/19, that he was called up to the 2/1 Hertfordshire Yeomanry – a home service unit training new recruits. He was later transferred to the 7th Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment, one of Kitchener’s ‘New Armies’, which had been sent overseas in May 1915 for service on the Western Front and remained there until being disbanded. Albert would have turned 18 in March of 1917, and (at this time) the official age at which a soldier could be sent overseas was 19 (although this was reduced to 18 the following year).
By using Albert’s service numbers, we can track other men who fought alongside him during the war. Albert Earl, a young boot maker from Northampton, was called up aged 18 years and one month in April 1917 and assigned 27591. Albert Attoe, almost identical in age, was assigned 27598. Albert Earl’s service papers still exist, and we can therefore trace our Albert’s journey too.
After attestation, the men trained in Colchester as part of the 2/1 Hertfordshire Yeomanry (Eastern Mounted Brigade of the Territorial Force) where they remained until the following January. They were sent to Rochester, tasked with defending lines of communication and major towns as the threat of enemy invasion increased. After the failure of the German Spring Offensive (which began on the 21st March 1918 and lasted for about five months), the men returned to the Colchester barracks. On the 2nd August 1918, they were posted overseas as part of the British Expeditionary Force and compulsorily transferred into the 7th Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment. Albert Attoe’s new number was 41951 and Albert Earl’s new service number was 41956, so we know that they were still ‘comrades in arms’.
At this point, the 7th Norfolk’s were on the Somme, part of the 35th Infantry Brigade, and by the middle of August had been in the thick of fighting for several weeks when the new recruits (of which ‘our Alberts’ were part) arrived on the 11th August. The fighting was relentless. The War Diary for the period reports frequent casualties on both sides and ‘the men are very weary’. Towards the middle of the month, the battalion had been relieved on the Front Line and the men spend two days at divisional HQ ‘bathing and resting’ south of the town of Albert (I wonder if ‘our Alberts’ made a joke about that?) Then it was back to the front before the next major offensive began.
The War Diary entries, although written in dry, sparse, military style, give us a flavour of what the men faced. The attack on the 17th August began at 4:50am with a barrage of explosions to confuse the enemy – however it also confused the Allies with thick smoke slow to clear. The tanks were late ‘going over’, and the men in the front line were disorientated, their path unclear – and that day the battalion suffered 7 officers killed or injured and over 100 OR (other ranks) casualties. During the evening, they faced a counterattack and were now on the defensive. Other regiments come to their aid, including the Australian Imperial Force, but the Norfolk’s continued to be pushed back to the old British Front Line with yet more casualties – and then during the night, Divisional orders arrived for the battalion to move forward again. There are descriptions of enemy machine gun posts being successfully taken – but with losses on both sides. The 7th Norfolk’s then received orders to advance towards Trones Wood in support of the Allies attack to retake an area the British had lost earlier in the war. The contemporary photographs of Trones Wood give us an idea of the devastated landscape they encountered. Further casualties are sustained.
As August 1918 came to a close, the War Diary records:
During this month, the battalion advanced 11 miles, captured 13 machine guns, three trench mortars, one grenade thrower (grenade granatenwerfer) and about 60 prisoners.
It also records the deaths of:
4 officers (named) killed in action along with 47 OR (not named…)
8 officers wounded in action (named) along with 226 OR (not named)
1 officer gassed (named), along with 83 OR (not named)
4 OR SIW (self-inflicted wounds) – a serious military offence which could result in court martial, or worse
4 OR who died of wounds
Albert Attoe and Albert Earl had at least survived their first three weeks on the front line.
As September opened, the Battalion had marched to Montauban, east of Albert, where they were ordered to launch an attack early on the morning of the 5th. Total casualties that day were 5 officers and 84 other ranks, including Albert Earl. His service papers state that he died of wounds on the 5th September 1918, and he may well have been buried in the field that day – but his body was not recovered at the end of the war. His name is now engraved on the Vis-en-Artois Memorial to the missing in the Pas de Calais – along with 9000 other ‘lost’ men who died in that area between the Somme and Loos from the 8th August 1918 to the Armistice, barely three months later.
Albert Earl had been in France a little over a month and together with Albert Attoe, the nineteen-year-olds had been engaged in very heavy fighting, facing machine guns, trench warfare and hand-to-hand combat, encountered the horrors of gas and flaming grenades – with only a couple of days’ respite away from the Front.
For ‘our Albert’ at least, the horrors are coming to an end. By the end of October, the Hundred Days’ Offensive, a series of attacks which the Allies had begun on the 8th August was paying off – and would finally lead to the defeat of the German Army and the signing of the Armistice on the 11th November. The Battalion are much on the move, taking objectives, and although there are still many casualties, they are not in such vast numbers as in previous months. The tide of war is turning – but the villages and landscape they encounter as they march east are utterly devastated – billets are dirty, having been heavily damaged in previous fighting, and the inhabitants of villages are gone – entirely evacuated. On the 31st October, the battalion are encamped for a few days and there have been no reports of fighting for at least four days. The War Diary records the following:
31st October 1918: Capt. HRH Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, KG, GCMG, GBE, MC visited Battn HQ, various officers being presented to His Royal Highness. He afterwards visited many of the men in the billets, cook houses, bath houses, and was graciously pleased to express his pleasure at what he had seen.
Training commenced. Football match played against the Essex.
This Royal personage was the future Edward VIII (read more about him in another of our Survivor stories). Did he stay to watch the match – up the Canaries?
The 7th Battalion of the Norfolk Regiment was eventually disbanded in the field in May 1919, although many of the men had been demobilized in the months following the Armistice. As one of the younger men, and with no dependents, it is likely that Albert would have been one of the last to go home. The War Diary records plenty of activities to keep the men busy until they were repatriated; drill practice (just in case?), clearing and cleaning, painting transport vehicles, guarding the train station (looting goods trains was a problem) education classes, football matches, divine service, concert parties, and also visits to the local town and villages as they began to recover.
After the war, Albert returned to his parent’s cottage at Folly Farm on Upgate Street where he worked for farmer, Ernest Brown, alongside his father (1921 census). Sadly, his mother died in 1924, aged just 46, and was buried in Carleton Rode cemetery. Albert was a witness at his sister’s marriage in All Saints’ Church in the summer of 1931, after which she moved with her husband (also a farm labourer) to Tibenham. Albert never married. In 1939, his younger brother, a stockman, lived next door to Albert and his father on Upgate Street, and although Maurice had married, there were no children.
Albert and his father continued to work at Folly Farm, which by the mid-1930s was being run by James Clarke, farmer at Old Hall Farm in Carleton Rode. Albert was by now driving tractors on the farm, and his father was working as a ‘yard man’. When James Clarke died unexpectedly at the age of 32 after contracting pneumonia early in 1940, Albert and his father, Arthur, and brother (misnamed ‘Joe’ in the newspaper report) were three of fourteen farmhands employed by the Clarke family at both Old Hall and Folly Farm, who accompanied the coffin – transported by horse and waggon – in a solemn procession to the funeral service at the Baptist Church.
During WW2, many men and women from Carleton Rode and Bunwell volunteered to help the war effort at home; the Civil Defence unit including ARP (Air Raid Precautions), the Local Defence Volunteers (Home Guard) and Women’s Voluntary Service (amongst others). Photographs survive which show these men (and a few women!) but sadly we know only some of the names. Perhaps Albert Attoe is one of the unknowns.
Albert died in 1973, still living on Upgate Street, and was buried in the village cemetery. We know that his sister, Ethel, married Francis Gilbert Lake and had a daughter, Ivy, and a son, Edward – so we are hopeful that their descendants may have photographs of Albert in his First World War uniform.