The 1/4th Battalion of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry were warned for active service on 8 January 1916 and prepared to leave India to make the long journey by steam train and steamship HMT Elephanta to Aden. Part of this force included Douglas Walter Lang who left some material to Bodmin Keep that is both varied and interesting. There is too much to describe in detail but one item in particular caught my eye: a green card covered book containing a variety of items. Perhaps the most poignant page is on the inside front cover which contains a list of NCOs of ‘F’ Company. It also details what happened to some of them as well as ‘Casualties of 1-4thD.C.L.I in Aden 1916’. There is much to learn about Serjeant Lang from this one book: he was an artist, a poet, had a sense of humour and was organised. He merits further investigation, when there is time!
Once again, a quick search of the museum’s database and a rummage within the archive have highlighted human stories caught up within the larger picture of world events that have an unerring ability to repeat themselves. In this instance, the repetition was 50 years apart in a region of the world known to the British as Aden up until 1967, but is now familiar from the news, as Yemen.
Fifty years later Britain was withdrawing from an Empire and in the process those in the 1st Battalion Somerset & Cornwall Light Infantry were called upon to visit Aden again, ‘The regiment moved to Aden in April 1966, lifted by the RAF from Lyneham. Some lucky groups got to fly in brand new Vickers VC 10’s in one hop, while those not lucky enough had to go in Bristol Britannias via Istanbul and Bahrain. Lovely safe aircraft but low and slow.’11 Perhaps not as low or as slow as HMT Elephanta!
Unfortunately, the coastal city of Sheik Othman would prove to have an unhappy association with the Regiment where in 1966 Private Oakley was wounded and subsequently died of his wounds. As can be seen on the inside of Serjeant Lang’s book, fifty years earlier on 10 August 1916 Serjeant Smitham of Camborne was killed by Turkish gunfire in Sheik Othman. The final contrast must be the transport that each generation made use of, the camels of 1916, as shown in Walter Lang’s artwork contrasting vividly with the Bedford 3 Ton trucks and Land Rover’s of the SCLI. Perhaps the living conditions were similar with tent lines nicely shown in a colour photograph from 1966 which surely cannot have changed much from 1916.
There are no answers in this article, deliberately so. When these items were rummaged out they did make me think and reflect on the things that stay the same and things that change.
- Somerset & Cornwall Light Infantry: Bogan’s Heroes and a whole lot more’, https://www.britisharmedforces.org/scli_%20pages/pages/bogan.htm [accessed 13 November 2025] ↩︎