Army chaplain, Charles Gee, pastor of the Wesleyan chapel in Silsden, returned home on a short leave in the spring of 1917 when a packed congregation heard him talk of his experiences, including the Battle of the Somme. Lesley Tate looks at the report of the time.

CHAPLAIN Charles Gee, pastor of Silsden Wesleyan Chapel, had been nearly two years in the army with the troops in France, when in May, 1917, he returned home on a short spell of leave.

The pastor had been in the Battle of The Somme, the largest battle of World War One which involved three million men and saw one million either killed or injured - making it one of the bloodiest battles in human history.

And, when he returned to the pulpit at the Silsden church on his brief leave in the spring of 1917, there was a large congregation eager to hear of his experiences.

It had been seven or eight months since he was last home on leave, and during that time, he had been in the Battle of the Somme, he told the congregation - although his telling of the battle differed from how it is now described.

Preparations for the offensive had been ongoing for six months, he said, and in just three hours, the objective gained, and the attack completed, he told the congregation.

In fact, the offensive took place from July 1 to November 18, 1916. Mr Gee - in his description of a small part of the battle, told of how a ridge, held by the Germans for three years and used as a viewpoint, had been captured by the allies. He described how the 'very earth had rocked' with the noise of the guns which had all gone off together following the setting off of a flare high into the sky.

Following the battle, his winter in France had been 'exceedingly quiet' and he had occupied himself by running a coffee shop for the men, and although it was not strictly in the job description of a preacher's duties, he thought he had done something for the benefit of the men. And, he recalled going into the coffee shop one day when there were two staff officers sitting there having their dinner. They asked him who was 'running the show' and when he replied it was him, one of them remarked ''excuse me telling you, but you are doing a jolly lot better work running this show than preaching to the men".

The long marches, of which he and the men frequently indulged, were 'most interesting' he said. On starting out in the morning, they never knew where they would rest at night - and he had vivid recollections of staying in a little roomed cottage which was about 3ft 6ins long, and where they could not even 'swing a cat'. The next day, he had been billeted in a chateau, which made him wonder which particular wing he would end up. Sadly, he ended up spending the night sleeping on the floor of a corner of an attic room.

He then received a wire telling him he had to leave the division where he had been for nearly two years to replace another chaplain. He had been sorry to leave the officers and men, who he had got to know well over the almost two years, but in the army, one had no choice but to obey orders.

The transfer meant he was then with a Yorkshire brigade, with men from Leeds and Bradford, and also from Silsden, Bingley and Cowling.

There had been one town in France where he had been most anxious to visit, but when he had actually got there, the town, which had a population of about 10,000, had been heavily shelled. Hardly a building had been left untouched, and sheltering under a wall was most dangerous, as it was still being shelled and walls were no longer a place of safety.

One of his duties was to attend funerals, and he recalled travelling to one service to a town under attack by the Germans. The cemetery was a mile or so from the town, and someone had put up a sign on which it was chalked in one direction 'to Blighty' and in the other, 'to Hell', this, thought Mr Gee was not a bad description at all.

At one funeral he had attended, of a man from the West Ridings, as he approached, there was evidence something had happened overnight. He passed a cart that had been smashed up and a horse that had been 'blown to bits." Further on, he met a corporal who advised him against going any further, as the enemy was busy shelling the area. Eventually, he got to the town and when making his way across open ground, shrapnel burst just over his head. He laid low in the grass and shrapnel continued to burst all around him. He then got to the funeral service, and while standing there, a shell burst a few yards away. If it had been much nearer, he told the congregation, a great many of them would've been killed or wounded.

After the service, he joined a doctor in a dug out, whose breakfast had been disturbed by a man being brought to him wounded. When he returned to his own temporary residence, he found its roof had been blown off.

Mr Gee however, was keen to point out to his congregation that his work was equally as dangerous as other men engaged in the war, because for every shell that burst near him, probably hundreds burst around the men. For him, the greatest difficulty was getting out of danger.

Mr Gee concluded his sermon by saying the men fighting in France were amongst the finest the world had ever seen - but, he did introduce a note of caution as to the possible 'temptations' they were being subjected to.

It was the men's spiritual and moral wellbeing that greatly troubled him. They were going through the keenest temptations they had ever known - and over in France, there was no one to tell them 'no'. Many of them were going through the ordeal splendidly, and many would come back better men than they went out, but it was not the case with all of them. And Mr Gee asked the parents in his congregation, what they had done to help their lads in this time of great stress. The war had taught them more than anything else, if they wanted their lads to keep on the straight and narrow, they must teach them something that would help in such a time of crisis.