Epilogue
In 1939 Captain Jack Churchill of the Manchester Regiment was a member of the British team competing in the World Archery Championship at Oslo. With war in the offing, the party arrived back in England after some difficulties and he went, almost immediately, with the advance party of the British Expeditionary Force to the Continent. Before embarking, Captain Churchill had made by Purle of London a hundred-pound yew bow together with hunting arrows; he also equipped himself with two steel bows which were later broken whilst sticking out of the back of a lorry that was backed against a wall.
During the days of the ‘phoney war’ of 1939, Captain Churchill took every opportunity of practising with his bow by shooting at targets. In December 1939 the 4th Brigade of the 2nd Division of the B.E.F., consisting of the Norfolk Regiment, the Royal Scots, the Warwickshire Regiment, and the machine-guns of the Manchester Regiment, took over part of the Maginot Line. It was a bitterly cold winter and snow lay on the frozen ground, so that patrols formed of groups from all battalions were sent out in front of the Maginot Line wearing white nightgowns and with elephantine legs encased in layers of straw and sandbags. Frustrated and irritated by the official policy of not provoking the enemy, Captain Churchill decided upon a symbolic gesture which he thought would not only give him great personal satisfaction but might also create a certain alarm, despondency and bewilderment in the enemy lines. On the 31st of December 1939, whilst out with a patrol amid the undulating, snow-covered countryside of no-man’s-land, he stealthily made his way to between fifty and eighty yards from the German lines and, drawing his bowstring back to his cheek, let loose an arrow which he heard bite into a frost-hard ground with an audible ‘clack’. There was no reaction whatsoever, so Churchill again drew his bow and loosed a second arrow – this time a German voice called out and there was obviously some consternation caused in the enemy defences, although he did not have the satisfaction of knowing whether or not his arrow had hit anyone. Although elated by his gesture, the archer regretted not being able to retrieve his arrows. The shafts cost him 105. 6d. each and the War Office had no financial responsibility for such ammunition!
On the 27th of May 1940, whilst in command of a mixed force holding the village of L’Epinette, near Bethune, during the retreat to Dunkirk, Captain Churchill, who had been slightly wounded on the 25th, became the only European for centuries who, in the action of war, had killed an enemy with the longbow. Climbing into the loft of a small granary, through a vertical opening in one wall, normally used for hauling up sacks of grain, he saw, some thirty yards away, five German soldiers sheltering behind the wall but in clear view of the granary. Quickly and quietly Captain Churchill fetched up two infantrymen and instructed them to open rapid fire on the enemy but not to pull the trigger until he had loosed an arrow at the centre man. Captain Churchill lifted his bow, took careful aim and loosed the shaft. At the same time as the bow string twanged, the air was shattered by the rapid fire of the two infantrymen. Captain Churchill was delighted to see his arrow strike the centre German in the left of the chest and penetrate his body; the remaining Germans of the party slumped to the dusty ground. With the idea of retrieving his arrow by pushing or pulling it through the wound, Captain Churchill swiftly ran to the body but was unable to extract the shaft. In his haste he broke the arrow, leaving its barbed head in the German’s body. At this moment enemy machine-gun fire was opened down the line of the road and everyone dived for cover.
Sheet 21 of the War Diary of the 4th Infantry Brigade, dated the 30th of May 1940, bears the following paragraph:
‘One of the most reassuring sights of the embarkation was the sight of Captain Churchill passing down the beach with his bows and arrows! His actions in the Saar with his arrows are known to many and his disappointment at not having had the chance to keep in practice had tried him sorely. His high example and his great work with his machine-guns were a great help to the 4th Infantry Brigade.’
Five years before the first atomic bomb exploded and nearly 600 years after the Battle of Crécy an English archer had incongruously and briefly returned to the ancient battlefields of France.
Bibliography
Technical Sources
Akerman, Archaelogia (i860), Vol. XVII
Ascham, Roger, Toxophilus (sixteenth century)
Ascham, Roger, The Treatise on the Bow (1545)
Ashdown, Charles, Armour and Weapons in the Middle Ages (1925)
Ashdown, Charles, British and Foreign Arms and Armour (1909)
Barwick, A Brief Discourse {Firearms and Bows) (1594)
Blair, Claud, European Armour (1958)
Burke, Edmund, The History of Archery (1958)
Demarin, Auguste, Weapons of War (1870)
Edwards, C. B. and Heath, E. G., In Pursuit of Archery (1962)
Elmer, R. P., Archery (1933)
Ffoulkes, Charles, Armour and Weapons (1909)
Ffoulkes, Charles, Arms and Armaments (1945)
Ford, H. A., Archery, Its Theory and Practice (1856)
Gordon, P. H., The New Archery (1939)
Grancsay, S. V., Arms and Armour (1964)
Grancsay, S. V., Handbook of Arms and Armour (1930)
Grimley, Gordon, The Book of the Bow (1958)
Griswold, L., Handicraft – Archery (1942)
Hansard, G. A., The Book of Archery (1840)
Hewitt, John, Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe, Vols. I, II, III (1855 – 9)
Klopsteg, P. E., Bows and Arrows: A Chapter in the Evolution of Archery in America (1863)
Klopsteg, P. E., Science Looks at Archery (1934)
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Mayrich, Sir Samuel Rush, History of Arms and Armour (1824)
Murdoch, John, A Study of the Eskimo Bows in the United States National Museum (1884)
Myer, Herman, Bows and Arrows in Central Brazil (1896)
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Oakeshott, R. Ewart, The Archaeology of Weapons (1960)
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Historical Sources
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Barrett, C. R. B., Battles and Battlefields in England (1896)
Bryant, Arthur, The Age of Chivalry (1963)
Burne, Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred H., The Agincourt War (1956)
Burne, Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred H., The Art of War on Land (1944)
Burne, Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred H., The Crécy War (1955)
Chandler, David Edr., The Battlefields of Europe, Vol. I (1965)
Churchill, Sir Winston S., The History of the English-Speaking Peoples (1956)
Costain, Richard B., The Last of the Plantagenets (1962)
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Kozlenko, William, Men at War (Edt.) (1942)
MacKenzie, W. M., The Battle of Bannockburn (1913)
MacKenzie, W. M., The Bannockburn Myth (1932)
McKisack, May, The Oxford History of England – the Fourteenth Centu
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Fictional Sources
Chaucer, G., Canterbury Tales
Doyle, A. Conan, The White Company (1905)
Doyle, A. Conan, Sir Nigel (1906)
Henty, G. A., In Freedom’s Cause (1890)
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Shakespeare, William, Henry IV
Index
ACQUITAINE, Duchy of
Agincourt, Battle of
French methods
Henry V’s address to archers
Aljubarrota, Battle of
Alnwick, Henry, Baron Percy of
Arc, Joan of
Archer, comparison with
musketeer
contest with crossbowmen
described in sixteenth-century verse
stance and aim
Archers, appearance and
equipment
Cheshire
Ettrick
Free Company of
Lancastrian
mounted at Poitiers
rate of fire
Scottish
tactical combination with men-at-arms
weapons other than bow
Welsh
Yorkist
Archery practice
Archibald, 4th Earl of Douglas
Armour, and equipment;
English at Falkirk
Black Prince’s at Poitiers
changes in
English at Agincourt
horses’
men-at-arms
plate
Poitiers
Scots, at Homildon Hill
Tewkesbury
Wars of Roses
Arquebuses
Arrow, description
flight
heads
length
modern hunting
sheaf
Artillery, Crécy
Flodden
James IV’s army
Rouvray
Arundel, Earl of
Ascham, Roger
Assize of Arms
Audrehem, French Marshal
Aumale, Count of
Auray, Battle of
BALIOL, Edward
Bannockburn, Battle of
Bar, Duke of
Beauchamp, Sir John
Beaumont, Battle of
Beaurepair, Scots encampment
Bedford, John, Duke of
Bentley, Sir William
Bergerac
Berkhamsted Castle, bow-stave from
Berwick, siege of
Black Death
Black Prince
Blanchetaque
Blois, Charles of
Blois, Count of
Bohemia, King of
Bohun, Sir Henry
Borthwick, James, Master Gunner
Bothwell, commanding Scottish reserve at Flodden
Boucicaut, Marshal
Bourbon, Duke of
Bow staves, surviving specimens
Bow strings
Brabant, Duke of
Branxton Hill, near Flodden
Bretigny, Treaty of
Breuville, Battle of
British Expeditionary Force, 1939
British Museum, early bowstaves in
Brittany
Brittany, Duke of
Bruce, Robert
Buchan, Earl of, Constable of France
Burgundy, Charles of
CADZAND
Calais
Calthrops
Gamoys, Lord
Cannon
Canterbury Tales
Carisbrooke
Cavalry, English
Feudal
French
Norman
Scots
Chandos, Sir John
Charles, King of France
Chaucer, Geoffrey, Canterbury Tales
Chivalry
Christopher, captured English ship
Churchill, Captain Jack
Clerks, Valley of
Clermont, Count of
Cockerell, Battle of
Constable of France
Copeland, Sir John
Covenanters at Tippermuir
Crawford, Earl of
Crécy, Battle of
Crossbow
Crossbowmen
Brabant
French
Lombard
Saracen
Culverins
DACRE, Lord
Dagworth, Sir Thomas
d’Albret, Charles
d’Alençon, Count
d’Alençon, Duke
Dauphin
David II, of Scotland
De Buch, Captal
d’Endreghem, Arnaud
De Leyburn, Roger
De Mézerary
De Montfort’s Archers
De Nesle, Guy
Derby, Earl of
De Rous, John, drawing of archer
Douglas, Archibald, Lord of Galloway
Douglas, Earl of
Douglas, Sir James
Douglas, Sir William, of Liddesdale
Doyle, A. Gonan, The White Company
Dunkirk, retreat to, 1940
Dunois, Count of
Durham, Bishop of
EDGECOTT Field, Battle of
Edward the Confessor
Edward I
Edward II
Edward III
Edward IV
Elizabeth I
Erpingham, Sir Thomas
FALCONBERG, Count of
Falconbridge, Lord
Falkirk, Battle of
Fastolf, Sir John
Feudal Armies
Firearms
Flodden Field, Battle of
Flowers of the Forest
Ford, Castle of, Northumberland
Ford, Horace A.
Formigny, Battle of
Fortescue, Sir John
Fourth Infantry Brigade, of 2nd Divn. B.E.F.
Francheville, Isle of Wight
Free Company of Archers
Froissart
Fyrd, the
GAM, David
Gascony
Genoese carracks at Harfleur
Genoese Grossbowmen
Giraud, Master of the Royal Ordnance
Gloucester, Duke of
Gordons at Flodden
Graha
m, Sir John
Graville, Lord
Gué de l’Homme track
Gunpowder
Guns
HACKBUTEERS, German
Halberds
Halidon Hill, Battle of
Handguns
Hangest, Count
Harcourt, Godfrey
Harfleur, Battle of
Hastings, Baron
Henry I
Henry II
Henry IV
Henry V
Henry VII, anti-crossbow legislation
Herce, formation of archers
Heron, John (Bastard)
Heron, Lady
Herrings, Convoys of
Day of
Heynault, Sir John of
High Steward of Scotland
Highlanders at Flodden
Holinshed, Ralph
Home, Earl of
Home, Sir Alexander
Homildon Hill, Battle of
Hop-Pringle of Swailholm
Hotspur
Howard, Admiral
Howard, Sir Edmund
Hundred Years War
Huntley, Earl of
INDENTURES governing English armies