PERCY BUSH-COX – A WORLD WAR ONE MYSTERY

FOR THE FIRST PART OF THIS STORY ON PERCY BUSH-COX, CLICK HERE.

Percy Bush-Cox enlisted with the Leicestershire Regiment in World War I.  In June 1918 he was reported in the press as having been  wounded for the second time.

Source – Cambridgeshire Times.

Percy Bush-Cox is pictured at right in the following photo of British casualties. He then went missing.

Subsequently, the young soldier’s family was advised that he was presumed dead. His name was added to the war memorial in Wimblington, Cambridgeshire, a town close to March, where he had been  born in 1895.

Nothing  more was heard of Percy Bush-Cox for more than twenty years. However, in May 1940,   an old acquaintance recognised him in the Norfolk town of Wisbech. The man told Percy that his elderly father,  Mr  W.B. Bush-Cox,  was living nearby, running a garage at Lakesend. Perhaps worried that the person would ‘blab’ about the meeting, Percy took the imitative and  went to visit his father.

A local newspaper, the Lyn Advertiser, ran a story about the reunion on May 24 1940 under the headline, RETURN OF A NATIVE.

How was Percy  to explain his long absence and  ‘resurrection ‘ to his bewildered father?

Well, his story was that he was badly injured in 1917, and spent a long period in hospital. The next bit  sounds unbelievable, but  he said that after being discharged he  enlisted with the ANZACS  under the name Ernest Durham and returned to the front.  How or why this occurred he did not say. He told his father that in 1918 he was wounded again and repatriated with the Aussies  to Sydney, spending more time in hospital there.  He said  that once recovered he spent the next six or seven years  working in  rural NSW, returning to England in 1925.  He then worked as a labourer in a variety of towns as Ernest Durham until he was recognised in Wisbech.

The elderly Mr Bush-Cox took the story at face value. The alternative narrative, that his son had been a  deserter, was not something he wished  to accept. Percy  told his family  not to reveal his real name. as he would be in trouble, presumably for desertion. Soon after reconnecting with  his father  he  was taken to see his name on the Wimblington  war memorial.

Percy’s father is at left, pointing out his son’s name on the Wimblington war memorial.

The photo was published and Percy kept a cutting at his home in Sawston, south of Cambridge. This was something he would come to regret.

DEATH ON THE BATTLEGROUND?

As time went on,  even more  outlandish claims emerged regarding  Private Bush-Cox’s disappearance from the British army. He claimed  that one night in Flanders in 1918 he was in the midst of a raging battle when he was pinned to the ground by a German bayonet. He managed to pull it out and sit up (where the bayonet wielding German soldier was at this point was not explained,)  He said there were  three other seriously wounded British men with him and nearby were several dead Australians. The four Tommies  supposedly crawled through the mud  and changed uniforms and identity discs with the Aussies.  Why did they  do this?  Again, Percy, now  posing as Private Ernest Durham, did not say.  (One theory  that has gained currency over the years  is that it was because Australian soldiers received more pay than their British counterparts, but this is hardly credible.)

The story  then went that  they were picked up by Australian stretcher bearers and taken to a hospital. possibly at Rouen.  After recovering , Percy/Ernest claimed they were sent to a different unit to the one the dead Aussies had been serving with and that they carried on fighting until the armistice. He now said that they were all  repatriated to Australia, where he  remained until 1925.

What are we to make of  Percy’s story?   Well, of course  it’s utterly ridiculous  The Australian army kept detailed accounts of their men, as individual  service records show. There is no way a swapping of identities  could have happened.  Nor can any record be found  of Percy, aka Ernest Durham, living in Australia after the war.

We have the service record of the real Ernest Durham, and there is nothing to suggest that he was ever missing on the battlefield, or that he left his original platoon. The facts are that he was badly injured in 1918,  taken  straight to hospital in Rouen and from there sent  to two  military hospitals in England (Bath and then Harefield). After he died in 1949 his widow Edith still had his original identity disc.  This an extract concerning his 1918 wounding from the  military records;

The only explanation is that Percy Bush-Cox and  Ernest Durhan crossed paths in Rouen Hospital, and that a war weary  Percy decided to assume the Australian’s identity and quietly ‘disappear’. Perhaps we should not judge him too harshly.  There is proof that he was wounded twice and probably also gassed. Who know what his mental state was at the time?

As Ernest Durham, he continued to live at Sawston. There was little contact with his family. He married in 1950 under the assumed name and worked at a variety of labouring jobs, including at a local sawmill.

In 1953 Percy’s wife died from a stroke.  There was further trauma for him when he injured his back  at the sawmill and could no longer work.  He received two thousand pounds  compensation.   At Christmas time that year a neighbour, Mrs Dorothy Piper, began cleaning for the widower once a week.

On Thursday, December 30 1954, the quiet village of Sawston was the scene of a tragedy.   ‘Ernest Durham’ died from a gunshot wound in his garden. His cleaner, Dorothy Piper, was shot in the shoulder.

The inquest on Percy aka Ernest’s death created a sensation both in England and Australia.

FOR THE FINAL PART OF THE STORY, CLICK HERE.