Behind the name

By Bob Randall

It’s easy to overlook Peakirk’s modest War Memorial on the wall inside St Pega’s Church. Dedicated to the memory of the nine men from the village who died in the Great War, it’s just one of 70,000 war memorials to be found in Britain. The memorial is unusually detailed with not only the names, but also when and where they died. One name on the memorial stands out, Walter Goodale, Lieutenant - Strathcona Horse, attached Royal Air Force killed in action Alsace 1st August 1918. Why was a man from Peakirk in the Canadian Cavalry and attached to the RAF?

Walter Goodale

Walter was born in Farcet in 1894, one of four brothers. His father was a farmer and as a young boy he moved, with his family, to The Chestnuts, Peakirk. Walter attended Kings School and following the death of his father in 1910 he emigrated, with two of his brothers, to Canada looking for adventure and new opportunities.
Early in 1914 Walter joined the Imperial Bank of Canada, when war intervened he was at Fishing Lakes, a summer resort, near Wadena, Saskatchewan. He undertook to enlist immediately if he could swim across the lake, a distance of two miles, he was successful and was the first person to enlist from Wadena, joining Lord Strathcona’s Horse, a Canadian cavalry unit.
Following basic training Walter’s unit was dispatched, leaving their horses in England, to France arriving on the 4th May 1915. Within days, and without any previous experience of trench warfare, Walter was in action at the battle of Festubert. Strictly against regulations he took a small camera into the trenches, his photos give a unique view of life in the trenches as well as recording the destruction of the villages around the battlefield.

Walter writes frequently to his future wife, Kathleen Gibbs, his postcards rarely talk of the war but more about the beauty of the countryside behind the devastation of the trenches. In one he predicts his future ambition to fly, by reflecting on the arrival of an airplane and how he wished it could have bought Kathleen to see him. In forthright letters to his brother, posted in England to avoid the black pen of the censors, and written after the Battle of The Somme in 1916, he reflects on the cost and futility of the war:

“…England’s going to pay an awful price to get those b…. over the Rhine. When you realise that the Somme has cost us half a million casualties it makes you think … I guess they will realise soon in England that it’s a question now as to whether we shall ever be able to bring Germany to terms. And they still go on muddling along in the same old way - will they ever wake up? The more I see of things, the more disgusted I get. I have heard things from the clearing stations (first aid posts) here that are a disgrace to Englishmen …”
In March 1917 Walter returned to England, was commissioned, and seconded to the Royal Flying Corp. According to his pilot log he undertook his first solo flight in January 1918.

His flight training at Wyton near Huntingdon sounds like a relief from the Western Front but in fact Flying School was a dangerous place, pilots crashed and died on a weekly basis. There are many tales of death and disaster from this time. One such tale is recorded in Walter’s flight log of the 24th of March 1918 when he flew to St Ives church to see the damage done when Lieutenant Wastell crashed his plane into the spire whilst trying to take off from St Ives to return to Wyton. He demolished the top of Spire and was instantly killed, his body was found inside the church amid the pews. Despite these dangers, and only a month after Wastell’s death, an entry in Walter’s log confirms he flew his RE8 biplane to Glinton and took his brother for a quick spin around the skies above Peakirk! The Goodale family, who still live in the area, remember the day the Walter’s plane landed in fields between the railway line and Glinton village.

Walter married Kathleen just before being posted back to France on active service with 104 squadron in June 1918. He was to fly bombing missions behind enemy lines in a DH9 biplane. On his second mission, to bomb targets in Karthaus, the target was found covered in mist, so Treves railway workshops were bombed instead.

Walter’s ‘B’ formation was attacked over Treves and again near Boulay by 24 enemy aircraft. His fuel tanks were hit as he flew over Metz and he was seen to dive towards enemy lines, his log records that he was seen to land under control. He was reported missing, but word was eventually received from German sources that Walter, and his US Army observer 2Lt Leo Prentice, were killed in action and buried in St Jure German military cemetery in the Alsace region of France.

German Ace, Hans Marwede, probably shot down Walter, it was his first ‘kill’. Marwede went on to account for four observation balloons but was hit by ground fire after his fifth victory, the event being filmed by an American cameraman. The film shows a bruised and dejected Marwede being led away by his captors. Marwede later rose to a high rank in the Luftwaffe but was killed in a flying accident before WW2.
At the time of Walter’s death Kathleen was expecting their first child. A baby boy was born in spring 1919, also named Walter - tragically he died aged eight of a childhood illness. Kathleen lived in Royston until her death in 1990. Walter’s brothers John and Robert, both served on the western front. John was awarded the Military Cross. Walter’s fourth brother, William, remained in the area to run the family farm.
This is a story of a life lost, just like the other eight servicemen remembered on Peakirk’s war memorial. These accounts provide a reminder that behind the names of all those who fell lies great personal sacrifice.

Acknowledgments: Roger Bragger  and the Goodale family for their kind help.