Sam and Joe joined the London Polytechnic and started evening classes, which ultimately enabled them to join a London Regiment in the army during the First World War. Unknown to either of them because they joined at different times, they finished in the same regiment: The London Irish, but only met once during the whole of the war and then only in passing as one section relieved another section on the front.

Sam Wolff was a signaller in the army and his job was very varied. Apart from sending and receiving messages by Morse code on radio, he sent and received them with and by a hand held lamp.

He also was responsible for the Field telephone system connecting other forward troop positions with the base headquarters. These had to be repaired and maintained after every shelling and advance or retreat. He also had to take his duties as Guard and go on patrol into No-Man's land.

On one of his Guard patrols, while laying telephone lines with his mate they got separated from their patrol in the dusk and the smoke of war. Hearing the sound of marching feet, they chased after what they thought was their patrol, yelling for them to wait but it turned out to be a German patrol who immediately opened fire on them. They promptly dived back into No-Mans land and got caught up in the barbed wire. The Germans, thinking they were being attacked, turned Mortars on them. One of the mortar bombs exploded behind Sam and blew him safely out of the barbed wire and he was able eventually to rejoin his unit, whereupon his sergeant said 'where the bloody hell have you been Wolff.' When Sam started to explain, his sergeant said 'no look at your bloody pack!'

When him and his brother had joined up, a fond aunt gave them both 'bullet-proof' waistcoats made of interlocking links of chain - like the chain mail of the Knights of old. Neither of the brothers wore them because they felt if they wore them it would be an unfair advantage over their fellow mates, but as the waistcoats were present they kept them and lined the inside of their kit bags so that the other contents did not stick into their backs.

What had happened was that a large lump of shrapnel from the mortar had hit Sam in the small of his back, knocked him out of the barbed wire and in doing so had smashed everything in his pack: his eating equipment and everything else and was lodged in the remains of the chain waistcoat which was hanging in lengths of broken chain.

One night on guard duty in an advanced trench with another mate, about five minutes before being due for relief by the next pair, a heavy sell fired by a giant German gun known as 'Big Bertha' landed just behind the trenches. When the relief guard had not arrived, Sam went to the dugout to remind the offending two that they were late on duty. On entering the dugout, he saw all the occupants in various positions, such as sleeping in bunks or reading and one of the soldiers supposed to relieve him was sat at a table writing. When Sam touched him, he slumped over. He was dead, as were all the others in the dugout. All killed by the concussion of that one shell.

The third amazing escape was at the beginning of a dawn attack, when armed with a rifle in one hand and a signaling lamp in the other, he climbed over the trench parapet signaling the advance to other sections and received a bullet in the head. Fortunately, as he climbed up to go over the parapet he knocked his helmet down over his forehead and the bullet went through the helmet and passed between to lining and the metal, knocking him out. The accident of knocking his helmet forward and being unable to push it back saved his life.

It was soon after the three lucky escapes that he was caught in a mustard gas attack and was a bit slow in getting his gas mask on and received a gas burn on his face, which used to be quite obvious as it sometimes showed as a reddish patch in later years. m

He was home on leave from the front when peace was declared, so he decided that as the war was over, he wouldn't bother to go back. He never heard from the War Office or his regiment but eventually sent off for his campaign medals which in due course he received. Technically he was a deserter, but many more must have done the same so the authorities may have ignored it.

On his return to civilian life at the end of the war, he and his father Jonas formed a company known as J.Wolff and Son (carvers and guilders) Limited. As people of foreign extraction were unable at that time to own businesses in England, Sam and Joe were the directors until Jonas became a naturalised British citizen.

In 1926, Sam quoted for and got the job of gilding all the decorative ceilings etc. in the Masonic Peace Memorial in Great Queen Street, Holborn which was erected in memory of all Masons who fell in the First World War.

J. Wolff and Son Ltd. were commissioned by the Office of Works to gild the railings and gates around Buckingham Palace, the Australian and New Zealand gates together with the Commonwealth gates opposite Buckingham palace. Their work survived from around 1927 to 1951 when they were regilded for the Festival of Britain by a different company.