Wednesday 22nd September 1915

Front line trenches near Bois Grenier.

As the British bombardment continued, the German response was stepped up. The Battalion War Diary noted that, ‘most of their shells however fell behind our trenches, nevertheless they damaged our parapet in places and blew in a communication trench. One shell burst about 5 yds from our bomb store and the man on guard received 30 wounds’. 

Three more members of Tunstill’s Company were seriously wounded by the shelling during the morning. Ptes. Willie Burley (see 12^th September 1914) and Arthur Stubbs (see 12^th September 1914) had been among a contingent of recruits from Grassington, who had been attached to Tunstill’s original Company and Pte. Ernest Franklin (see below) was one of the Keighley men who had been posted to Tunstill’s Company. All three were evacuated and treated at the dressing station which had been established in the cellars of the brewery in Bois Grenier, before being sent on for further medical treatment.

News of the injuries to Arthur Stubbs was conveyed to his family in a letter from his fellow Grassington recruit, Cpl. Billy Oldfield (see 21^st August), who told them that both Stubbs and Burley had been despatched to hospital in the same ambulance. 

Ernest Franklin, 20 years old when he enlisted, had been born in Horsforth, near Leeds, but the family had subsequently moved to Keighley. John Franklin, a temperance club steward, and his wife, Mary Jane (nee Farrer) had five children, but John had died in 1903. Ernest had been working in the local cotton mills.

Pte. Joseph Harry Poole (see below) would describe the events in a subsequent letter home (dated 27^th September): “It was a bit of a shock to us all when they were bombarding us and the shells were bursting all around us. I had a very narrow escape of being hit. A shell burst quite close to me. I just got a bit in my arm but it was nothing, but I felt the sand go right through my trousers after the explosion. When I looked round I found I had only been missed by a foot, for, close to me, were two holes in the brick platform where we stand to fire from. Our Company lost five men and one young fellow got hit in our trench in the right leg with a piece of shrapnel, and had to have it taken off. Then there were two chaps, both married men, lost their lives”.

Joseph Harry Poole was thirty-four years old when he enlisted and was one of the few members of the Company who was married. He was originally from West Bromwich but had married Margaret Carrol in Halifax in October 1900 and the couple had three children. Joseph had been working as a labourer when he joined the army. He had volunteered in Halifax on 11^th September 1914 and had joined ‘A’ Company by the time they arrived for their initial training at Frensham, as his name appears among those listed as members of number four platoon by Lt. Dick Bolton (see 1^st November 1914).  

Later in the day orders were received to prepare the men for a possible advance on the morning of Saturday 25^th September. Although the possibility of the Battalion actually being ordered to advance would depend on the progress of the main attack further south, it was planned to rehearse preparations later in the day and again on Thursday morning. The one hundred trench ladders provided for the Battalion were to be put in place, and the men, in their full assault kit,

“will be shown how they will pass the parapet either by ladder or by the saps, & by which openings they will pass our wire (later they will be told where the enemy's wire has been breached). Bombing & bayonet parties will be told off & these will pass the parapet first. Every other man will carry a shovel slung over the right shoulder. All men will be informed how the further advance will be made & exactly what is required of each man when the enemy's trenches are vacated. Men not carrying shovels will carry their entrenching tools ready in their belts”.

In the event, the intensity of the German shelling was such that this exercise was abandoned.