The morning was quiet but as the Battalion made preparations
to be relieved, there was some sporadic shelling by the Germans and a number of
trench mortars were also fired against ‘A’ Company’s positions. The War Diary
reported one casualty from ‘A’ Company. The subsequent relief passed off
quietly and by late evening the men were back in their former billets in and
around La Rolanderie Farm.
Prior to the relief Pte. William Knox (see 14th December) again wrote to his wife, Ethel (I am most grateful to Rachael Broadhead and family for allowing me access to William’s letters).
“I now sit down and write you a few lines to let you know that I am keeping quite well. Hope you are the same. I received your parcel dated 8.12.1915. Also your letter dated 10.12.1915. Was so very pleased to receive the parcel. It came in just right as we came into the firing line next day.
Well Dear we are having an awful do again this time. We came into the firing line for the second time in a week. We do four days in the firing line, then four days in the reserves. We have another twelve days to do yet before we go back for a rest. So you may guess what we shall look like when we have done our turn. I have not had a wash for three days now and I am not having one until we go out into the reserves again. It will help to keep me warm. What do you say Love? I wish you could see me now. I have nearly grown a beard but that would not matter would it Darling Love. We are not getting very good food this time. We cannot drink our tea as it is rain water and not only that, the water from the urinals drain into the same water and it makes us sick every time we have any. It is a wonder that some of us has not had fever before now. I think if I ever live to get through this lot I shall be able to live on anything. It is no use turning your nose up at anything out here.
Well Darling we have had an awful time of it once more. We have been under heavy artillery fire now for twelve days and nights and it has made me nervous as a kitten. I could run into a mousehole when they start shelling. The only thing we can do is to lay full length on the floor in the fire bays and trust to God. I can tell you Dear it makes you think about many a hundred things while the shells are falling all around you. We are to have another dose this afternoon, from our own artillery. They are sending 650 shells over in an hour and then the Germans will let us have it. It is just like Hell with the lid opened. It seems a marvellous thing the regiment we relieved did not have one shell over all the time they were in but we have had it every day alike.
Our General came through our trenches on Thursday and he said ‘Well lads, you are having it very thick again’ but he said ‘you are about the best lot of lads in our Division and you will be the first lot to get your Divisional rest’. We are having a month’s rest and by gum we can do with it.
We are over knee deep in water where we have to sleep. We have no dugouts to sleep in so we have to sleep on the fire step. There are three of us in our bay and I can tell you we do not half cuddle up close together, as tight as we used to do when were courting. So you know how much that is. But I expect you will have forgotten by now. I hope it will be just like courting again when we get together again. I wish it was going to be this Christmas. We would not half enjoy ourselves. I had a parcel from Grace Thursday night. It had a cake, plum pudding, some mince pies and chocolates. I had the pudding for dinner today. Three of my pals had some as well; it was grand. We had to have it cold, but we knocked it down us.
In subsequent letters to his wife Pte. Knox would also refer to an engagement with the Germans prior to the relief, although this is not mentioned in the official War Diary, “We were to be relieved on Saturday night but the Germans started sending some aerial torpedoes over so we could not get out but the regiment who should have relieved us had to stand to as the Boshes made a surprise attack. But we seen them coming so we went to meet them and we mowed them down just like skittles. It is an awful sight to see them fall in a heap, dead. I was just in my glory. They will not stand and fight against us at all. You should have heard them scream and shout mercy. But by God we gave them mercy. We gave them Hell and after we had driven them back our artillery opened fire on them and blew their trenches to blazes”. In a later, uncensored, letter, he would give even more detail, “I will tell you now about a little battle on the 18th (Sunday). It had been expected that they would make an attack at Ypres, which they did do. And they knew about it for our lot cut them up altogether. I think it was the Northumberland Fusiliers that caught them. And when they make an attack at one certain point they mostly make a smaller one just a little way from there as well, just to keep our men from going to the point they are attacking. I was asleep at the time we first discovered them cutting our front line of barbed wire. So they jolly soon had us woke up and ready to go over the parapet. We went with a tremendous lot of bombs and we lay in wait for them. Of course it takes a long time to make a passage through as there as many as twenty to thirty rows of wire between our lines and theirs (commonly called no man’s land). So when they got within twenty yards of us when we let go with our bombs and you should have seen them poor devils. They showed a little bit of fight for about ten minutes but of course they could not get near us for our bombs. And when they tried to get back they found out that they were surrounded and they started yelling “Hoch, hoch”, but we gave them plenty of bayonet. My bayonet was all covered with blood and my clothes were just about the same. There was only half our Company went out to meet them, about 120 altogether. We did not wait for our officer to give us the order to go over to meet them, we were at grips when he came. And our Colonel came out to meet us about an hour later and complemented us on our good work. No doubt you will have seen it in the papers. It would be an attack on the Bois Grenier line.”
Prior to the relief Pte. William Knox (see 14th December) again wrote to his wife, Ethel (I am most grateful to Rachael Broadhead and family for allowing me access to William’s letters).
“I now sit down and write you a few lines to let you know that I am keeping quite well. Hope you are the same. I received your parcel dated 8.12.1915. Also your letter dated 10.12.1915. Was so very pleased to receive the parcel. It came in just right as we came into the firing line next day.
Well Dear we are having an awful do again this time. We came into the firing line for the second time in a week. We do four days in the firing line, then four days in the reserves. We have another twelve days to do yet before we go back for a rest. So you may guess what we shall look like when we have done our turn. I have not had a wash for three days now and I am not having one until we go out into the reserves again. It will help to keep me warm. What do you say Love? I wish you could see me now. I have nearly grown a beard but that would not matter would it Darling Love. We are not getting very good food this time. We cannot drink our tea as it is rain water and not only that, the water from the urinals drain into the same water and it makes us sick every time we have any. It is a wonder that some of us has not had fever before now. I think if I ever live to get through this lot I shall be able to live on anything. It is no use turning your nose up at anything out here.
Well Darling we have had an awful time of it once more. We have been under heavy artillery fire now for twelve days and nights and it has made me nervous as a kitten. I could run into a mousehole when they start shelling. The only thing we can do is to lay full length on the floor in the fire bays and trust to God. I can tell you Dear it makes you think about many a hundred things while the shells are falling all around you. We are to have another dose this afternoon, from our own artillery. They are sending 650 shells over in an hour and then the Germans will let us have it. It is just like Hell with the lid opened. It seems a marvellous thing the regiment we relieved did not have one shell over all the time they were in but we have had it every day alike.
Our General came through our trenches on Thursday and he said ‘Well lads, you are having it very thick again’ but he said ‘you are about the best lot of lads in our Division and you will be the first lot to get your Divisional rest’. We are having a month’s rest and by gum we can do with it.
We are over knee deep in water where we have to sleep. We have no dugouts to sleep in so we have to sleep on the fire step. There are three of us in our bay and I can tell you we do not half cuddle up close together, as tight as we used to do when were courting. So you know how much that is. But I expect you will have forgotten by now. I hope it will be just like courting again when we get together again. I wish it was going to be this Christmas. We would not half enjoy ourselves. I had a parcel from Grace Thursday night. It had a cake, plum pudding, some mince pies and chocolates. I had the pudding for dinner today. Three of my pals had some as well; it was grand. We had to have it cold, but we knocked it down us.
I had a letter from home one day this week and they are all
quite well. Also Gran; she was ever so pleased with her postcard. I sent her
one and Mother and Dolly one each. They are sending me a parcel for my
birthday. We shall be out of the trenches for that. Remember me to Lizzie and
Little Lizzie. Hope they are both quite well. Now Dear I am going to ask you to
send me one of those illuminated wrist watches. They cost from 12/6 to 15/-. Of
course you buy it out of that money you got from the Stores. The reason I want
one is I often get the job of relieving the sentries and it is awkward not
having a watch to go by. They are similar to a ladies watch. Of course if you
cannot afford to send one by all means don’t."
In subsequent letters to his wife Pte. Knox would also refer to an engagement with the Germans prior to the relief, although this is not mentioned in the official War Diary, “We were to be relieved on Saturday night but the Germans started sending some aerial torpedoes over so we could not get out but the regiment who should have relieved us had to stand to as the Boshes made a surprise attack. But we seen them coming so we went to meet them and we mowed them down just like skittles. It is an awful sight to see them fall in a heap, dead. I was just in my glory. They will not stand and fight against us at all. You should have heard them scream and shout mercy. But by God we gave them mercy. We gave them Hell and after we had driven them back our artillery opened fire on them and blew their trenches to blazes”. In a later, uncensored, letter, he would give even more detail, “I will tell you now about a little battle on the 18th (Sunday). It had been expected that they would make an attack at Ypres, which they did do. And they knew about it for our lot cut them up altogether. I think it was the Northumberland Fusiliers that caught them. And when they make an attack at one certain point they mostly make a smaller one just a little way from there as well, just to keep our men from going to the point they are attacking. I was asleep at the time we first discovered them cutting our front line of barbed wire. So they jolly soon had us woke up and ready to go over the parapet. We went with a tremendous lot of bombs and we lay in wait for them. Of course it takes a long time to make a passage through as there as many as twenty to thirty rows of wire between our lines and theirs (commonly called no man’s land). So when they got within twenty yards of us when we let go with our bombs and you should have seen them poor devils. They showed a little bit of fight for about ten minutes but of course they could not get near us for our bombs. And when they tried to get back they found out that they were surrounded and they started yelling “Hoch, hoch”, but we gave them plenty of bayonet. My bayonet was all covered with blood and my clothes were just about the same. There was only half our Company went out to meet them, about 120 altogether. We did not wait for our officer to give us the order to go over to meet them, we were at grips when he came. And our Colonel came out to meet us about an hour later and complemented us on our good work. No doubt you will have seen it in the papers. It would be an attack on the Bois Grenier line.”
Ptes. Stanley Bostock, Arnold Freeman, Andrew Green, Martin Haran, Thomas Hockey, John McGlynn, Cecil Stanley Pitblado and Eli Taylor were posted to France and would join 10DWR. Stanley Bostock was 20 years old and from Huddersfield and had been a pre-war regular soldier (enlisting aged 17 in 1913) and had been posted to France with 2DWR in September 1914. He had been evacuated to England in November 1914 having been shot through the leg. He had re-joined 2DWR in April 1915 and had been gassed in May but had remained with his Battalion. He had then been wounded in the right arm in September 1915 and had again been posted back to England. Arnold Freeman was 32 years old and from Oldham. Martin Haran was an 18 year-old spinner from Keighley; he had enlisted, under age, in September 1914 and had served with 2DWR in France from April 1915 until having been wounded (resulting in the amputation of a finger) in August 1915, since when he had been in England. Thomas Hockey was a 24 year-old canal boatman from Keighley. John McGlynn was a 34 year-old labourer from Leeds. Cecil Stanley Pitblado was a 33 year-old furnace man from Slaithwaite, near Huddersfield; he was married, with six children. Eli Taylor was a 33 year-old dyer’s labourer from Halifax and was married, with two children. I am currently unable to make a positive identification of Andrew Green.
Pte. Harry Hinchliffe was transferred to 10DWR from
2DWR. He was a 31 year-old labourer from Huddersfield and had enlisted in
August 1914. He had been posted to France in April and had joined 2DWR. He had only
served briefly with the Battalion before suffering from gas poisoning in early
May and had spent some time (details unknown) at 12th General
Hospital in Rouen. He had remained in France prior to his transfer to 10DWR.
Sgt. Arthur Manks (see 27th November) was discharged
from the convalescent hospital at Woodcote Park, Epsom; he would have two week’s
leave before reporting to 11DWR at Brocton Camp, Staffordshire.
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