Tuesday 7th March 1916

Bois de Bouvigny

23^rd Division had been moved south to this sector to take over its defence from the French 17^th Division and 69^th Brigade had been allocated a 2,000 yard stretch of front line which extended in the north as far as the point where the Souchez River crossed the front line, below the ridge of Notre Dame de Lorette, to near Cabaret Rouge in the south. 

At 3pm the Battalion left their billets and marched two miles south to Villers au Bois. Overnight on 7^th/8^th March, 9^th Yorkshires were to take over the northern sector of the front line with 8^th Yorkshires in the centre and 11^th West Yorkshires taking over the southern sector. 10DWR meanwhile were to be deployed in support; ‘C’ and ‘D’ Companies were to remain at Villers au Bois, four miles behind the line; ‘B’ Company was positioned at Carency, two miles closer; and ‘A’ Company rendezvoused with 11^th West Yorkshires at 5pm at Grand Servins before advancing to take up a position in immediate support to that Battalion near Cabaret Rouge. The positions at Cabaret Rouge were in need of immediate improvement and the order was given that Tunstill’s Company should, “take entrenching tools and commence making dug outs as soon as possible”.

The detailed orders issued for this move made clear that it was expected to be an exacting tour of duty. Each man was to draw 220 rounds of ammunition and all were to carry their own rations for 7th and 8th March. In addition, Tunstill’s Men were to collect 1,000 detonated grenades as they passed through Carency to be taken up to Cabaret Rouge; considerable further supplies of small arms ammunition would also be deposited there. Conditions were made even more trying by heavy snow and a bitterly cold wind. The 11^th West Yorkshires noted that their move to the front line was a “very slow relief owing to very long communications trenches, heavy loads and very bad weather”. The Battalion’s move to the support positions was duly carried out and J.B. Priestley, with ‘B’ Company at Carency, found that conditions in the established French reserve lines, which they had occupied since the Spring of 1915, where very different to those to which he had become accustomed:

“When finally we reached the French lines we made some discoveries that heightened our prejudice against the British high command. The poilu, a bloke supposedly so low in morale that he was near mutiny, enjoyed substantial and tasty hot meals where we would have been opening another tin of bully. Unshaven, untidy and at ease, he sat in deep dugouts passing the wine and talking about women when we would have been – and shortly would be – shoved into forward fire trenches”.

However, he was to discover that, in contrast, conditions in the front line were even more appalling than anything the Battalion had experienced so far.

Pte. James Barker (12288) (see 7^th February), who had been wounded a month previously, was evacuated to England from 20^th General Hospital at Camiers; on arrival in England he would be admitted to 3^rd Northern General Hospital in Sheffield.

At home, in Heckmondwike, Susannah Dobson, wife of Pte. William Henry Dobson (see 19^th October 1915), gave birth to the couple’s third child; the baby girl would be named Evelyn Phyllis.

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