Wednesday 8th March 1916

Reserve positions near Souchez

There was considerable bombardment of the fire trenches and also of the reserve positions throughout the day. 10DWR were moved further north passing by the village of Ablain St Nazaire, which was described as, a very sad sight, being absolutely in ruins”.  

They were en route to the front line, relieving 9th Yorkshires in the northern sector. The difficulties of even entering the trenches were made clear in Brigade orders: “The OC 10^th West Riding Regiment will visit the HQ of 9^th Yorkshires as soon as possible to arrange details. Suggested route for CO by daylight, Boyau de la 130, the entrance to which is on the Carency – Souchez road. The entrance must be carefully looked for. The Boyau de Cabaret Rouge should be avoided. A map with pencil mark showing what is believed to be the best route is attached for OC 10^th West Ridings”.

This area had been the scene of continued heavy fighting between the French and Germans over many months and the land had been devastated; in places the front line ‘trenches’ were no more than twenty yards apart. Indeed in most places they could hardly be called trenches at all “since they consist of shell craters joined by shallow ditches”; the Brigade War Diary reported that the defences in this sector were, “inaccessible by day and consist of short lengths of shallow trenches”.  Lt. Dick Bolton (see 6^th  March) remembered that,

“The Battalion took over the front line from a French unit on the Vimy Ridge above Souchez; it was a perfect quagmire. After leaving the quarry, in the tunnels of which the Battalion Headquarters was situated, the hillside was just an area of shell holes filled with mud. Quite a number of men sank in them to the waist and even to their armpits and had to dragged out. The line itself on the ridge was for the most part made by joining shell holes together and digging ditches to drain them. What with the mud, the cold and the sleet, nature itself was a worse enemy than the Germans.”

The men of 69th Machine Gun Company had been amongst the first to enter the lines and they had found themselves, “in communication trenches four or five kilometres long in a heavy snowstorm; trenches waterlogged and had mud several feet deep in most places. The French troops have left these trenches in a filthy condition”.  Tunstill’s Man, Pte. Irvine Clark (see 14^th September 1914) was soon to experience something similar when he and the rest of ‘A’ Company moved into the line, “We have been having a pretty rough time just lately; we are on a different part of the line and hardly any British Tommies have been here before. While we were going in, we had to cross over about 250 yards of open ground covered with shell holes; not one yard had been missed by the shells. Talk about mud! Well, a lot of the lads got stuck and had to leave their jack boots behind them and walk in stocking feet; some lost their rifles and equipment, and it was a proper mix-up; they were crawling into the trenches at all times of night”.

Once established in the front line, conditions were no easier as Pte. Clark reported,

“We have just had two days in the trenches – one in reserve and the other in the firing line. Twenty four hours is quite long enough in the front line at once, here. In the day time we dare not stir nor show the least sign of ourselves, or the Germans would shell us out of it. It is shelling all day long. The trenches are only thirty yards apart; although I am calling them trenches they are only shell holes and ditches. There were six of us in one shell hole during the night time; we dug holes to get into in the day time and some of the chaps had to sit on a dead German all day, and to make matters worse for us it started snowing early in the night”.

Just two days after joining the Battalion, Pte. Michael Bowen (see 6^th March) was awarded 14 days’ Field Punishment no.2; the nature of his offence is unknown.

Pte. George William Fletcher was admitted to 4^th Stationery Hospital at Arques, suffering from influenza; he was an original member of the Battalion, 21 years old and from Keighley, where he had worked in the local textile mills.

Brigadier General T.S. Lambert took over command of 69^th Brigade from Brigadier General Frank Seymour Derham, who had been brought out of retirement in 1914, aged 56, to command the Brigade. Thomas Stanton Lambert, born 1871, was the son of the Rev. R.U. Lambert, Vicar of Christ Church, Bradford-on-Avon. He was commissioned in the East Lancashire Regiment in 1891 and served in India. When the war broke out he was DAAG at the War Office with the rank of major. He assumed command of the 1st Battalion East Lancashire Regiment in September 1914 after its CO had been killed on the Aisne. Lambert was himself wounded a fortnight later. The wound was severe, causing him to lose the use of his right lung. Following his recovery, in March 1915, he was successively DAAG 37th Division, CO 2nd Battalion East Lancashire Regiment, and acting AAG at GHQ.

Brigadier General T.S. Lambert
Image by kind permission of Robin Staveley

Pte. Frank Hargrave (see 3^rd March), who had left 10DWR in September 1915, reported for duty with  9^th Battalion West Ridings, who were then in camp near Outtersteene.