Thursday 27th April 1916

Billets at Hersin

The Battalion provided large working parties both morning and evening; over the next eight days 69^th Brigade as a whole would furnish up to 1,200 men per day for working parties. At 7.30pm a warning was issued that the Germans were using gas at Hulloch (five miles to the east) and “the necessary precautions were at once observed”. There was considerable German shelling of the mines in and around Hersin and artillery exchanges were especially heavy between 9pm and midnight. However, overnight, conditions became quieter.

Pte. James Edward Simpson (see 11^th September 1915) was reported as being ‘dirty on Company Officer’s inspection’; on the orders of Capt. James Christopher Bull (see 4^th April), he would be confined to barracks for five days.

Pte. Charles Smith (12380) (see 9^th March) was ordered to undergo ten days’ Field Punishment No.2 on account of ‘misconduct’; the details of his offence are unknown.

Pte. Patrick Conley (see 23^rd March) re-joined the Battalion from 23^rd Infantry Base Depot at Etaples; he had been away since reporting with a case of ‘trench foot’ two months previously.

Pte. Willis Ryal (see 7^th September 1915), who had originally served with Tunstill’s Company before being transferred to 11DWR, was formally reported as being permanently unfit for any further military service. He was reported to be suffering from “V.D.H.” (valvular disease of the heart) and specifically from “aortic regurgitation”; his condition was deemed to have been neither caused, nor aggravated by, his military service and rather that, “He suffered from rheumatic; as a consequence his heart was weakened”.

Little has been established about Willis Ryal’s life after leaving the Army, other than that he married Cecilia Green in Barnsley in the Summer of 1918 and that he died in 1964, aged 73.

2Lt. Harry Thornton Pickles (see 26^th April), who had originally served with Tunstill’s Company before being commissioned, and had, the previous day, been killed in action while serving with 9^th Battalion West Ridings, in front line trenches near Houplines, was buried at Cite Bonjean Military Cemetery, Armentieres.

2Lt. Harry Thornton Pickles

On the day his son was discharged from Queen Alexandra’s Military Hospital, Millbank, London, on three week’s leave to recover from his recent operation, John Hitchin of Long Preston, the father of John Henry Hitchin (see 26^th April) wrote to the War Office to confirm that he had, three days’ earlier, met with his son and had secured an assurance from him that he would give a full account of the events following his going absent without leave on 29^th December 1915.