Thursday 6th April 1916

Billets at Sains-en-Gohelle (Coron Fosse 10)

What the War Diary described as “a desultory kind of shelling” continued for much of the day, with a few, small calibre, German shells directed against the pithead. Otherwise the day remained quiet.

A number of men from the Battalion were attached for duty with 176^th Tunnelling Company, Royal Engineers. Some of these men have been identified: they were Ptes. Alfred John Davis (see 5^th September 1915), Frank William Rabjohn (see 23^rd December 1915), Harold Rushworth (see below) and Thomas Smith (see below). Pte. Harry Shaw (12316) (see 17^th October 1915), who had been at 23^rd Infantry Base Depot at Le Havre since October 1915, was also posted to the Tunnelling Company.

Harold Rushworth was from Shipley and had been one of the men who had enlisted in Ilkley who had been added to Tunstill’s original recruits in September 1914. He was 34 years old and unmarried when he enlisted and had been working as a house painter. In the absence of a surviving service record I am currently unable to make a positive identification of Pte. Thomas Smith.

Pte. Albert John Start was admitted via 70^th Field Ambulance and 18^th Casualty Clearing Station to 2^nd General Hospital at Le Havre suffering from influenza. He was an original member of the Battalion, having enlisted in Skipton on 7^th September 1914; he had claimd to have been 34 years old when enlisting, but was actually 37. He was originally from Tavistock, Cornwall, but his family had moved to Burnley soon after he was born.

Pte. Charles Harwood (see 21^st September 1914) was discharged from 4^th Stationery Hospital at Arques, after treatment for ‘dental caries’, and was posted to one of the Base Depots at Etaples, en route to re-joining 10DWR. In the absence of a surviving service record it has not been possible to establish when he had been admitted or exactly when he would re-join the Battalion.

Major Lewis Ernest Buchanan (see 19^th February) who had been declared unfit for duty while home on leave in England, wrote to the War Office, telling them that, “my health has greatly improved and that I consider myself fit to join my unit in France”.

Trooper Claude Darwin (see 28^th March), who had spent the last month in hospital in Egypt was discharged to return to duty with 5^th Australian Army Service Corps (AASC). He was the brother of Tunstill recruit, Pte. Tom Darwin, who had recently re-joined 10DWR following a period of illness (see 4^th April).

Lt. Charles Frederick Wolfe (see 23^rd March) arrived in France; he would subsequently be posted as Transport Officer to 10DWR.