Thursday 3rd August 1916

Billets in Albert

There was further artillery activity. There was a church service in the morning before, at 1pm, an advance party of 24 men, made up from all four Companies, led by Lt. Dick Bolton (see 7^th July), moved off, via Becourt Wood and Sausage Valley, to take over their previous bivouacs in the area of Scots Redoubt. The remainder of the Battalion, headed by Tunstill’s Company, followed an hour later. They started out from the junction of Rue Bapaume and Rue Daussy, and marched by platoons, with 200 yards between, and by 5pm the move was complete. Through the evening men from Tunstill’s Company and from ‘B’ Company were employed as working and carrying parties for the front line. One man was killed, two others were reported missing (and subsequently presumed killed) during these operations and a further four men wounded, though Tunstill’s Men were unscathed. The men killed were Ptes. John William Green; William Henry Smith and Alfred Stitson; all three have no known grave and are commemorated on the Thiepval Memorial. Among those wounded was L.Cpl. William Hutchinson (see 25^th July) who suffered shrapnel wounds to his scalp; he was treated locally in the first instance and would be transferred, on 7^th August, to 2^nd Convalescent Depot at Rouen.

Lt. Dick Bolton

Image by kind permission of Henry Bolton

Prior to the move back to Scots Redoubt, Acting Sgt. Albert Herd (see 30^th July) sat down to write to the vicar of St Helen’s Church in his home village of Waddington, who also happened to be the uncle of Geraldine Tunstill. The calmness and poise of Herd’s letter rather bely the fierce fighting in which the Battalion had so recently been engaged,

“I am just writing a few lines in answer to your most welcome letter which I received yesterday. I must say what a strange thing it was I was just thinking of writing a letter to you when yours came. I suppose by now you will have heard that Sergeant Smith (Acting Sgt. Harry Smith (13781), see 29^th July) has been wounded in the face and I hope and trust that he will not be long before he is better and coming to see you all at Waddington. It happened in a bit of a bombing raid we made and we had two sergeants out of my platoon wounded so I am now made platoon sergeant and I am in charge of thirty-four men, including one lance-sergeant, two corporals and four lance-corporals. So you see I have a great lot of responsibility, so I must try and do my best; that is all one can do. I have a very nice platoon officer (Lt. Dick Bolton, see above) and Captain Tunstill is still with us and he has always done well for me and he is in the best of health. We are having some lovely weather out here at present and I hope you are having the same. I suppose people will be very busy in their hay now and I trust they are having the same weather as us and they will not be long in it. We are having a celebration of Holy Communion at eleven o’clock this morning and I am just going. It is now ten minutes to eleven, so I must close, hoping you and Mrs. Parker are in the best of health. Please remember me to all who may enquire about me.”

Sgt. Albert Herd

It may have been around this time, though the precise date has not been established, that Capt. Tunstill wrote to the family of Pte. Thomas Rigby (see 28^th July), an extract from the letter was subsequently published in the Craven Herald, “I have only just heard the sad news that your son, who was the best stretcher bearer that anyone could ever wish to have, died in hospital at Frensham. Please accept my deepest sympathy. Rigby was one of those who had been in my company since it was formed. He was a bandsman until we came out a year ago and has been a stretcher bearer ever since. I was hoping he had got a slight wound and would have got home and better, and not had to come out again. We have been fighting more or less continuously since your son was wounded and our losses are naturally heavy. It may be some consolation to you to know that I recommended your son to the Commission Office, the day he was hit, for very brave and gallant conduct in bringing in wounded across the open under very heavy fire”.

Capt. Harry Gilbert Tunstill

Image by kind permission of Henry Bolton

Pte. Thomas Rigby

RSM John William Headings (see 6th July) was admitted firstly to 70^th Field Ambulance, and from there transferred to 23^rd Divisional Rest Station, suffering from sciatica.

RSM John William Headings (standing) , pictured with his brothers, James Lawrence and Henry George.
(Image by kind permission of Jill Monk)

Pte. Mark Whitelock of 10DWR, though not Tunstill’s Company, died of wounds suffered in the recent actions; he was buried at Warloy-Baillon Communal Cemetery Extension, north-east of Amiens.

Sgt. George Clifford Sugden (see 4^th June), who had been wounded two months’ previously while  serving with 10^th East Yorkshires, was discharged from 10^th General Hospital at Rouen and posted to 37^th Infantry Base Depot at Etaples, en route to returning to active service. He would later be commissioned and serve with 10DWR.

L.Cpl. William George Wade (see 10^th March), who had serving with the Army Cyclist Corps, joined no.3 Officer Cadet Battalion at Bristol to begin his officer training; once commissioned he would join 10DWR.

L.Cpl William George Wade, pictured after having been commissioned

Image by kind permission of Henry Bolton

Lt. Paul James Sainsbury, (see 17^th July) who would later serve with 10DWR, and had been wounded on 1^st July underwent an operation on his “right maxillary antrum” (sinus).

Lt. Paul James Sainsbury

Lt. Thomas Beattie, serving with 9DWR, was wounded in the fighting in Delville Wood; he would later serve with 10DWR.

Thomas Beattie was 21 years old (born 26^th March 1895); he had been studying at the Univeristy of Durham when war broke out and had been a member of the University OTC. He was the eldest son, and one of six children of Richard and Elizabeth Beattie; his father was an engine fitter and the family lived in Hampstead Road, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He had been commissioned in August 1915 and had joined 9DWR. Beattie later recounted how he had been wounded, “The Battalion was holding Delville Wood, making preparations to attack the German trenches, in order to straighten the line. During the night of 2^nd/3^rd August 1916 we were subjected to a very heavy bombardment by the enemy’s artillery, and early in the morning of 3^rd August I was wounded, by the shrapnel from a shell which burst above my trench, in the left shoulder. I was brought down to the Field Dressing Station and thence to a Field Ambulance after my wound had been dressed. In the afternoon of 3^rd August I was operated upon, under anaesthetic, but the 0peration was unsuccessful, as the shrapnel had penetrated too far into my shoulder. I was sent down to the no.2 Red Cross Hospital in Rouen.”