Sunday 21st January 1917

Front line trenches in Sanctuary Wood (I.24.b.2½.8½ to I.24.b.8½.3½)

The weather was cold and the ground so hard after a period of prolonged frosts, that little work could be done on improving the trenches, so work focussed on putting out extra wire defences.

Conditions were reported as generally quiet, with little shelling, although several men were wounded. Pte. John James Cowling (see 29th December 1916) suffered a severe wound to his left arm; he would be admitted via 70^th Field Ambulance to 3^rd Canadian Casualty Clearing Station. Pte. Willie Holmes (see 11^th January), who had only joined the Battalion ten days previously, suffered wounds to his left thigh; he would be evacuated via 70^th Field Ambulance and 17^th Casualty Clearing Station to 13^th General Hospital at Boulogne. Pte. Harold Wider (see 11^th January), who had joined in the same draft as Pte. Holmes, was wounded in the chest and head; he was treated locally in the first instance. 

Sgt. Thomas Flaxington was admitted to 4^th Stationary Hospital at Arques, suffering from scabies; he would be discharged and re-join the Battalion after four days. He was an original member of the Battalion, having enlisted aged 31; he was a married man and had been working as a dyers’ labourer in Bradford.

Pte. Mark Beaumont (see 5^th January), who had suffered severe shrapnel wounds to his left thigh when the Battalion billets in Ypres were shelled, was evacuated back to England from the General Hospital in Rouen, where he had spent the previous two weeks. On arrival in England he was admitted to the Red Cross Hospital in Gloucester.

2Lt. Charles Archibald Milford (see 13^th January), who had spent just three weeks with the Battalion in October/November 1916, and had been recently released from hospital, was formally recorded as no longer serving with the Battalion.

Pte. Arthur Herbert Procter (see 20^th October 1916), who had been severely wounded at Le Sars, went home for ten days from hospital in Aberdeen to the family home in Eldroth. He was joined at home by his older brother Pte. Edward Alexander Procter who was on sick leave from France where he had been serving with 10^th West Yorks.