Saturday 28th July 1917

Billets between Zudausques and Boisdinghem.

Another very hot day.

L.Cpl. John Jackson (19555) (see 14^th May) began to be paid according to his rank, having previously held the post unpaid.

Ptes. Arthur Dyson (see 19^th December 1916), George William Foster (see 15^th February), Thomas Ward (see 28^th June) and Frank Wood (see 20^th May) were all promoted (unpaid) Lance Corporal.

Cpl. Harold Best (see 21^st May), and Ptes. Thomas Butler (see 23^rd June 1916), Fred Riddiough (see 12^th May) and Isaac Robinson (see 7^th March) departed for England on ten days’ leave. L.Cpl. Alfred Taylor (see 25^th July), serving with 69^th Brigade Trench Mortar Battery, also went on ten days’ leave.

Following three weeks treatment on a carbuncle on his neck, Pte. John Edward Atkinson (see 5^th July) was discharged from hospital and posted to 34^th Infantry Base Depot at Etaples.

Pte. William Frederick Ackrill (see 5^th July), serving in France with 2DWR, was reported as ‘deficient of iron rations; value1s. 10 ½d.’; he was to pay for the deficiency.

Pte. Herbert Burgess (see 15^th July) was transferred from 3DWR at North Shields to 83^rd Training Reserve Battalion at Gateshead.

Pte. George Barber (see 3rd May), who had been serving with 26^th Durham Light Infantry, was transferred to the Royal Defence Corps. 

Pte. Edgar Johnson (see 23^rd October 1916), who had had his left leg amputated below the knee having been wounded in the actions at Le Sars in October 1916, was discharged from the Lord Derby Hospital in Warrington where he had spent the previous nine months.

Pte. James Wilson (see 16^th May), who had been transferred to the ASC as a lorry driver with the Motor Transport Section in October 1915, was discharged from D Division dysentery convalescent hospital, Barton, New Milton, Hants. He had spent three months in England being treated for the disease.

In Skipton a ceremony was held for the presentation of Military Medals to two local men, Sgt. J. Webster, formerly of 6DWR, and Pte. John William Atkinson MM (see 27^th July), currently home on leave from 10DWR. The events and speeches would be extensively reported in a subsequent edition of the Craven Herald.

FOR BRAVERY - MILITARY MEDALS PUBLICLY PRESENTED AT SKIPTON

Nearly all Skipton turned out on Saturday afternoon to witness the public presentation to Private J.W. Atkinson, of the 10^th Duke of Wellington’s West Riding Regiment and Sergt. J. Webster, late of the 6^th Duke of Wellington’s West Riding Regiment, of the Military Medals awarded them some time ago by the King for gallant conduct in action in France. The circumstances under which the medals were gained are well known locally, but for the benefit of readers further afield we may recall them. In the case of Private Atkinson the award was made “for good work in attending to the wounded”, while Sergt. Webster earned the distinction for “continued bravery near Ypres between September and December 1915”. The latter, who is a married man with two children, and lives at 29 Hallam’s Yard, Sheep Street, is now back again in civil life, working for Mr. A.J. Shorter, coal merchant, Skipton. His record of service with the local territorials covers fifteen years, and he returned from the front in April 1916, as a time-expired man. Pte. Atkinson, who is still serving, was home from the Front last week on the usual ten days’ leave. He is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Jos. Atkinson, 8 Nelson Street, Skipton, and was, we believe, the second Skipton soldier to be awarded the medal. Before enlisting he was employed at the Skipton Gasworks, and was a member of the local Fire Brigade, and was also associated with the Otley Street Baptist Church. His wife and daughter live in Devonshire Street.

We are not aware of the origin of the idea that the presentation of the Medals should be made a public function, but we understand that Mrs. Atkinson was asked to see the Officer in command of the Skipton Drill Hall, and that Lieut. Walton, the commanding officer of the Skipton Volunteers, kindly offered to assist her and agreed to write to the West Riding Territorial Association to obtain the medal. In reply to his letter the medal was sent to him and in conjunction with his N.C.O.’s Lieut Walton arranged for Mr. Walter Morrison (see 7^th October 1916), who is an honorary colonel in the volunteers, to make the presentation on a Sunday afternnon, and invited members of the local authority and other public organisations to be present. Subsequently, in deference to the expressed wish of the Skipton Urban Council and the public generally, it was arranged for Mr. Morrison to make a joint presentation to Pte. Atkinson and Sergeant Webster on Saturday last, the arrangements to be in the hands of the Urban Council and the Volunteers, the latter to carry out the military part.

The popularity of the function was attested by the magnitude of the assembly in front of the Town Hall to witness the ceremonial, the ample space in High Street, in the vicinity of the Hall, being almost filled. For the presentation, a temporary platform, decorated with flags of the allies, had been erected in front of the main entrance to the Hall.

Captain Charlesworth, chairman of the Skipton Urban Council, presided, and with him on the platform were Mr. Morrsion, the Venerable Archdeacon Cook, Mr. J. A. Slingsby, the Rev. F.G. Forder, Captain W.B. Carson, Captain J.D. Horsfall and Lieut. S.H. Walton of the 6^th West Riding Volunteer Corps, and the wives and relatives of the two recipients. Several seats in front of the platform were provided for wounded soldiers from the two Skipton Military Hospitals, and there were also present a number of discharged soldiers, principally from the Duke of Wellington’s West Riding Regiment, who have fought in the present war, the local special constable force, a number of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, and members of the Skipton Fire Brigade. An interested spectator was ex-Colour Sergeant T. Rodgers (ex-policeman at Skipton Railway Station), formerly of the 69^th South Lincolnshire Regiment, wearing his medal awarded for service in the Red River Expedition (Fenian Raid) in Canada in 1870. Sergeant Webster and Pte. Atkinson were escorted from their respective homes to the Town Hall by a guard of honour provided by the officers and men of the local Volunteers, with the Band, the route taken being along Cowper Street, Sackville Street, Keighley Road and High Street. On arrival they were accorded an enthusiastic reception.

THE CHAIRMAN

The Chairman said he desired,as chairman of the Skipton Urban Council, to express in the name of the town, the great pride which they all, as citizens, felt in the two brave men who were stood before them, and in their achievements in the field. “We are glad”, he continued, “of this opportunity of showing honour publicly, not only to them, but to all those other men who are now fighting for us in this great war, and also to the memories of those brave men who have passed over in this conflict”. He did not consider his duties included the introduction to the audience of Mr. Walter Morrison, because Mr. Morrison needed no introduction to any Craven audience, but he would like to be allowed to say that there was no-one upon whom they would more gladly bestow the honour of conferring those medals that afternoon than Mr. Morrison. As to the order of the proceedings Mr. Charlesworth said they would be more or less under military government, and asked that there should be no cheering until the word for it was given. He was going to ask Mr. Morrison to address them and to present the medals, and afterwards the gathering would have the opportunity of cheering the recipients, which he hoped they would take advantage of to the full (applause).

THE PRESENTATION ADDRESS

Mr. Morrison saide he felt it a great honour to be invited to take part in that ceremony. There was some appropriateness in it because Craven men had always shown themselves ready to do their bit in the way of defending their country. Some of them might have heard of the old Craven Legion. When Napoleon Bonaparte – an abler man than the Kaiser and a man who fought clean, as did his his soldiers, but as the Bosches did not – nearly succeeded in his dream of founding a great European Empire, and England prevented him, and beat him at the last, his predecessor at Malham Tarn, Lord Ribblesdale, was the leader of this Legion of 1,200 men, 200 of whom were cavalry men. Then, when another Napoleon came to the front afterwards and was begged to invade England, this country was just as unprepared in regard to the Army and Navy as it was in 1914, and the Volunteers came forward gladly and formed what in time would have been a formidable body. Neither of these bodies went under fire; they were not called up to do so. Now again the men of Craven who had joined the 33^rd Regiment, the Duke of Wellington’s, had carried on the old traditions, and had carried them a great deal further than their predecessors, because they had most distinctly been under fire.

Our Wonderful Army

“Now”,continued Mr. Morrison, “we are proud of our Army (hear, hear). It has been a surprise to us all, and still more so to the Bosches and the Kaiser, that we were able to raise one million men in the first six months of the war, and it was due to two facts. First of all, we had Lord Kitchener, an old friend of mine (hear, hear) available, and his name was worth hundreds of thousands of men to our Empire. Then there were the atrocities which the Boches committed to Belgium, and the tearing up of the solemn treaty signed to protect the territory of Belgium, the Germans calling it “a scrap of paper”. With regard to the German atrocities in Belgium, we had not heard the worst. The newspapers had not told us all, but there was one certain fact which showed that the Germans were lower than any race of savages that he had ever heard of, and this was the fact that they had roped women and children together and driven them in front of the charging columns. No race of savages would have done that. They would have had too much pride and too much self-respect.

Two Brave Skiptonians

“Now you Skipton men”, proceeded Mr. Morrison, “are especially proud of your two comrades here today. They have done and shown what English soldiers can do. First of all there is Pte. J.W. Atkinson. I am told that he has been awarded this medal on account of singular audacity, singular courage and ability. The first time his Regiment went over the top he was recommended for this decoration. Five days after he was again recommended, having been two days and two nights without sleep or food, attending to the wounded. This was on 10^th July 1916. He has been in the army since 18^th September 1914, and went to France on August 26^th 1915. He got a leave six months later and has not had another leave for eighteen months. He was, as you will see, one of those who joined the Army at the commencement of the war, in the Autumn of 1914, before there was any talk or thought of compulsion – all those men were volunteers”. His neighbours would be especially proud of Pte. Atkinson, because he was told that amongst them at the first there was a general opinion that he was likely to distinguish himself. “Recollect”, said Mr. Morrison, “what it means being first over the trenches. How he has managed to come off without a wound is, of course, one of the mysteries of the war. Then there is Sergeant Webster, who was decorated for continual bravery near Ypres between September and Christmas 1915”.

England’s Reawakening

He supposed that they had all been astonished at the good show which England had made in this war. He had to confess that before the war he was rather afraid that we were a failing race – that we were given up too much to the worship of money-making, and to our games, to the exclusion of higher things. But the war called into action all the best that was in the nation, and the belief in Lord Kitchener as a man in whom we could trust had the most marvellous results in the raising of our Army. One million men joined the colours and men had been crowding in ever since, so that at the present time we had something like four millions of men under arms.

The German’s Black Record

Our quarrel was not only with the Kaiser and the military caste in Germany, but also with the German nation, and with the women as well as the men. The whole German people utterly hated us. We must recollect how the women of Germany, after the sinking of the Lusitania, crowded out into the streets, cheering and dancing and singing patriotic songs. We might be sure that if the Germans had succeeded in their plan of crossing, first France and then Russia, and then, by getting together a bigger fleet than ours, invading this country, the outrages which they would have committed here amongst our women and children would have been equally as great as those they had committed in Belgium. Nay, they would have been greater. The Kaiser himself said, in the first year of the war, that he intended levying eight thousand million sterling on England and France. “Whenever I see a man in khaki”, said Mr. Morrison, “and we see them about all over this fortunate island, I always feel I owe a debt of personal gratitude to him. He is there to protect me and all that is dear to me and to you from the outrages which the Germans have shown can be committed in wartime. Nothing of this sort has happened in war for over two centuries. For over two centuries the fighting between men has been comparatively honourable”.

The Old Volunteers

He was invited to that ceremony because it so happened that he was one of the early Volunteers when the movement was started, and he rose to the command of the Skipton Administrative Battalion (hear hear). He had every reason to be proud of such a splendid body of men (hear hear). Of course, they did not go under fire, they were not required to do so. As regards himself he was far past the age when he could do his bit in a physical way. He was eighty-one years of age, and if he were to join the army he would not be much use to go to the Front; he would be sent to the hospital the moment he got there.

A Craven War Record

It might be that some of those present knew that there was a scheme for the collection of the names of all the men that the District had given to the 33^rd Regiment, and it was proposed, after the war, to issue a book which, to begin with would contain the names of the officers and men who had given their lives for their country, and then the names of all those who joined the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment in the first year of the war. This book would, he had no doubt, continue to be an heirloom in Craven families, and generations would hence point to the names of their ancestors and express their pride that they had done their duty when called up.

What the War has Revealed

This war had revealed to us first of all that we were a brave race. He did not think we needed to be told that; we all knew that before, and also that the English had always been a fighting race. Without desiring war, when we found ourselves with backs to the wall, we showed ourselves worthy of the name of John Bull. The war had also revealed to us, certainly to his astonishment, our singular powers of organisation, and of producing not only capable fighters, but also capable officers. Just before the Battle of Waterloo Napoleon said he reckoned one English soldier or one French soldier was equivalent to two Prussians. Our Army in the retreat from Mons accomplished one of the most splendid military exploits that the history of war had ever shown. We believed that in that retreat the Germans were four or five to one, and yet we fought our way through and helped our gallant French allies to win the Battle of the Marne. We had certainly not deteriorated in our soldierly qualities, and besides that, our men had developed an extraordinary gift of doggedness, perseverance and cheerfulness amongst the horrible miseries that we had read of in the newspapers about the long winter campaigns in the trenches. He had, therefore, very great pleasure in taking the leading part in that ceremony, and he had also very great pleasure in calling upon “our two neighbours” to come forward to receive the decorations which they had so well deserved (applause). Amid cheering Mr. Morrison then pinned the medals on the recipients’ breasts and at the call of Captain Horsfall and Lieut. Walton three hearty good cheers were given first for Sergt. Webster, then for Pte. Atkinson and lastly for Mr. Morrison; and the proceedings, which had occupied half an hour exactly, closed with the National Anthem. Sergt. Webster and Pte. Atkinson were afterwards escorted back to the Drill Hall by the Volunteers and the Band, by way of Newmarket Street and Bunker’s Hill.