Monday 3rd December 1917

Support positions between roads 12 and 13 on the Montello.

Fine and sunny; cold at night.

The Battalion was occupied in making dugouts, and a 300 yard rifle range half a mile north-west of Biadene. The range was well camouflaged and never detected or shelled by the enemy and included also a bayonet course.

Pte. William Percy Smith (see 28^th June) was reported by 2Lt. John William Pontefract (see 12^th August) for “leaving the confines of the regimental area and exposing himself within view of the enemy”; he was severely reprimanded by Capt. Henry Kelly VC (see 30^th November).

Pte. Wellington Baldwin (see 27^th November) was reported for being ‘absent off parade’; on the orders of Lt.Col. Francis Washington Lethbridge DSO (see 1^st December) he was awarded seven days’ Field Punishment No.2.

Cpl. John William Pennells (see 29^th October) and Ptes. Walter James Biddle (see 29^th October), Albert Edward Victor Harris (see 29^th October), Joseph Pickles (see 11^th January), Fred Teal (see 2^nd July) and Arthur Wood (29524) (see 13^th June) were reported by 2Lt. Edward Kent Waite MC (see 26^th November) and CSM William James Robinson (see below) for “not complying with Battalion orders; having a light in bivouacs at 7.15pm”; on the orders of Capt. Dick Bolton (see 30^th November) Cpl. Pennells would be severely reprimanded and each of the Privates would be confined to barracks for seven days.

In the absence of a surviving service record I am unable to make a positive identification of CSM William James Robinson beyond the fact that he had previously served with 1^st/6^th DWR; when , and under what circumstances, he had joined 10DWR are unknown.

Pte. Richard Henry Harris (see 7^th November) re-joined the Battalion from his period of leave in England; his return had been delayed by the departure of the Battalion for Italy two days after he had left for England.

2Lt. Bernard Garside left his home in Skipton to travel by train to London on the start of a journey which would see him join 10DWR. He was 19 years old, the son of a policeman, and had been a member of the OTC at Leeds University before being called up for officer training in June 1917. He had been commissioned in September 1917. Garside would, many year later, write an extended account of his service with 10DWR which throws fascinating light the Battalion’s time in Italy. The account was written expressly for his young nephews and nieces and the language and phrasing he uses often reflects his audience. He described his posting to the Regiment and his journey to Italy:

“In October (1917) I was sent to North Shields, near Newcastle, where the Depot of the Duke of Wellington’s was and where they prepared drafts to reinforce the different Battalions of the Regiment abroad. I was only there a short time and the chief thing I remember was going through an underground trench full of deadly poison gas – in our gas masks of course. I was a little scared at first, but we soon learnt to trust our masks and that was why they had us do it.

Some orders came for us to report at Folkestone to go to the French front and I came home for a very short leave. I spent part of it with your (now) Auntie May (May Preston, Garside’s sweetheart and future wife) and part with Grandpa and Grandma, your Mummy and Uncle Stanley (Garside’s parents and siblings). How sad it was, but we all tried our best to be cheerful and we all went on a long, beautiful walk by the Wharfe from Barden to Grassington, one I’m sure your Mummy and Daddy have taken you.

Soon, the time came to go. I caught a train coming from Scotland in the middle of the night – going to London. Grandpa and Grandma came with me and the station was deadly quiet – I don’t think more than one person was on it. We were all brave, especially Grandma, and soon I had left them standing on the cold platform staring into the night as I took my place in a crowded carriage. I only remember getting to London and going to Waterloo Station for the Folkestone train, but I rather think there was an air raid as I went across and I sheltered in a tube tunnel. However, I was feeling so lonely and homesick and you see I am not quite certain. I do remember that in the train going out of Waterloo a kind old Colonel sitting next to me said, “Cheer up my boy; I have a son like you and he felt very bad, but you’ll soon cheer up”. He was quite right. I did soon after we crossed to France from Folkestone to Boulogne. But, oh dear! I felt most miserable of all at Folkestone, waiting for the boat to take me away from dear old England and everyone, for I had never left England before. I walked on the cliffs and could have cried and cried, only I remembered I was an officer whom the King called his ‘well-beloved Bernard Garside’ and thought how silly it would be (You see your Commission from the King, a big sheet of writing, begins, ‘To my trusty and well-beloved Bernard Garside’).

Well, we landed at Boulogne and were taken in a lorry to Etaples and fixed up in a tent in the middle of a huge camp there. I don’t need to tell you much about the few days we spent there waiting to go ‘up the line’ to the awful Ypres Salient. For at the end of that time we were lined up one day and all those whose names began with the letters down to a certain letter of the alphabet were told they were to go to Italy, where the British and French had sent help to the Italians who had just suffered a big defeat. ‘G’ was one of the letters and I and others were sent off to Havre which was the base camp for Italy. We travelled very slowly by train and I walked part of the way alongside it – you could often do that.

Oh how cold it was at Havre. We were under canvas and each morning there was thick ice on our washing water. But soon we were off again and were about a week on the train I think. We just touched Paris and went through Lyons and then straight over the Alps and through the famous Mont Cenis tunnel. Or am I getting mixed up and we went by the loved Mediterranean Coast? You see I travelled to Italy again later, when I had been on leave and I get the two journeys a bit mixed up in my mind. But it doesn’t matter. One journey was over the Alps and the other by the coast where we could see the great blue Mediterranean and fruit tree groves – oranges I think.

Anyway presently we stopped at an awful place called Arquata Scrivia, the advanced base camp. It was a great puddle of mud and snow mixed, until a great pile of snow fell and covered the mud for a while. We were in tents and it was so cold we stayed in bed – in our valises on the floor – all the time except when we had a duty to do or had to go and eat. Our mess tent had a great tarpaulin as a carpet and I remember us laughing because when we stamped in one place, it squelched all the mud away from there and the ‘carpet’ rose up somewhere not far from the place you had stamped on. We spent Christmas there and taught an Italian woman in a village near how to make a Christmas pudding.

We soon went away, on and on towards the fighting and my chief woe on the way up was that I managed to get a jar of jam and put it under the seat and someone ‘pinched’ it. Travelling for days in a troop train was queer. Sometimes it was funny. I remember we slept two on each seat and two on the floor. And the first night I forgot this and I woke up on my seat and felt so very cold, so I thought I would stand up and put my foot down. I was in my stocking feet – straight into a man’s mouth. He let out such a whoop and woke everyone”.

2Lt. Archibald (Archie) Allen, (see 11^th June 1915) was posted to France, en route to joining 10DWR. He had previously served with the ASC and the King’s Own Scottish Borderers, rising to the rank of Sergeant, despite having been convicted in July 1916 of ‘striking a superior officer’. He had been commissioned on 27^th September 1917.

Pte. Joseph Clough (see 15^th November), serving with 2/7^th DWR, was severely wounded in action and died at 3^rd Casualty Clearing Station at Grevillers, west of Bapaume; he would be buried at Grevillers British Cemetery. 

L.Cpl. Sydney Exley (see 27^th November), who had suffered severe wounds in action a week previously while serving with 2^nd/6^th DWR, died of his wounds at one of the casualty clearing stations at Ytres, south-east of Bapaume; he would be buried at Roccquiny-Equancourt Road British Cemetery, Manancourt. 

Cpl. Thomas Anthony Swale (see 20^th September), who had suffered shrapnel wounds to his left foot on 20^th September, was discharged from 57^th General Hospital at Boulogne and posted to the Base Details Camp at Boulogne.

2Lt. John Robert Dickinson (see 8^th August), serving with 3DWR at North Shields, having been in England since July following an attack of trench fever, was posted back to France to join 2DWR. 

2Lt. Eric Dixon (see 29^th October), serving with the Royal Flying Corps, appeared before a further RFC Medical Board which found him unfit for general service for two months, but fit for home service. The cause of his incapacity is unknown..

Pte. Samuel Durham (see 2^nd May), who had been in England since having been wounded in May while serving with 9DWR, was formally discharged from the Army as being no longer physically fit for service on account of his wounds. He was awarded the Silver War Badge and would be awarded and Army pension of £1 7s. 10d. per week, based on his having suffered a 40% disability.

A pension award was made in the case of the late Pte. Richard Field (see 13^th July), who had been killed in May; his widow, Minnie, was awarded 18s. 9d. per week for herself and her daughter.

The father of the late Capt. Leo Frederick Reincke (see 28^th November), again wrote, through his solicitors, Messrs. Goldberg, Barrett and Newall, to the War Office, regarding a claim for his son’s loss of kit in a fire in April, 

“It will be very difficult to give such definite evidence as required before payment of compensation can be authorised through public funds. As my son had no money of his own, I bought for him what he wanted and when he stated that the government would refund him for loss through the fire at the Mess Room of the 10^th Battalion West Riding Regiment in France, I never heard of the date and circumstances connected with it. There will also be no reference to these matters in the bank pass book. I am perfectly prepared to let the whole matter drop, first because I have no proof whatever of what might have been a claim and secondly from a sentimental point of view”.