Saturday 29th December 1917

Front line trenches on the Montello.

The weather became milder, with a slight thaw of the lying snow.

CQMS Frank Stephenson (see 13^th June) had recently been taken ill, suffering a severe attack of pneumonia. Details of his illness and treatment are unknown, but his illness was reported in the Keighley News:

"Mrs. Frank Stephenson, Park Lane, Sutton Mill, received a telegram from Italy on Saturday, stating that her husband, Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant Frank Stephenson, was lying at a casualty clearing station in Italy, seriously ill, suffering from pneumonia. The War Office afterwards confirmed the news, but nothing further has yet come to hand. He is in the West Riding Regiment and joined up in the early months of the war. He took part in the Somme fighting last year. This is the first Christmas he has not spent at home since joining the Army".

CQMS Frank Stephenson

Image by kind permission of Henry Bolton

Cpl. Thomas Anthony Swale (see 3^rd December) re-joined the Battalion from the Base Details Camp at Boulogne and Pte. Herbert Willoughby (see 5^th December) re-joined from one of the Infantry Base Depots at Etaples.

2Lt. John Robert Dickinson (see 15^th December), who had suffered gas poisoning while serving with 2DWR in the line near Arras, was evacuated to England, leaving Le Havre for Southampton. 

Pte. Harry Hartley (see 19^th December), serving with 3DWR at North Shields, was posted back to France and would join 8DWR.

Ptes. George Carter (see 1st December), William Henry Gray (see 1^st November) and John Oldfield Greenwood (see 14^th October), all of whom had been in England having been wounded, departed from Folkestone for Boulogne and would be posted to 2^nd/6^th DWR.