Tuesday 25th December 1917

Front line trenches on the Montello.

A fine and frosty day.

There were allied air raids against Austrian positions.

On Christmas Day all non-essential work was suspended and the men were fed special rations; the exact detail for 10DWR is unknown, but elsewhere in the Division this consisted of, “Breakfast:- Quaker oats, sausage (tinned), Bacon, SM tea. Dinner:- Roast pork, potatoes, cabbage, plum pudding (tinned), Rum sauce, quart Italian beer. Tea:- Rolypoly duff, jam, margarine, 3pkts Italian fags and 2pkts Gold Flake per man”. Copies of the 23^rd Division annual review, ‘The Dump’, were issued and well-received by the men.

The Battalion band played at the Brigade Christmas Dinner.

Officers and men had sent home Battalion Christmas cards to friends and family. One survives among the collection of Capt. Leonard Norman Phillips MC (see 19^th June) and a second, sent by original Tunstill recruit, Pte. Solomon Richard Webb (see 8^th January 1916), to Mrs. Geraldine Tunstill (see 3^rd October) has also survived.

Image by kind permission of the Trustees of the DWR Museum

Image by kind permission of the Trustees of the DWR Museum

Image by kind permission of Henry Bolton

A pension award was made in the case of the late Pte. Tom Greenwood (see 3^rd October), who had been killed in action on 7^th June; his mother, Alice, was awarded 8s. per week.

Pte. Tom Greenwood

A pension award was made in the case of the late Pte. Harry Read (see 25^th October) who had died of wounds in June; his mother, Mary, was awarded 8s. per week.