Sunday 6th January 1918

Billets at Biadene

The Battalion settled into its new routine, with around 120 men employed each day on working parties and the remainder occupied in training, including using the lower slopes of the Montello for training in hill fighting and on the Divisional rifle range, which 10DWR had helped construct (see 3^rd December 1917).

The conditions in and around Biadene were described in some detail by Pte. Norman Gladden of 11^th Northumberland Fusiliers in 68^th Brigade,

“Biadene … a collection of whitewashed farms and deserted dwelling houses straggling along the road, where we occupied the second floor of one of the houses, each section having a small room to itself. In front rose the slopes of the Montello, covered on this side with prosperous looking farms, while at the back, from the far side of the field behind the house, a low, ridge rose cliff-like to a height of a couple of hundred feet, the intervening space covered with crops of uncut maize, now looking somewhat bedraggled. The road from Montebelluna led past the house up the valley, where it opened out funnel-wise towards the river, beyond which the mountains towered up rising majestically in the clear atmosphere. It was not easy to imagine these heights being in the hands of the enemy, who was in a position to observe almost everything that happened in the village. Compared with the awful forward areas in France, this was a situation of sylvan peacefulness, and if our above-ground exposure at first seemed positively indecent, we soon got used to it. The main activity on the enemy side seemed to be the creation of fires in the woods. Smoke and flame were continually issuing from some spot or other on the mountainside. After dark the Austrians embellished the scene by switching on searchlights to observe the river bed at night. These swept the sky and shingle methodically throughout the night”. 

Ptes. Frank Dodgson (see 22^nd July 1916), William Little (see 29^th October 1917) and Thomas Prince (see 5^th July 1917) were admitted via 70^th Field Ambulance to 23^rd Division Rest Station. Pte. Dodgson was suffering from scabies and Ptes. Little and Prince were both suffering from inflammation of their right hands.

Pte. Henry Pike (see 29^th October 1917) was admitted to 11^th General Hospital at Genoa suffering from rheumatism and myalgia; after three days he would be transferred to 2^nd General Hospital in Le Havre, where he would spend a further five days before being transferred to one of the convalescent depots from where he would in due course (date and details unknown) re-join the Battalion.

The sentence of two years’ imprisonment with hard labour which had been passed in the case of L.Cpl. John William Mallinson (see 2^nd December) was suspended on the orders of General Sir Herbert Plumer.

Sgt. John William Dickinson (see 4^th November 1917), who had been wounded on 20^th September 1917, was discharged from 6^th Convalescent Depot at Etaples and posted to ‘E’ Base Depot at Le Havre; he would be re-classified as medical category Ciii (suitable only for sedentary work).

The Halifax Courier reported news of the death L.Cpl. Gilbert Swift Greenwood (see 2^nd January), who had died in Italy just four days previously:

THE LATE L-CPL G.S. GREENWOOD

Mr. Greenwood, 14 Ventnor Terrace, has received the following letter from Lt. Col. F.W. Lethbridge, Duke of Wellington’s Regiment, concerning the death of L.Cpl. G.S. Greenwood: “Allow me to express to you my deep sympathy in the death of your son, L.Cpl. G.S. Greenwood, the first man in this battalion to give his life for his country on the Italian Front. Your son was commanding a guard over his company headquarters in the front line, and was hit by a shell. He died without pain a few hours after. Your boy was very gallant soldier and had always acquitted himself with credit in action. I, in common with all the other officers who knew him, greatly regret his loss”. A footnote indicates the place where L.Cpl. Greenwood was buried in a British military cemetery.