Friday 15th February 1918

Front line trenches on the Montello, between roads 14 and 19.

There was a light fall of snow.

A party of one officer, one CQMS and six other ranks departed for Valla, to where the Battalion was shortly to move, to arrange the taking over of billets from 18^th King’s Royal Rifles.

A/Cpl. Bertie Gooch (see 27^th November 1917) was reported by Sgts. Alfred Dolding (see 22nd January), Richard Everson (see 5^th January) and Edward Arthur Myers (see below) on a charge of, “when on active service, neglect of duty; ie absenting himself without permission from 7pm to 7.30pm”. He would be reprimanded by Maj. Edward Borrow DSO (see 9^th February).

I am, as yet, unable to make a positive identification of Sgt. Edward Arthur Myers and it is not known when he had joined the Battalion.

Pte. John Thomas Brady (see 17^th July 1917) was posted back to England. The precise reason for his departure is unknown, but he would subsequently be discharged from the Army on grounds of “feeblemindedness”.

The case of Pte. Reginald Dayson (see 28^th January) who had recently been convicted on a charge of, “when on active service leaving his post without orders from his superior officer”, was again reviewed, this time by General Sir Herbert Plumer. His sentence of five years’ penal servitude, which had already been reduced from the original tariff of ten years, was now suspended. A new sentence of two years’ imprisonment with hard labour was instead imposed. Dayson, however, would remain with 10DWR.

2Lt. John Robert Dickinson (see 15^th January), who had recently joined 3DWR at North Shields, following a period of hospital treatment following gas poisoning, appeared before a further Army Medical Board which found him unfit for general service for two months but fit to continue home service with 3DWR. 

A payment of £4 5s. 8d. was authorised, being the amount due in pay and allowances to the late Pte. Frank Ernest Walton (see 18^th October 1917), who had been killed in action on 18^th October 1917; the payment would go to his executor, his aunt and sole legatee, Mrs. Evelina Sanderson. She would also receive a parcel of his personal effects, comprising of, ‘wallet, photos, cards’.

The weekly edition of the Craven Herald reported on the death of Pte. Hebden Walker, elder brother of L.Cpl. James Walker MM (see 5^th February).

EARBY SOLDIER'S DEATH FROM PNEUMONIA

The death is officially reported at No. 16 General Hospital, France, on the 5th February, of Private Hebden Walker, P.O.W.'s Yorkshire Regiment, as being due to pneumonia following an attack of septic poisoning in the toe. Deceased, who was 29 years of age and single, was the eldest son of Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Walker, 37, Longroyd Road, Earby, and late of Gargrave. He was admitted to hospital about a fortnight prior to his death, and a few days later the parents received a telegram stating that he was dangerously ill with pneumonia. Private Walker joined up in September last. In civil life he was a weaver employed at Messrs. A. J. Birley Ltd., a member of the Rechabites, and a well-known fancier and member of the National Homing Society. His brother, Sergt. James Walker (Military Medallist), only recently returned from furlough after three years in France, and is now serving as instructor in signalling with the Army in Italy.

There was also further news of Pte. John Preston, of 2DWR, who had been ‘adopted’ by the villagers of Gisburn whilst a prisoner of war in Germany; he was the younger brother of Cpl. Joseph Edward Preston (see 29th March 1917), who had been one of Tunstill’s original recruits and had been killed in October 1916.

PRISONER OF WAR - Further particulars are to hand of the prisoner of war recently adopted by the village. Pte. Preston is 26 years of age, single, and an employee of the Bobbin Works Company, of Caton, near Lancaster, where he lived with his parents at Brook House. He showed himself of the right stuff by volunteering in the very early days of the war, and was captured at Vimy Ridge in May of last year after two and a half years with the colours. An elder brother was killed on October 4th, 1917, and a younger brother is serving with the King's Own Lancasters. Pte. Preston bears an excellent character among his fellow-workers, who speak highly of him as a teetotaller and a constant member of the village church choir and a bell ringer. - Mrs. Dawson Parkinson writes thanking the people of Gisburn for their kindness - kindness which she says she will never forget - to her husband, the late prisoner of war of the village, and regretting that he never had the comfort of knowing all that was done for him.