Sunday 24th March 1918

Billets at Marola

The Brigade assembled at Gaianigo for a church service at the end of which Brig. Genl. Lambert (see 19^th March) presented medals to a number of officers and men, including the Military Cross to 2Lt. Albert Joseph Acarnley (see 28^th February) and the Military Medal to Sgt. Christopher Clapham (see 28^th February), awarded for their conduct during the patrol action across the Piave on 28^th February. Silver and bronze medals were also presented to the winners of events in the Brigade sports and transport competitions. A commemorative medal was also presented to Signor Forasaco Paolo, who had made the land available for the events to be held. In the afternoon “an Officer’s mounted paperchase took place; 35 officers of the Brigade starting”.

Pte. Harry Pullin (see 11^th March) was reported by Sgt. William McGill (see 16^th November 1917) and Cpl. Reginald Robinson (see 23^rd March) for “insolence to an NCO”; on the orders of Maj. James Christopher Bull MC (see 22^nd March) he was to be confined to barracks for five days.

Ptes. Bertram Edwin Earney (see 29^th October 1917) and James Pidgeley (see 29^th October 1917) departed for England on two weeks’ leave. Pte. John George Inshaw (see 22^nd November 1917), serving at the Trench Mortar School at the Base Depot at Arquata Scrivia also went on leave to England.

Ptes. Thomas Henry Fearn (see 7^th March), Samuel Richards (see 10^th March) and Erwin Wilkinson (see 11^th March) were discharged from 11^th General Hospital at Genoa and transferred to the
Convalescent Depot at Lido d’Albano.

As fierce fighting continued in France during the German Spring Offensive, 2Lt. Norman Roberts MM (see 1^st November 1917), serving with the Machine Gun Corps, was among those taken prisoner. According to his later recollection, “he was first taken by his captors to a lonely little village and afterwards behind the lines at Cambrai. He did not complain of ill-treatment here, but it will be readily understood that the position of prisoners near the fighting line is anything but pleasant. After four or five days he, along with others, was removed to a camp at Rastatt in Baden, where the treatment was systematically cruel. Seventy English officers were placed in a hut about the size of those at Raikes Camp (the prison camp for German prisoners established in Skipton), and the sleeping and sanitary arrangements were, to say the least of them, crude and insufficient for civilised human beings. The food was only fit for pigs and there was very little of it. For breakfast there was usually a slice of black bread with some substitute or acorn coffee; dinner consisted of boiled rice and vegetable leaves chopped up; and tea was similar to breakfast”.

2Lt. Norman Roberts MM

Sgt. Rennie Hirst (see 18^th February), serving in France with 2DWR, was evacuated to England from 15^th General Hospital at Abbeville; he was suffering from ‘trench fever’. On arrival in England he would be transferred to hospital in Glasgow.