Sunday 31st March 1918

Billetted in huts at Granezza

Easter Sunday, “We formed up in the snow for a church parade and gradually froze. I’m afraid there was as much cursing as praying, but the Padre did his best”. Some consolation was a concert held at the military theatre, a neat all-wood building constructed by the Italian army, where the band of the West Yorkshire Regiment provided a concert of popular music, “which was well appreciated by an audience of all ranks”. The Divisional Concert Party (The Dumps) would later perform a review entitled, Niente (Italian for nothing), which was said to have provided “excellent entertainment”.

Ptes. Maurice Paignton (see 4^th March) and Frederick Sharp (see 25^th February) re-joined from two weeks’ leave to England; the reason for their delayed return is unclear.

Pte. Ernest Franklin (25969) (see 8^th March) was transferred from 11^th General Hospital at Genoa to 57^th General Hospital at Marseilles; he was diagnosed as suffering from ‘trench fever'.


L.Cpl. James Barker (12288) (see 28^th March), who had been wounded three days previously while serving in France with 2DWR, was evacuated to England from 2^nd Australian General Hospital, Boulogne; on arrival he would be admitted to Keighley War Hospital.

The Battalion War Diary recorded no casualties for the month; the official cumulative casualty figures since arriving in France in August 1915 remained as:

Killed                                   275

Accidentally killed                5

Died of wounds                  21

Wounded                       1,280

Accidentally wounded      53

Missing                              178