Thursday 14th March 1918

Billets at Marola

The recent fine weather continued.

Orders were received at Divisional level for 23^rd Division to be made ready to take over part of the front on the Asiago Plateau, and plans began to be made accordingly. 23^rd Division would, by 28^th March, take over the right half of an 8,000 yard front on the Asiago Plateau, relieving Italian divisions. To the left of 23^rd Division would be 7^th Division and the line to the right would be held by French troops. In accordance with the new orders, a training programme was put in place which was described in the Brigade War Diary: “Mornings were devoted to training under Battalion arrangements, including the training of specialists and close order drill etc. In the afternoons, recreational training was carried out. Owing to the difficulty in finding suitable ground only one Brigade scheme was carried out.”

Pte. Albert Nixon (see 2^nd July 1917) was appointed Lance Corporal.

Pte. Hiram Tasker (see 14^th February), who was being treated for ‘trench fever’, was transferred from 11^th General Hospital at Genoa to 66^th General Hospital at Bordighera.

At home in Skipton, Lizzie Dawson, wife of Pte. Garibaldi Edwin Dawson (see 2^nd October 1917), gave birth to the couple’s first child; the boy would be named Eric. 

Pte. William Axton (see 22^nd September 1917), who had been in England since having been severely wounded on 20^th September 1917, appeared before an Army Medical Board which recommended that be discharged as being no longer physically fit for service.

Alice Pemberton, widow of the late Pte. Percival James (Percy) Pemberton (see 12^th January), who had been killed in action on 20^th September 1917, secured a grant of probate in her husband’s estate, valued at £941.