Wednesday 5th June 1918

Front line trenches north-west of Mount Kaberlaba.

The seriousness of the current outbreak of influenza became particularly acute with at least 15 men admitted, via 70^th Field Ambulance to 39^th Casualty Clearing Station. Cpls. Alfred Frankland (see below) and James Hotchkiss (see 25^th May), and Ptes. John Willie Bannon (see below), Michael Cross (see below), Brian Devnil (see below), George William Fletcher (see 23rd March 1916), James Harper (see 29^th October 1917), Archie Lamb (see below), Pte. Albert Leeson (see 29^th October 1917), Harry Nason MM (see 17^th December 1917), John Perrin (see 2^nd November 1917), Henry Pike (see 6th January), Harold Poucher (see below), William Smart (see 29^th October 1917) and Alfred Whittaker (see 15^th April). Cpl. Frankland and Ptes. Bannon, Cross, Devnil, Harper, Leeson, Pike, Poucher and Smart would be discharged after five days and posted to the Base Depot at Arquata Scrivia; Cpl. Hotchkiss and Ptes. Lamb, Perrin and Whittaker would be discharged and re-join the Battalion after eight days. Pte. Fletcher would be transferred, on 9^th June, to 29th Stationery Hospital in Cremona.

Alfred Frankland had previously served with the Army Cyclist Corps, first going out to France in July 1915, and with 8DWR; in the absence of a surviving service record I am unable to make a positive identification of this man or to establish when, or under what circumstances, he had joined 10DWR.

John Willie Bannon was a 25 year-old chair maker from Bradford; he had previously served with 8DWR and had been wounded in August 1915 and evacuated to England in June 916 after suffering from nephritis. In the absence of a surviving service record I am unable to establish when, or under what circumstances, he had joined 10DWR.

In the absence of a surviving service record I am unable to make a positive identification of Michael Cross, or to establish when, or under what circumstances, he had joined 10DWR.

Brian Devnil was 30 years old and from Huddersfield. In the absence of a surviving service record I am unable to establish when, or under what circumstances, he had joined 10DWR.

In the absence of a surviving service record I am unable to make a positive identification of Archie Lamb, or to establish when, or under what circumstances, he had joined 10DWR.

Harold Poucher was an original member of the Battalion; he was a 23 year-old cloth finisher from Horsforth.

Pte. James Austin (see 1^st April), serving with 273^rd Employment Company, departed on two weeks’ leave to England.

Pte. Trayton George Harper (see 1^st March), serving with 3DWR at North Shields, was reported for an offence (details unknown) and ordered to be confined to barracks for three days.

Pte. James Kilburn (see 2^nd April), who had been taken ill, suffering from influenza, while home on leave to the UK, was discharged from 1^st Northern General Hospital in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and ordered to report to Northern Command Depot at Ripon. However, he failed to report as instructed.