Saturday 17th August 1918

Billets at San Donna Camisino.

Starting out at 6am the Battalion marched up on to the Asiago Plateau, covering five arduous miles via the mountain tracks to camp at Mount Brusabo, south-east of Cesuna.

Maj. Edward Borrow DSO (see 11^th August) would tell his wife in a letter home a few days later, “… We are now back in the line on the big hill. Fancy climbing a big mountain, some 13,000 feet above sea level, with a whole Battalion of men. That’s what we did the other day. Starting from a flea-bitten village at 5 on a close and sultry morning and proceeding steadily up a zigzag track on a one-in-four grade to the top…”.

(I am very grateful to Dr. Bendor Grosvenor, @arthistorynews, for allowing me access to Maj. Borrow’s letters).

Maj. Edward Borrow DSO

Pte. Lewis Batey (see 21^st June) was admitted via 71^st Field Ambulance to 24^th Casualty Clearing Station; he was suffering from diarrhoea.

Pte. Herbert Stott (see below) was admitted via 69^th Field Ambulance and 39^th Casualty Clearing Station to to 11^th General Hospital at Genoa; he was suffering from gonorrhoea.

Pte. Herbert Stott

Image by kind permission of Barry Gartside

Pte. Fred Sutcliffe (see 11^th June) departed on seven days’ leave to Lake Garda.

Pte. Harry Mawson was admitted, wounded, to Keighley War Hospital; in the absence of a surviving service record I am unable to establish any details of his having been wounded, his return to England or of his service record. He was 31 years old, married, with one daughter, and from Keighley, where he had worked as bookkeeper to a firm of cabinet makers.

L.Cpl. William Frederick Ackrill (see 17^th April), serving in France with 2DWR, departed on two weeks’ leave to England.

Lt. Arthur Lilley (see 1^st August), in training in England with the RAF, was posted back to France to continue his training as an observer.

Pte. Edward Somers (see 23^rd May), serving with 3DWR at North Shields, was appointed Acting Lance Corporal.