Friday 17th January 1919

Billets at Grumolo and Montecchia di Crosara

L.Cpl. John Bundy (see 2^nd September 1918) was reported by 2Lt. Wilfred Frederick John Thomson MC (see 12^th January) for “drinking rum which had not been issued”; on the orders of Lt.Col. Francis Washington Lethbridge DSO (see 14^th January) he would be deprived of his Lance Corporal’s rank and reduced to Private.

The issue of drinking was not confined to to the men, as noted by 2Lt. Bernard Garside (see 15^th December 1918) among his more general reflections on this period, 

“There were some uncomfortable moments, however, in those days. The men were restless to be home and averse to much training. In some units there were refusals to do things and rough treatment of NCO’s and even officers. But not in ours. We all felt impatient and a little irresponsible. I remember drinking got heavier. A VC in our Battalion, a Captain Kelly (Capt. Henry Kelly VC, MC, see 12^th January), dined in our mess one night and drank rather a lot and then wouldn’t let anyone go with him to his own mess. Next morning his batman came to ask if he had left his knee boots with us! We laughed and said, “No – why?”. He said Capt. Kelly had arrived without them and couldn’t remember why. It turned out that on his way home he had felt very sleepy and had seen a nice quiet alley way and gone to sleep there. But he had wakened up cold and had gone off, forgetting he had taken his boots off before going to sleep. They found the boots later!”.

CSM Alfred Dolding (see 12^th January) and Ptes. Bertie Gooch (see 27^th March 1918), Richard William Johnson (see 10^th September 1918) and John William Procter (see 17^th October 1918) completed and signed their ‘Statement as to disability’ forms, which were a precursor to their being posted back to England. The completed forms, which confirmed that they did not claim to have suffered any disability in service, were witnessed by 2Lt. Stephen Brown Airey (see 19^th April 1918).

Sgts. Josias Bailey MM (see 24^th August 1918) and Harold Best (see 7^th January) and Ptes. Vernon Barker (see 21^st September 1918), Samuel Lawton Birtles (see 26^th November 1918), Thomas Butler (see 23^rd September 1918), Edward Henry Chant (see 5^th December 1918), Josiah Charles (see 5^th December 1918), Thomas Eccleston (see 5^th October 1917), Moses Henry Jaeger (see 21^st March 1918), Reginald James Nosworthy (see 13^th December 1918), Ben Pedder MM (see 26^th August 1918) and Sam Shuttleworth (see 22^nd July 1917) departed for England on two weeks’ leave. 

Cpl. Alexander Wallace MM (see 27^th October 1918) and Pte. Walter James Biddle (see 12^th January) were posted to England from the Base Depot at Arquata Scrivia.   

L.Cpl. John Lamb Watt (see 16^th October 1918) serving (details unknown) at Tortona, north of Genoa, departed for England on two weeks’ leave.

Lt. Col. Robert Raymer (see 15^th December 1918), commanding 5^th (Pioneer) Battalion South Wales Borderers, departed for England on two weeks’ leave.

L.Cpl. John Smith Hodgson MM (see 13^th December 1918), who was in England having been wounded in October 1918, was admitted to Keighley War Hospital; he would be discharged after six days and was to be demobilized shortly thereafter.

L.Cpl. John Smith Hodgson MM

Image by kind permission of Andy Wade and MenOfWorth

Sgt. Ellis Rigby (see 26^th November 1918), who had been in training for a commission at no.16 Officer Cadet Battalion at Rhyl, was posted to the dispersal centre at Codford, Wilts., in preparation for demobilization.

CQMS Edgar Shuttleworth (see 29^th December 1918), L.Cpl. Frank Dodgson (see 29^th December 1918) and Ptes. Edward Anderson (see 29^th December 1918), William Harper (25972) MM (see 8^th December 1918), Arthur Newton (see 29^th December 1918), Frank Patterson (see 18^th December 1918), Herbert Williams (see 29^th December 1918) and Norman Woodhouse (see 29^th Decenmber 1918) who were on leave in England, were struck off the strength of 10DWR and demobilized Shuttleworth, Dodgson, Anderson, Patterson and Woodhouse were demobilized from Ripon; Harper from the dispersal centre at Wimbledon; Newton from Grantham, and Williams from Prees Heath.

Spr. Joseph Ibbitson, serving with the Royal Engineers, was was formally transferred to the Army Reserve Class Z. He had been an original member of 10DWR before being transferred (date and details unknown) to the Royal Engineers. In the absence of a surviving service record it has not been possible to make a positive identification of this man or to establish any more detail as to his service.

Pte. Leonard Pickles (see 23^rd June 1917), who had been wounded while serving with 10DWR in June 1917, and who had subsequently served with 2DWR, was formally transferred to the Army Reserve Class Z. In the absence of a surviving service record it has not been possible to establish any more detail as to his service.

The weekly edition of the Craven Herald included an extended article detailing the experiences of Lt. Norman Roberts MM (see 28^th November 1918) as a prisoner of war.

THE BRUTAL GERMANS  - SKIPTON OFFICER’S EXPERIENCES IN PRISON CAMPS

A story of abominable treatment and brutality to British prisoners of war by their German captors was narrated to our representative on Monday by Second Lieutenant Norman Roberts, of the Machine Gun Corps, son of Mr. Edwin Roberts of 3 Upper Union Street, Skipton. Like thousands of other fine young Englishmen, Lieut. Roberts, who, in civilian life was a policeman at Hellifield, quickly responded to the call for men when the war broke out. He enlisted in September 1914 as a private in the 10^th Duke of Wellington’s (West Riding) Regiment and went out to France the following August. In due time he rose to the rank of sergeant and was afterwards granted a commission and transferred to the Machine Gun Corps. He was captured by the Germans during the fighting in March last year, and 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, 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.

Lieut. Roberts was kept at the Rastatt Camp until May, when he was removed to Mayence. This necessitated a three-days journey in a slow travelling train, and during the whole of this time his food consisted of one bowl of soup. Whenever they pulled up at a station the German people jeered at them and at one place a German soldier, on his way back to the Front, spat in his eye and called him a swinehunde. On arrival at Mayence they were provided with a good meal and the English officers were in hopes that it was the forerunner of better treatment. Their hopes were quickly dashed to the ground, however, for their treatment was no better than it had been at the previous camp. Their food consisted of the same old distasteful substitute for coffee, black bread and what in England we should describe as vegetable refuse. A loaf of bread was given out to each man once every five days, and more often than not the famished Englishmen ate the loaf at the first meal and then went without bread during the next four days. Not content with pining their prisoners, the Germans practised all kinds of devilish tricks upon them, and the Englishmen in particular were subjected to petty annoyances of every description.

Through lack of proper food Lieut. Roberts contracted dysentery in the summer months and was sent to hospital. Here again the treatment was a disgrace to any civilised nation and a large number of officers died simply for want of proper attention and treatment. To stop the bleeding wounds and to numb the pain of the suffering soldiers the Germans had to fall back upon the use of opium. Not until the Red Cross parcels from England began to arrive did matters improve, and even then the prisoners did not get the full benefit of the arrangements made for their comfort in this country. For the past few years practically every village, town and city in England has been sending out parcels of comforts for our soldiers in Germany and it is now an established fact that the majority of the parcels were purloined by the inhuman Germans. Out of over 50 parcels sent to him, Lieut. Roberts received 31. All of these were opened by the Germans and many useful articles, particularly anything in the shape of clothing or boots, were extracted. The prisoners’ parcels and letters were also delayed as much as possible with results that were most annoying. Sometimes the Englishmen had parcels sent from Berne in Switzerland containing white bread, and more often than not the parcels were so delayed that when the prisoners received them the bread was green outside and yellow inside.

Asked by our representative if he had tried to escape, Lieut. Roberts said it was almost impossible to do so, and told of several cases where English prisoners obtained clever disguises and succeeded in getting away only to be recaptured on the “last lap”. Lieut. Roberts said that the captured officers were allowed to purchase certain things, but the prices, he added, were almost prohibitive, being more than three times the amount charged the Germans. For instance, a bottle of wine would cost 25 marks.

Lieut. Roberts was still in Germany when the revolution broke out and the German officers had their swords broken and their epaulettes removed by the soldiers and sailors council. Four days after the signing of the armistice he was set free along with other prisoners, and travelled by train via Metz and Nancy, to Paris and then to England. The journey occupying a week. At a place named Worms he saw a sight which was enough to make the heart of an Englisman ache. Between 3,000 and 4,000 Tommies had been collected together and every one of them, he says, was a walking skeleton, their bones protruding through their skin. They had been turned loose by the Germans without food of any kind and were utterly unfit to travel. When they ultimately got into the hands of the French they were sent in to hospital and cared for.