Friday 7th January 1916

Billeted in huts near Rue Marle

By 7am ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies were settled in their new billets near the Erquinghem-Armentieres road west of Rue Marle, with the rest of the Battalion in the village itself. In the event of any alarm all companies were ordered to assemble by the shortest route in the fields west of Rue Marle.

Pte. George Henry Hansford (see 11^th September 1915), who had arrived in France with a draft in September 1915, but had been posted to ‘a course of transport’, finally joined the Battalion.

Maj. Harry Hildyard (see 21^st August), commanding ‘A’ Company, departed for a one week leave to England. He travelled first to Boulogne and from there to Folkestone, before travelling on to his home in Hythe. On arrival in England Maj. Hildyard requested that he be examined by an Army Medical Board which was duly convened to meet at Shorncliffe Military Hospital on 10^th January.

With the departure of Maj. Hildyard, Capt. Gilbert Tunstill (see passim) took temporary command of ‘A’ Company, which had always been known locally and colloquially as ‘Tunstill’s Compnay’. His introduction was to be a relatively quiet one as the next three days in billets passed off largely without incident in mild and fine weather, although working parties were found each day for the front line.

Sgt. Edward Hunter (see 4^th November 1915) departed for England on one week leave.

L.Cpl. Thomas Angus McAndrew (see 29^th August 1915) reverted to the rank of Private.

The weekly edition of the Craven Herald published letters from two members of Tunstill’s Company, Ptes. Tom Swales and John Dinsdale (see 15^th December 1915).

The Brighouse Echo, in an article about the receipt of parcels from the Brighouse Christmas Parcels Fund, noted that, “Pte. Charles Holgate (see below), 10^th West Riding Regiment, who received his parcel on December 28^th, returns thanks and says he has had a real good time in the circumstances”. Charles Holgate was 19 years old and from Brighouse, where he had worked as an apprentice at the Brighouse Corporation gas works. He had first gone to France with 9DWR in July 1915 and had been wounded and posted back to England in November 1915; the exact date and circumstances of his joining 10DWR are unknown.

Thursday 6th January 1916

Front line trenches north of Rue du Bois.

 

Despite the regular artillery exchanges, the Battalion had suffered no casualties on this tour of duty and conditions were considered sufficiently quiet that the defence scheme which had been introduced in mid-December but then temporarily suspended at the end of the month, could be resumed (see 28^th December). This scheme provided for the front line to be held by two companies rather than three and consequently the number of men in the front line was reduced by withdrawing most of ‘B’ Company to the Bois Grenier Line. This left ‘A’ and ‘C’ to hold the front line, each of them being reinforced by one platoon from ‘B’ taking them to a strength of 180 men each. They were reminded of the precise instructions as to how the defence of the sector was to be organised:

“At intervals in the front line trenches there will be small groups of not less than a section, a proportion of whom should be bombers. There will be a bomb store near them and they will be prepared to counter attack, right or left in case the enemy should break through. They must be prepared to work up or defend the traffic trench as well as the fire trench. One of these posts will be established as near as possible to the night position of each machine gun”. The new dispositions were duly completed by 12 noon.

During the morning there had been heavy German shelling of the positions held by 21^st Division further north but artillery activity in the Battalion sector had continued on its usual pattern, as reported, somewhat laconically, in the War Diary; “The enemy sent the usual shells into Chapelle d’Armentieres. The Bois Grenier line also had a good number of shells from the enemy. Jock’s Joy and the Battalion HQ has certainly been discovered by the enemy and he rarely allows a day to pass without paying it every attention”.

Overnight, the Battalion was relieved by 9^th Yorkshires; the relief was conducted without casualties and the men returned to their former billets in and around Rue Marle.

 

A payment of £2 10s. 1d., being the amount due on his army pay, was issued to the widow of Pte. Arthur Hargreaves who had been the first man from Tunstill’s Company to be killed in action (see 17^th September).

 

Wednesday 5th January 1916

Front line trenches north of Rue du Bois.

It was reported that through the morning there was, “pronounced aerial activity”. There were further artillery exchanges; the Germans again focussed their attention on Chapelle d’Armentieres, while the British shelled the German lines and also sent some shells into Lille. Orders were received for the Battalion to prepare to be relieved next day by 9^th Yorkshires. Overnight, “rifle and machine gun fire was very active on both sides”.

Cpl. John Bargh (see 23^rd August 1915) was promoted Lance Sergeant.

L.Cpl. John Thomas Matthews (see 23^rd August 1915) was promoted Acting Corporal.

After weeks of administrative delays, it was finally confirmed that CSM Harry Dewhirst (see 1^st January) was to be sent back to England.

RSM John Kearns (see 3^rd December 1915), who had been posted back to England a month earlier, was posted to 11DWR at Brocton Camp.

Pte. Charles Davey (see 11^th October 1915), who had been posted back to England three months previously (reason unknown), was posted to 3DWR at North Shields.

Tuesday 4th January 1916

Front line trenches north of Rue du Bois.

The day was generally quiet, with some light rain falling. However, the artillery exchanges of the previous days continued, with the Germans concentrating their fire on Chapelle d’Armentieres and Bois Grenier.

Cpl. Robert William John Morris (see 14^th November 1915) was promoted Lance Sergeant.

Pte. Harry Clark (see 3^rd December 1915) was promoted Lance Corporal, which rank he had previously held for seven months during 1915 before reverting to Private.


Pte. William Knox (see 30^th December 1915) again wrote to his wife, Ethel (I am most grateful to Rachael Broadhead and family for allowing me access to William’s letters).

“I now sit down and write you a few lines hoping they will find you quite well as I am very pleased to say that it leaves me very well at present. I received your parcel dated 29.12.1915 and thank you very much for it. I am sure you are ever so good to think about me as you do Love. I received the watch and it is a little gem. It will come in very useful out here as it is very dark now all night and it is very dangerous to strike a match too often as the Germans get to know where our sentry bays are and they make it pretty warm for us then with a machine gun. We came into the firing line on Sunday and we go out again on Thursday so I shall spend my birthday in the trenches but I don’t care about that as long as I am home next year and as well a I am just right now. They keep telling me as I am getting quite fat. I can tell you I feel as well as ever I have done before.

We are having some very decent weather just now and I hope it will continue to keep so as we have had plenty of bad weather. I have heard some very good news this morning. We have only sixteen days to do in the trenches and then we go for our Divisional rest for a month, so we shall miss a lot of the snow. But of course we shall be training for a big advance in the Spring and I think it will be one great effort all along the whole line. And it will be the beginning of the end. I think myself now that it will not last so very much longer as our men made a bombing attack on New Year’s Eve and when they got over to their trenches they absolutely refused to fight. They are just about fed up of it all. It is very quiet just now. A jolly lot different to what it was the last time in but I think it is because our artillery has not done very much shelling for over a week now.

I should just like you to see us all right now. It is a regular wash and brush up do. We only wash every other day when we are in the trenches. I am Acting Lance Corporal just now and Sgt. Hirst told me I was the next to be promoted. But I am not sure whether I shall take a stripe or not but if I do I shall try hard and get three. There is plenty of chance for promotion out here.

Well dear I have just received a parcel from Nottingham and it had the Sheffield Independent name on as well but Delhi White from the Stores is the name on the card that I have to send back to tell them that I received it quite safe. I think myself it is from the Benevolent Association Brightside and Carbrook Co-Op employees. It will be from that friend that you get your 2/6 per week from. It is very good of them to think about me. I am writing to thank him for it (Mr. White). It contained cigarettes, shaving stick, tobacco, one tin Macintosh’s toffee, one tin cold cream, one tin of boracic ointment, two tins of peppermint tablets, one bottle of water sterilisers and one tin of curry. I have given all the tobacco and cigarettes away. It went all round the platoon what I am in. It came just right for my birthday. Fancy being twenty six. I am getting quite an old man now (ain’t I Darling?).

I have just heard another rumour today that we are leaving France to come to England for a short time and then to India, but I don’t think there is much truth in it.

I have spoken too soon as the Germans are shelling like Hell again now. Been on for over an hour and they are not half letting us have them. They are dropping all around us but none of us is a bit afraid of them as they cannot hurt us as we are in shell-proof trenches. They must have got to know that we are in again and we mostly look out for plenty of shelling. If Jenny has not sent me a writing pad before you get this tell her not to bother as I have got another one from Mrs. Tunstill (Geraldine Tunstill, see, 14^th December 1915) our Captain’s wife, and it will last me quite a long time.

We are not very far from the German lines; only about forty yards so we can give them plenty of bombs as we can throw them right into their trenches. Of course we don’t get off scot free but their bombs are nowhere as dangerous as ours are. Ours weigh two pounds and when they burst they form 72 pieces of shrapnel, so it is God help them when one bursts near them. I shall now have to come to a close as we shall soon be standing to and then go for rations and then I have done for the day unless something turns up. So I shall be able to get to sleep early, that is if the blooming rats and mice will let you do so. I am sure without a word of a lie they are jolly near as big as a cat. They are nasty damn things too as they gnaw holes into everything we have. We have to eat our parcels as quick as ever we can or else they will run away with all you have got. It is nothing fresh for us to put a chap to guard them so as they cannot carry them away. I will now close with fondest love and kisses”.

Looking back many years later, J.B. Priestley gave a vivid account of the grim monotony of much of the time spent in the trenches in the winter of 1915-16:

“Worse than the raids, worse than the German heavy batteries which occasionally got our range and dropped ‘Jack Johnsons’ among us, were the mere conditions of existence in the front line and communication trenches, now with winter upon us, that were mud and water. For days and days on end, wearing six pairs of socks and high gum-boots and a sheepskin jacket that was either wet or caked in mud, I slithered around, trying to sleep on the trench fire step or crawling into some hole in the wet clay, filthy and maddeningly lousy, never seeing anything that looked like hot food. (I was fortunate, more than most, in two respects: I could cheerfully chew away at Army biscuits and bully beef, which was all we had on many days; I was rarely short of tobacco, and if I could smoke my pipe I could often forget I was hungry and short of sleep.) That dugout we have all seen in productions of Journey’s End would have looked to me like a suite in some Grand Hotel: I never did find myself within miles of anything so dry and commodious … the conditions in which the lower ranks of the infantry were condemned to exist month after month, worse conditions than the Germans or French ever knew, except briefly in battle, that drained away health, energy, spirit and with them any real confidence in those cavalry captains, back in the chateaux, who saw themselves as generals fit for high command.”

Pte. Edmund Peacock (see 23^rd November) was transferred from hospital in Cambridge to a convalescent hospital in Eastbourne, where he would continue his recovery from wounds he had suffered on 18^th November.

Monday 3rd January 1916

Front line trenches north of Rue du Bois.

The weather remained good and artillery duels continued. The British “sent a good number of shells in to the enemy lines” and in response the Germans sent a number of large shells into Chapelle d’Armentieres. They also shelled a Battalion working party who were constructing a dressing station immediately behind HQ at Farm du Biez; the working party dispersed without casualties despite the detonation of six ‘whizz-bangs’. Company officers were instructed to keep a particular look out for German machine guns and information on the position of a number of them was reported to Brigade. Overnight, conditions remained quiet.

Pte. Herbert Walker (12315) (see 2^nd June 1915) suffered an accidental bayonet wound to his knee (the exact circumstances are unknown); he would be evacuated (details unknown) to one of the Base Hospitals at St. Omer.

L.Cpl. William Munday (see 18^th October 1915) began to be paid according to his rank, having previously held his appointment unpaid.

Pte. Patrick Conley (see 10^th June 1915) departed on one week leave to England.

Sunday 2nd January 1916

Billeted in huts near Rue Marle

There was a considerable improvement in the weather with only light rain falling. British artillery continued their “marked activity all along the line”.  In the late afternoon the Battalion moved forward to relieve 9th Yorkshires in the fire trenches. Tunstill’s Men were the first to move off (although advance parties from each Company had moved into the front line to take over trench stores in mid-afternoon); at 4pm, in light rain, they left their billets and made their way, via Wine Avenue to a position on the right of the Battalion front, just north of Rue du Bois. ‘B’ Company were positioned in the centre and ‘C’ on the Battalion left; ‘D’ Company remained in the Bois Grenier Line, with one platoon at Battalion HQ at Farm du Biez. The reliefs were completed, without casualties, by 7pm, although it was immediately apparent that ‘the Germans appear to be more active here than when we were here previously”.  The evening passed relatively quietly although there was considerable artillery activity on both sides, and one man was wounded. The wounded man may have been Pte. James Mason (see 8^th September 1914), who had been one of Tunstill’s original recruits. Although the exact date of his wounding is not stated, the Craven Herald (14^th January) would report that, “Private James Mason, son of Mrs. Mason, of Calder House has been wounded by a shell near Armentieres, and is now in hospital in England, but we are glad to know that he is progressing favourably”. James Mason was treated in hospital at Stoke-on-Trent, where he would remain for several months.

More men went home to England on one week leave. Among them are known to have been Lt. Dick Bolton (see 23^rd December), Sgt. Arthur Walton (see 14^th November 1915), L. Cpl. Harry Widdup (see 11^th August) and Ptes. Harold Charnock (see below), John William Jackson (see 8^th April 1915) and Robert Cresswell (see 15^th May). Coincidentally two other men who had originally been members of the Company were also home on leave at the same time.  Both Pte. Wilson Pritchard (see 13^th August 1915) and Pte. Sam Shepherd (see 8th October 1914) had been transferred to the Army Cyclist Corps. Wilson Pritchard had been transferred to serve with the cyclist unit attached to 41^st Division and Shepherd to the 2^nd Division.

Pte. Harold Charnock was a 30 year-old married man from Halifax.

Pte. John Matthewson Richard Grieves joined the Battalion. He was a 21 year-old clerk from Westminster and had originally volunteered, on 1^st September 1914, to serve with the cavalry. However, in June 1915 he had been transferred to 3DWR and had been posted to France on 18^th December.

Pte. Harry Siddall (see 1^st December 1915), who had been injured in the accident at the Brigade Bomb School in November, re-joined the Battalion from 23^rd Infantry Base Depot at Etaples.

Pte. Robert Callaghan of ‘A’ Company suffered an accident, resulting in a sprained ankle; he would be admitted (details unknown) to 18^th General Hospital at Camiers. He was 19 years old but, in the absence of a surviving service record, I am unable to make a positive identification of this man.

Pte. Joseph Wilkinson (see 11^th September 1915) was briefly admitted to 70^th Field Ambulance (cause unknown); he would be discharged the following day and re-join the Battalion.

Saturday 1st January 1916

Billeted in huts near Rue Marle

At 1.25am the Battalion was placed on high alert as the planned raids against the German lines (see 31^st December) were launched. Conditions were described as ‘still and starlit. The enemy appeared very alert. Flares were rising continuously from all along the hostile line, and three searchlights, sweeping No Man’s Land, added to the difficulties of the raiders”.

The raiding party from 10th Northumberland Fusiliers, went out into No Man’s Land opposite Farm Grande Flamengrie at 12.35 am and approached the German lines over the next half hour. However, at 1.10 they were spotted by the Germans, who were using powerful searchlights to sweep the area.  Under intense fire the raiding party had to abandon any attempt to advance and withdrew to their own lines. The raid by 9^th Yorkshires against German House proved more successful. Having cleared a path through the German wire the raiding party approached the German lines until, at 1.33 am, under cover of a British artillery barrage against the German support trenches, the men rushed the front line. For the next fifteen minutes the men worked through the front line trenches, meeting varying degrees of resistance, and killing around twenty Germans, before retiring under the cover of the British barrage.

Immediate casualties to the raiding party were slight, with just seven man wounded. The raids did, however, produce a sustained and ferocious response from the German artillery in retaliation, which, in turn, was met by artillery, rifle and machine-gun fire from the British lines. This barrage fell upon the British front lines but also on the communication, support and reserve trenches. Not only did this prevent the raiding party from returning to the British lines for some time, but it also resulted in one officer and three men being killed in the British trenches, with twenty others wounded.

At last, at 4am, the Battalion was ordered to stand down, and the remainder of the day passed quietly.

CQMS Henry Briley (see 25^th December 1915) produced a master-stroke of understatement in a letter home; he commented that, “New Year’s Day was spent under circumstances which did not permit of merry making”.

In the midst of the German bombardment Pte. Job Kayley (see 29^th December 1915) had written a letter home to his family which gives some sense of the situation: “I was put on guard at Headquarters … and something is going to happen in the morning. All our lot are standing to and we shall have to stop at our posts if we get our heads blown off.  I am in the Guard Room and there are two prisoners in bed, and I shall have to look after them when the boys go over the top. This room had the top blown off with shells and the Germans could send another in any minute”.

J.B. Priestley also reflected on the day in a letter written during the evening:

“We came into the trenches (an emergency call) the day before yesterday, but we are in the reserve trenches, not the firing line. I am writing this in my dugout (about two feet high and five feet long) by the miserable light of a guttering bit of candle. Soon it will go out, and then (for its only 5.30 and a wild night) come the long, long dark hours until ‘stand to’ in the morning.

Last night, old year’s night, was a nightmare evening. At 1 o’clock the troops in the front line made two bomb attacks on the German front line, and we’d to support them. For an hour it was literally hell upon earth. I had to spend most of the time crouched in the mud by the side of a machine gun. It was going nearly all the time and the noise nearly stunned me, then the sickly smell of cordite and the dense masses of steam from the water cooler didn’t improve matters. Both our artillery and theirs were going for all they were worth, and they lit up the sky. You could see some of the shells going through the air, swift, red streaks. Then an incessant stream of bullets from both sides. Bombs, trench mortars, making a hellish din, and the sky lit up with a mad medley of shells, searchlights, star lights, the green and red rockets (used for signalling purposes), just about an hour of hell, and that was our introduction to the year of 1916.

This morning I learned that we had lost about 80 men and several officers (the official casualty figures would indicate that this estimate proved to be somewhat exaggerated), so it cost us pretty dearly. I’m afraid that you would hardly recognise me if you saw me now. It is three days since I had a shave and two since I had a wash. I’m a mask of mud. My hair is matted and I resemble an Australian beachcomber”.

In the evening orders were received for the Battalion next day to relieve 9^th Yorkshires in the front line trenches.

Pte. Joseph Harry Poole (see 27^th September 1915) was transferred back to England; the exact reason for his transfer has not been established but it is most likely that he had been taken ill. 

The administrative dealings with CSM Harry Dewhirst (see 29^th December 1915) rumbled on. It was now requested that confirmation be issued as to whether, having been reported as unfit for certain duties at a Base Depot, he should be sent home to England.