War Diary Entries
July to September 1917

 

Sunday July 1st 1917

As usual. My photographs should be ready today. I hope so for I want to send them off before next Wednesday. I want to be able to get an ordinary green envelope off to my darling by then. After Wednesday I cannot say whether I shall have time to write or whether if I write they will be posted. It will take a week or more to reach the coast from here by road.

Monday July 2nd

Ordinary routine. Things are getting busy for the move now. I was busy with one thing or another last night so all my hopes for writing a nice long letter to my girlie we squashed. I had to write a very hurried one instead. I must get a long one to her before Wednesday if possible. I have not looked so well this last week although I have felt quite alright – many fellows have remarked to me that I was looking very bad and I was for I have remarked it myself through the glass.

Tuesday July 3rd

As usual. Packed up for moving.

Wednesday July 4th

8.30 A Battery and part F moved. I was attached to E – arrived further side of Merville 12.30pm. Stony again, borrowed 3 francs Dick Hughes, 2 francs Cpe Burgess.

Thursday July 5th

2am called out of bed for left section arriving 5am. Out a second time for centre section arrival. Slept till 9am – not worked in office now Cpe Chadwick down.

Friday July 6th

Just as usual. Exercise afternoon. Sports at Merville. Our Battery as usual too late to enter. A letter from my girlie and one from Jack (presumably J. Bunting) and Rily (?). I wonder if Mabel will understand that I am no the march and cannot write. Night went through Merville Wood.

Saturday July 7th

Usual. Orders day today. We go tomorrow morning. At night had short walk through Merville Wood. Wild strawberries. Then to bed.

Sunday July 8th

1am Reveille. My horse taken off me, given to Wilkinson , had to march off 4am amidst extraordinary thunderstorm. In ten minutes was soaked through. Marched to Haszebrouck arriving 10am – feet rather sore. 11am Bed. 2pm Stew. No other meal until the following morning.

At night had to chop straw for two horses because I took overcoat off without permission. My feelings at the end of this day cannot be put into words. I have never been in a similar state. I have now not any hope of money and have none at present. My equipment has very nearly cut through my shoulder, am weary in body and absolutely weary of this life.

Monday July 9th

Reveille 1.30 – had to walk again today after having stood for an hour with equipment on. My feet are beginning to blister up. At times I was able to snatch a few minutes ride on the gun. This place is a little village a few miles past Ecke – feet very sore – had to wait on road 1.5 hours while Battery in our billets left – nothing but biscuits.

Tuesday July 10th

Off again. 10am landed at Wormhoudt – rather good billets here but still biscuits etc. The roads in this part of the country are extraordinary straight ad lined on both sides with trees. The wood outside our billet was easily 3 miles long and was lined on one side with motor buses. No cigarettes now – oh this is a fine life.

Wednesday July 11th

Reveille (1am). Moved away 3am. Arrived after a very long journey 927 miles) Le Mowes (north of Dunkirque) – full if spies – our guns photograph taken almost on arrival – all French and Belgium troops here. Very many aircraft – no drinking water. Breakfast bread – almost forgotten the taste of it. I have had a letter from my girlie but cannot answer them yet as (well it has been nothing but travelling from 3am to 10am. 10am to 6pm grooming and harness. 6pm to 1am cleaning up sh…..g (?) etc, add jobs for oneself and sleep the rest. At night ones life is broken – 7pm fee, 8pm feed, after that you are free. We were supposed to have stopped here but we had fresh orders to move up the line in the morning.

Thursday July 12th

Battery moved at 4am. Dismounted men including myself follow Wednesday in motor wagon 8am. It was a case of hanging on with your teeth in these things and they were crammed full. Passed Adenkirque – through Furness – terrible amount of shelling here. Through Furness and then Lt Ross who was in charge of Brigade wagon missed his way and took us through Wulpen which is battered to the ground and in full view of German observation balloons. They found us and started shelling – hasty retreat the way we came and eventually found our Battery and subsequently our wagon line. This was a field where the whole Brigade is also . The nearest village is a place called Coxyde. Sand dunes on our left flank and open ground on our right. Not allowed to sleep out of the field – slept on grass with an upside down V shaped covering. Very much all activity here and it will be very lucky if we do not get shelled out of here before long.

Friday July 13th

My place in the office has been taken by a little scheeming I surmise – but I shall not let it worry me. It is much healthier for me to be continually outside than boxed up all day. I was beginning to look a bit pasty faced as our guns went into action tonight. Had a cold shower under a pump. First bath for a month.

Saturday July 14th

Capt Caw is in charge of wagon line – great favourite with everyone. Tonight I went up to Battery position – lead of Firing Battery with 7 more wagons and 3 guns. The danger zone up here is a terrible place. It was really the first time I had been under shell fire but our own guns were firing continuously. We were also at gas alert. It was a most interesting but yet very dangerous experience. Fuze head and lump of shell dropped extraordinary close, within 5 yards. 6 shells came over in less than 30 seconds in very close proximity but luckily all were duds.

Sunday July 15th

All today the scene I saw last night has been drawing me. I want to see it again yet I know also that as soon as I go up there I will long to be back again.

Monday July 16th

Very much all activity – on picquet.

Tuesday July 17th

3am – Boche aeroplanes over – 10 bombs dropped – lasted about 2 hours. Tonight up to position again with ammo. It seems funny to do such a thing but tonight I told one of the fellows that should I not come back would he post a letter that I had left under my pillow. One has to do this although it seems so ridiculous – Anyway I got safe back again. It was very quiet except for our own firing.

Wednesday July 18th

Ammunition now goes up on barges along the canal which runs fairly close to our position. A fatigue party goes up each night to unload the barge and cart it to the position. They generally work to about 6am. It is awkward here for writing but one gets it down somehow. Kicked on the ankle.

Thursday July 19th

Today is like a Winter’s day. I am limping as ankle swelled. On orderly. Rumours of leaving for a fresh position soon – rumoured the sand dunes. I shall be glad if we do go for it is like being locked up in a field all day here. No one is allowed out – only the canteen to buy biscuits or chocolate and they are more often than not sold out.
D. Sub gun which was lent to another Battery was blown up.

Friday July 20th

Reveille 4am. Moved off field 9am. Rode Hodson. Arrived Coxyde Bains, 5 mins off sea. Went in office again. Guns moved to new position (but in same salient). This is a champion wagon line on sand dunes (The Houge). Gun position very hot.

Saturday July 21st

Ordinary routine. Ammo goes up on 60 cm(?) railway. Only loaders needed. In front of us 4 big guns, 12 inch and aircraft guns (2). Tonight went with Drinkwater and Eyne to bath in sea. There is a certain feeling of satisfaction to look across the sea and know that Blighty is only 30 to 40 miles away. Bags of troops here, Australian, New Zealanders. Boche aeroplanes continuously.

Sunday July 22nd

Ordinary Day. Shelling all day in front of us. Ballastile(?) dump blown up at Coxyde. Clothing inspection. Went for bathe with Drinkwater. Insect bite right on eye – swollen.

Monday July 23rd

Ordinary day. Shelled Coxyde by dump. Sent to gun line to do ?. These two days I cannot write anything about. I Can remember everything so well. Roffey wounded. Charlie Kirkham badly wounded (died later).

I have never been able to write much for long after my experience at the gun line. Ones life is in someone else’s hands there altogether. Since coming back to wagon line Coxyde Bains has been shelled intermittently and every night air raids. One morning a Boche plane came over rather too close and was brought down – both dying – he was only 100ft above us. Soon after that incident they seemed to find us and shells came closer than usual.

Now follows another gap in my diary until August 12th

On Sunday 12th rather too close – 40 mules of the 23rd killed and wounded.

Saturday August 11th

Ordinary day. Wrote letters to my girlie and enclosed some old letters of hers. This is my only way of saving them. I wonder I did not think of it earlier.

Sunday August 12th

12 midnight around the wagon line was shelled till 6am. Moved backwards near to La Panne. Much more convenient here. Sand hills all around. Brought dogs(?) along. La Panne is a fashionable place. Big Belgium hospital. Crammed full of troops. Cannot tell there is a war on. Music in all the hotels.

Monday August 13th

Brigade Office (La Panne). Mother’s letter today. She is not happy because of Edith’s departure. Photo of Bill’s son and letter from Bill today. Built fresh bivouac higher, built dog kennel for Roy and Ben.

Roy and Ben were two stray dogs that came to the wagon line and stayed with us for a time. I befriended them and fed them with some rations.

Tuesday August 14th

Went to La Panne to look for Division (Field Cashier). Brigade office twice, called YMCA, saw Queen of Belgiums among wounded Belgiums.

From here I am not continuing to put everything in days. Ordinary work I am not mentioning. Just unusual things.

Ben my dog has deserted me. I am rather glad it went of its own accord for I could not have sent it off myself and yet I had to give it half of what I had and as I was ? money at that time (in fact I am now – I couldn’t buy biscuits; so good luck to it, it was a knowing dog).

Now follows a space of time taking me to Monday August 20th

Monday August 20th

I have expected a letter these last two days both from home and my sweetheart
1) From 31 to know if she has received my old letters.
2) From home to know if my mother has received the remittance £1 I made to he a fortnight ago.

Tuesday August 21st

Boche up 10am, fuze head dropped near.

Another space of time elapses before my next entry and this entry reveals to a large extent why I have not been receiving regular letters from Mabel.

Autumn 1917

Monday 3rd September

Letter from Mabel. I can see she wants to write to Rob (Ainsworth). I do not absolutely want her not to but I take into account her own words, that is a friend in time, gradually comes to the point which something more than a friendship. Anyway I am saying anything is best left alone. I don’t want more misunderstandings.

Girl Trouble

At this stage I would refer the reader to Phase 3 Wednesday November 15th. From the reading of this entry it will be seen that Mabel’s strong ideas regarding friendship with others at the same time as having a sweetheart have been completely reversed in the above entry 3rd September. The reader may well imagine how staggered I was to know that she was writing to Rob Ainsworth. From memory I had sensed that she had been doing from some time. I have nothing to substantiate this memory for all the letters I had ever received from her were sent back to her for safe keeping. The entry above indicates quite clearly that she had stated in her letter that she want to write to Rob. I could do nothing about it so because I really loved her I wrote and acquiesced. There is no doubt in my mind now that from this date her feeling for me gradually waned. It may be that at this stage I had been able to talk to her personally my tormented mind might have been put to rest for the rest of my sojourn at the front. Actually I was not enabled to see her for another 12 months and when I did I realized only too well that it was all off between us and that se had transferred her affection to Rob (whom she eventually married). I shall be referring later in this story to my next and last meeting with her.

Wednesday September 5th

At night a concert C & B Brigades. Canteen profits provided beer, chocolate, cigarette and sandwiches. Went on during darkness, searchlights after Boche plane dropped bombs on road and in Japan(?)

Thursday September 16th

Afternoon divisional band played

Saturday September 8th

At night about 9.30 Boche shelled surrounding districts to 200 yards, every 15mins till past midnight.

Sunday September 9th

Boche over shelling every night now common.

When Boche planes were approaching the drone of their engines could be heard, getting louder and louder. But as soon as the searchlights pointed out any one of the planes, the pilot would unloose all his bombs and make off to his own lines.
I remember on one of these occasions a bomb being dropped between two horses tethered about 25 feet apart and there was no damage to the horses.

Wednesday September 12th

Captain Bell has done it on me, put on signalling course at DAC. B Eck(?) – Fritz shells here tres bon(?). Letter from Mabel. She has Rob on the brain. I don’t like it at all. I don’t want to hear his name again from her and what’s more I don’t want any doubts on my part. I lover her and want her so very much. This signalling course has put the top hat on things. I shall be up on the line before I know where I am and then I suppose I will be either a Blighty or up in the air. I would as soon as have the latter than loose Mabel’s love. It’s time things were finished. I thought they were last night when Fritz sent his tram? cans? over just behind us.

 

Tuesday September 25th

Letters from Mabel. She thinks a terrible lot of Rob. I will wait and see. She may be happier in writing to him. Her letter was rather a great blow to me. She has absolutely put me to shame and only right of her for I deserved it, I know I do, anyway she intends to go against that principle of hers concerning male friends. I am this and that to her but from her letter Rob seems quite a lot to her. I will wait. The last words of her letter, as much as to say, be careful how I play with her love for me. This I think was decidedly uncalled for, if she could think that of me then I am not worth loving at all. If she were to leave me know I should be glad of Fritz’s shells coming over. Without her …………. would be my next ambition.

From the contents of the above entry it is evident that Mabel was seeking adequate reason to jilt me. I was however so very much in love with her that I could not really bring myself to believe this. In my letter to her of this time I must have continued to express my love for her in no uncertain terms but in the same letters I must have resented the reversal of her principals. To gain her ends she wanted me to be the cause of a break in our relationship; so that any blame could be laid on me for any future action of hers.
It is strange that in another part of my war diary (whenever I entered extracts from books and magazines that I was reading) I made a copy of an extract from “A Knight on Wheels” by Ian Hay. It was as follows

Belgium
September 23rd 1917

“that women are the disturbing and distracting force in Nature. They stray deliberately out of their own appointed sphere in order to interfere with and weaken the driving-force of the world, Man. They are a parrysitic growth, sapping the life out of the strongest tree. They are subject to no standard laws, and therefore upset the natural balance of Creation. They act from reason and not instinct - no, I think it is the other way round, they act from instinct and not from reason. They have no breadth of view or sense of proportion. They argue from the particular to the general; and in all argument they habitually beg the question and shift their ground if worsted. They cannot organise or direct; they only scheme and plot. Their own overpowering instinct is the Presbyterian instinct, the instinct of plunder, to obtain from Man the wherewithal to deck their own persons with extravagant and insanitary finery. This they do, not to gratify man, but to mortify one another. A man who would perform his life’s work untrammelled, must avoid women at all costs”.
(Dan Hay from “A Knight on Wheels”)

 

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