14th August 1914, Belfast, Ireland
100 years ago today, Frank was busy preparing for embarkation. At 8am, on 14th August 1914, the 1st Battalion of the Dorsetshire regiment began to embark onto the SS Antony. The regimental war diary, rather tetchily, complains of a lack of cranes and horse cradles. But everything was aboard by 1:30pm and the Dorsets set sail at 3:45pm for the continent in “fine and hot weather”.
The war diary for the 1st Battalion Dorsetshire Regiment is available as a pdf from the Public Records Office. A summary of events is available in printed form as The History of the Dorsetshire Regiment 1914-1919.
I am not going to regurgitate this war diary word-for-word. I am, however, going to post a daily summary of events as it would have appeared to Frank to commemorate the centenary.
One thought to “The Dorsets set sail for war”