Tag: D Company

Lamp batteries

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30th January 1915

The Dorsets were relieved by the Cheshires. If the Dorsets were already in billets then there’s no explanation why they were relieved or what from exactly. A and D Company joined the battalion later at Dranouter so perhaps it was they who were relieved.

The 5th Division’s artillery busied itself by experimenting with lamp signalling. Royal Flying Corps aeroplanes would reveal the position of hidden enemy batteries using lamps back to Allied artillery. It was not very successful; there being too many variables for it to become an exact science. Wireless would prove to be the better solution, but at the moment the receivers were just too big to be of any real use.

The guns of  7th Siege Battery registered three direct hits on Messines Church tower. So much for just the Germans targeting civilian buildings.

 

A bad moon rising

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29th January 1915

The Dorsets remained in billets. A and D Company remained in the trenches. The 15th Brigade’s diary notes that they  made good progress today working on the trenches and that more wire was laid in front of them. A bright night, lit by a gibbous moon, led to “considerable sniping”.

I’ve missed a couple of things lately and so I apologise. Time is very, very limited at the moment. Firstly I missed a footnote which give us a bit more information about the fascinating Frederick Morley. I’ve added this detail as a comment to the 26th January post. Find out about his nickname and capacity for Anglo Saxon profantities.

I also missed a death yesterday and I’ll list it here to flesh out this post. Welshman Rees Harris, a former collier from Aberdare, was killed in action. There’s no record of how he met his death in the Dorsets’ diary; not even a mention, but the Norfolk’s diary entry records one death from sniping which could have been him. The only death from the Norfolks listed by CWGC for the 28th January was interred in Thame, Oxfordshire, so he presumably died of wounds at home.

Harris was attested into the 3rd Battalion Dorsets having served for 10 years in the Cardigan Royal Garrison Artillery Militia. He’d only arrived in France on the 4th December. Intriguingly he signed up with his age as 37 years and six months. The cut off for regular army was 38 and the Special Reserve was 40. He was 36 in 1911, according to the census, which made him 40 in 1915. It appears that Harris had told a little white lie to go to war. It wasn’t uncommon, but it was uncommonly brave. His mother, Martha, signed for his effects with the mark of a cross.

Stuck with the Peacemakers and the Holy Boys

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28th January 1915

Another quiet day ended with half the Dorsets going into reserve and marching to billets on the Lindenhoek-Neuve Église road at 8.30pm.

The other half of the Dorsets stayed behind in the trenches. Frank, with A Company, came under orders of the O.C. Bedfords, Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Roche, and pretty much stayed put. D Company, came under the orders of the O.C. Norfolks, Lieutenant-Colonel Herbert Done. D Company would have moved slightly north to D Sector and E1 (Trench 15d) which the 15th Brigade took over from the 3rd Division.

Humdrum day

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27th January 1915

The Dorsets enjoyed a quiet night, apart from a “burst of fire at 4am”. In the morning, some of the Bedfords came under the Dorset’s command, allowing most of D Company to move to the Battalion’s HQ, which was in a farm nearby.

II Corps O.C. Lieutenant General Sir Charles Fergusson visited the sector at 6pm, but other than that it was a fairly humdrum day spent making more improvements to the trenches.

 

Say cheese

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30th November 1914

Letters home
Captain R.E. Partridge’s Coy. Orderlies (D Company), in trenches opposite Wychaete in November, writing letters home.

This remarkable photograph, taken by Captain R.E. Partridge (our goose hunter from a month ago), shows two sergeants in D Company of the Dorsets. If the date on the photograph is right then it must have been taken between the 26th and the 30th November 1914. You can see from the clutter behind them how temporary the trenches were at this time, with tarpaulin slung over sandbags as breastworks.

It’s remarkable because personal photography was very much frowned upon by the BEF who banned cameras from Christmas 1914. Thankfully for us, this rule was flouted and there’s an interesting collection of personal photos available to look at on the Guardian website.

Conversely, the Germans encouraged photography. There was a great documentary on BBC4 a while back called Hidden Histories: WW1’s Forgotten Photographs which focussed on the photographs of Walter Kleinfeldt. They remind me of the incredible American Civil War photographs by Mathew Brady.

The Dorsets came to the conclusion that the German trenches were strongly held. Perhaps they had sent out a patrol in the night which would explain the outburst of rifle fire recorded yesterday. But no mention of this is made in the Dorsets’ dairy so perhaps they made simply an informed assumption about the enemy’s strength.

Rather abruptly, the Dorsets began to be relieved from 5.30pm by the Royal Scots Fusiliers and a Company of the Bedfords who took over part of the right hand of their line. The relief was finished by 11.30pm whereupon the battalion returned to billets in Dranoutre.