Friday 6th August: In these pages we devote ourselves to the activities of our local units at the front, the Bedfordshire Regiment, the Bedfordshire Yeomanry and the East Anglian Royal Engineers. But, of course, many men from this county (around three-quarters it is reckoned) serve in other units and in other branches of the services such as the Royal Navy and the Royal Flying Corps.
Bearing this in mind it is hoped that readers will indulge a moment of private grief. Guardsman George Claude Kershaw, 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards, from West Hill, Aspley Guise was killed yesterday near Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée. We had a letter from him a few weeks ago, when newly arrived at the front which ran as follows: “We are out of the trenches for a few days’ rest. I actually saw my first tragedy the last time I was in the trenches. We had put up a porthole in the sap(1), where I was on duty as a bomber, and we had given the Germans a warm time. Of course, they had to go one better and they got round so that they could shoot up our trench. They spotted a chap who had been out here eleven months. We did what we could but the odds were against us, and, while we were getting him away they were firing at the parapet above us. The Welsh miners should see these things; they would not put a few pence above duty then(2). All we want is a fair chance against the Germans but we have to wait. The bombs which they fire are much larger than ours and come sailing through the air like sky-rockets and where they hit little remains”.
The young fellow joined the forces soon after the outbreak of hostilities, enlisting in the Grenadiers and had been at the front for some weeks, the latter part of the time being one of the bomb-throwers, and according to information conveyed it was while engaged in this dangerous work that he met his death. He was only 21 years of age.
Source: Bedfordshire Standard 30th July 1915 and 20th August 1915
(1) A sap was an extension of the trench forward into no-man’s-land made by digging forward.
(2) Welsh miners were on strike over pay and the strike was ended by an agreement
No comments:
Post a Comment