Practice for a Winter Campaign?

Wednesday 29th November 1916 From our Correspondent in the Field

The 1st/5th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment are in Egypt holding the Suez Canal and patrolling eastwards in the Sinai Desert.  At the moment they are practising firing Lewis guns and throwing live grenades. The commanding officer and the adjutant are engaged in a thirty mile ride around all the various outposts held by the Battalion.

Source: X550/6/8

1st/5th Bedfords in the Sinai Desert

Wednesday 22nd November 1916 From our Correspondent in the Field

I have received a communication from 1st/5th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment. Readers will remember hat this battalion isn part of 54th (East Anglian) Division, which took part in the fighting in Gallipoli in the latter part of 1915 and has been, since January this year, in Egypt.

Whilst the storm on the Somme had thundered and raged the situation in Egypt has been calm by comparison. The main problem for the men stationed there has been the heat, the flies and the scorpions which, we understand, make a hobby of hiding in men’s boots when they have been removed and lie in wait to deliver their venomous sting to the unthinking man putting his boots on without checking.

Given the harsh desert conditions around the Suez Canal and in Sinai the Medical Officer plans examinations for all ranks. This will weed out those unfit for active service which, in the cooler winter months, is more likely than in the heat of the Egyptian summer.

Source: X550/6/8

Day Sixty Four on the Somme

Saturday 2nd September 1916 From our Correspondent in the Field

The 1st Battalion remain in Silesia Trenches, just north of Maricourt, though it is finding working parties digging assembly trenches in the front line ready for the next great attack. Silesia Trenches have been receiving occasional attention from the enemy, one shell this evening wounding nine men of B Company in their trench. The adjutant remarked to me that this particular shell was “of a peculiar type. It burst on the parapet in a reddish light and formed no crater”.

At noon today 24th Division again took up the fight east of Delville Wood. This area is so pockmarked with shell holes as to resemble parts of the Moon visible through a telescope. The fighting was effectively shell-hole to shell-hole and the division were unable to push the enemy back from the eastern edge of the wood.

Over the last two days a curious little incident has been going on in far-off Egypt. The adjutant wired it to our staff due to its unusual nature. A local Bedford man named Ashpole has been in hospital suffering from some unspecified ailment. At five o’clock yesterday afternoon he escaped from hospital and swam across the Suez Canal “evidently quite insane”. He was recaptured in the early hours of this morning and once more sent to hospital, this time under guard, for his own safety.

Sources: X550/2/5; X550/6/8.

The Prince of Wales Visits the Troops

HRH Prince of Wales from the British Library

Monday 24th April 1916: The adjutant of the 1st/5th Battalion, currently at Shalufa, on the east bank of the Suez Canal tells us that their corps commander, Lieutenant-General Sir Francis Davies of IX Corps is to visit today. He is accompanying a special visitor – HRH the Prince of Wales(1)

Source: X550/6/8

(1) Later, briefly, Edward VIII.

Patrolling

Monday 10th April 1916: The 1st/5th Battalion, just east of the Suez Canal at Shalufa, some fifteen miles north of Suez,  have begun to implement patrols to try to detect any movement towards them by the Turks. Today a column of four officers and one hundred other ranks will go as far east as Bi’r al Jidy. Following the Turkish attacks on the canal last year the enemy retains outposts in Sinai and could, at any time, use them as forward staging areas for any repeat attacks.

Source: X550/6/8

Bathing in the Canal

Saturday 8th April 1916: The Suez Canal is not renowned as the cleanest stretch of water in the World. So it is a measure of the dirty condition of the soldiers and of the intense heat that bathing in it should have been so enjoyed yesterday by the men of the 1st/5th Battalion.

They have also set up a line of outposts 1,000 yards in front of the camp. This is to protect against any raids on this strategically vital waterway by the Turks.

Source: X550/6/8

1st/5th Bedfords Reach Their New Camp

Friday 7th April 1916: yesterday the 1st/5th Bedfords’ train arrived at Shalufa at the southern end of the Great Bitter Lake, fifteen miles north of Suez, which forms part of the Suez Canal. The men were given tea and their baggage transported across the canal. The battalion then went to their camp, half a mile east of the canal. There they pitched tents and manhandled the baggage from the canal to the camp. In the coming weeks they will be patrolling into the Sinai desert to detect any Turkish thrust towards the canal, such as those which took place last year.

Source: X550/6/8

1st/5th Bedfords Leave Cairo

Thursday 6th April 1916: At 2 pm yesterday afternoon the 1st/5th Battalion left their camp in Cairo, marching 11½ miles to Abu el Ela station, which they reached three and a half hours later. They were then given tea and entrained, the train leaving for the Suez Canal at 7.50 yesterday evening.

Source: X550/6/8

1st/5th Bedfords Bound for Egypt

Lemnos (from The History of the Fifth Battalion, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire regiment (TA)) 

Sunday 12th December 1915: The adjutant of the 1st/5th Bedfords, currently at Portianou on Lemnos, tells us that orders have been received to embark with the rest of 54th (East Anglian) Division for Alexandria. It looks as if they will be continuing their fight against the Turk in Egypt rather than on Turkish home soil. The Turks hold positions in Palestine which threaten Egypt and with it the Suez Canal, the essential link between this country and our possessions in India and the Orient and so the country must be well garrisoned and defended. 

Source: X550/6/8