Friday 23rd
October 1914: Private T. Farmer of 2nd Bedfords' transport has been wounded and
tells us that he had got a chicken from a nearby farm the previous evening and
had eaten well: "I retired with the other drivers to sleep in a house
about 8 pm, and about 10 pm a shell struck the wall and exploded in the room we
were sleeping in; 16 men including myself, out of twenty, were wounded, I was
hit in the foot and rather badly in the hip. After being carried into the road
I was left until the ambulance came along. Carts were passing all night, and I
had to keep shouting to let them know I was lying in the road, so as not to get
run over. When I was put on the ambulance, shrapnel burst all around, four
shells being fired at us. The driver's seat was blown into the cart at the side
of me, and then the horses bolted. The other man, a Bedford Ypres
where I was attended to".
We
contacted the adjutant and discovered that things have been happening. The
battalion were in reserve trenches supporting 22nd Brigade, though overnight C
Company had been ordered up to the front line to take up a position on the
right flank of the 2nd Battalion, Royal Scots Fusiliers (of 21st Brigade),
where it dug a trench. Early this morning it advanced and filled a gap which
had developed between the Royal Scots Fusiliers and the 2nd Battalion,
Yorkshire Regiment (also of 21st Brigade). The company got as far as a bend in
the road when it came under heavy rifle and machine gun fire and had to fall
back.
Later in
the day the battalion was again ordered to fill the gap. This time B Company
was despatched and, moving via the west end of Geluveld under heavy shell fire
reached the edge of a wood behind the left flank of the Yorkshires and dug in. Altogether
three men were killed during the day and a large number wounded.
Sources: Bedfordshire Times 13th November 1914; X5590/3/wd
Sources: Bedfordshire Times 13th November 1914; X5590/3/wd
No comments:
Post a Comment