Captain Harold Huntriss
Thursday 27th May 1915: Over the last two days Company Sergeant Major S. M. Flint and Corporal Vailes of the 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment have been industrious in an unpleasant task. Captain Harold Huntriss died on 17th May in the attack on Festubert. Corporal Vailes was the last man to see him alive and so, two days ago, he and Company Sergeant Major Flint went out to try to find the captain’s body. They were successful in this endeavour and Corporal Vailes told us that the body lay about fifty yards from where he had parted from his officer. He could only assume that Captain Huntriss managed to crawl this distance before receiving another, fatal, wound.
Yesterday Company Sergeant Major Flint and Corporal Vailes, assisted by Lieutenant Powell, recovered Captain Huntriss’ body which must, we are forced to conclude, have been in a state of some decay. They also brought in the body of Major Mackenzie VC. Everything possible is done to recover officers’ bodies.
Corporal Vailes tells us that Huntriss and Mackenzie have been buried alongside Captain William Hutton Williams of the East Surrey Regiment, who was attached to the 2nd Bedfords and who fell the day after Captain Huntriss and Major Mackenzie. The recovery party has even highlighted the spot so that the graves do not get lost: “On dividing line between map references S.26.d. and A.2.b. under the letter U of FESTUBERT in the order Captain Williams on right or North, Major Mackenzie in the centre and Captain Huntriss on the left, facing the crosses”(1)
Source: X550/3/wd
(1) All three men now lie at rest in The Guards Cemetery, Windy Corner at Cuinchy. Happily Lieutenant Powell, Company Sergeant Major Flint and Colonel Vailes all seem to have survived the war.
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