How Happy is Your New Year?

Monday 1st January 1917 from our correspondent in the field

The 1st Battalion have not been celebrating the New Year today. They have moved into the front line again at Cuinchy, north of Arras and east of Béthune. The adjutant informed me on the telephone that: “The trenches are in a very poor state owing to recent heavy rain and accommodation for men in Trenches is very poor and scanty”.

The other regular battalion of the Regiment - 2nd Battalion - is also in the front line. They are at Berles-au-Bois, some miles south-west of Arras. Second Lieutenant G A Anstee has returned to the unit from leave and fifty new men have joined from base. Second Lieutenant Anstee is celebrating the granting of a Military Cross, announced in today’s London Gazette.

Honorary Major Cressingham [X550/1/81]

The Gazette has also announced that the battalion’s commanding officer, Second Lieutenant H S Poyntz has been awarded the Distinguished Service Order, as has Captain Reggie Wynne. Meanwhile the battalion’s long-serving quartermaster, Captain H M Cressingham has been promoted to Honorary Major.

Sources: X550/2/5; X550/3/WD

Distinguished Service Order for 7th Bedfords Officer

Distinguished Service Order by Robert Prummel on Wikipedia

Saturday 3rd June 1916: Temporary Second Lieutenant Harry Driver, 7th Bedfordshire Regiment, has been awarded the Distinguished Service Order. The following is the official statement which appeared with the announcement on Wednesday. “For conspicuous gallantry on several occasions, notably when leading a successful raid on the enemy’s trenches. He forced the enemy back to their dug-outs, entered a deep dug-out and personally bombed the occupants, shot the sentry over another dug-out and, though himself wounded in two places, remained at the point of exit till every man was reported present. He was wounded a third time on his way back to our trenches”(1).

Source: Bedfordshire Times 2nd June 1916

(1) One suspects he was a man who revelled in the thrill of war. At the end of World War One he transferred to 46th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers which went to Russia to take part in the Russian Civil War against the Bolsheviks. He died on 10th August 1919 aged 32 and is buried Troitza churchyard with a memorial in Archangel Allied Cemetery. The raid took place on the night of 26th/27th April 1916.

Decorations for the 7th Battalion

Thursday 18th May 1916: The adjutant of the 7th Battalion, currently undertaking fatigues behind the line as well as training in very warm weather, tells us that Second Lieutenant Harry Driver has been awarded the Distinguished Service Order whilst Lance Sergeant Mills Cox has been awarded the Distinguished Conduct Medal and Corporal A H S Joyce and Lance Corporal Lancaster the Military Medal

Source: X550/8/1