Wet Trenches

Second Lieutenant F A Sloan [X550/1/81]

Saturday 8th December 1917

News has reached us from the 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment. They are on the Ypres battlefield, between the Scherriabeek and the Reutelbeek, north of Geluveld, ground with which the old sweats in the battalion will be familiar, the Battalion having been blooded here in 1914.

As one can imagine, holding ground between two streams following an autumn of rain and, latterly, snow, the conditions are terrible. The snow is thawing adding to the thick, cloying mud for which Flanders has now become a byword. To make matters more miserable, a number of casualties have been inflicted by snipers today.

A new officer, Second Lieutenant F A Sloan has joined from base. Second Lieutenant L A Tansley has gone to hospital with bronchitis.

Second Lieutenant L A Tansley [X550/1/81]

Source: X550/3/WD

Sixtieth Day of the Third Battle of Ypres

 Second Lieutenant C E Compton [X550/1/81]

Friday 28th September 1917

There has been little fighting today at Ypres as lines are consolidated and guns brought up ready for the next push. Remarkably in this sodden offensive we have now had no rain to speak of for eight days in a row and the higher parts of the battlefield are beginning to present firm going.

Second Lieutenant W Pennington [X550/1/81]

The 2nd Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, has received four new subalterns today to make up for losses - Second Lieutenants L A Tansley, C E Compton, S Scutt and W Pennington. The 4th Battalion have received seven subalterns - G Theed, J W Tacchi, G W Childs, C Bornet, L A W Vincent, G M Radwell and W I Broughton. The adjutant of the 4th Battalion, currently at Oppy Wood near Arras speculated with me that the new draft might indicate a move to Ypres and participation in the offensive soon.

Second Lieutenant L A Tansley [X550/1/81]

7th Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, have also had four new subalterns, Second Lieutenants W N Brawn, R C S Ransom, F H Fox and H W Haward. The adjutant was really getting in touch to tell me that a celebration dinner is planned for tonight to commemorate the first anniversary of the capture of Thiepval and the attack on the Schwaben Redoubt(1)

Sources: X550/3/wd; X550/5/3; X550/8/1

(1) Of these fifteen new subalterns the following would not see the end of the war: George Willmot Childs, died 22nd January 1918 and buried at Rocquigny-Equancourt Road British Cemetery, Manancourt; Leslie Arthur Walter Vincent, died 31st March 1918 and buried in Cambrai East Military Cemetery; R C S Ransom, died 19th October 1917 and buried at Minty Farm Cemetery; Frank Herbert Fox died on 23rd August 1918 and is buried in Achiet-le-Grand Communal Cemetery Extension; H W Haward died 1st July 1918 and is buried in Pernois British Cemetery, Halloy-les-Pernois