Personal Diary: September 4th 1916

Went round the trenches with De Lisle, he was quite pleasant. Started 6am got back at 10.30Am. Bayley dined and slept. Wind still unfavourable to get rid of our gas. A little rain in the afternoon.

Personal Diary: September 2nd 1916

Went round the trenches at 5.30am with Handress Lloyd. The Strand and Fleet St very wet. Motored back to near Poperinghe with Welch at 9am to see the breaking up display at the Divn school. Lunched at the 86^th Bde Hd Qrs. Two gas alarms during the night, but no gas came our way. I certainly saw from the ramparts, when their flares went up, large clouds of what looked like smoke blowing northwards along no man’s land but it may have been from the shells. The Australians are back taking over the line again in these parts & the 4^th Divn are coming out into Corps reserve.

Personal Diary: September 1st 1916

Got the news that Roumania had come in. We may be home by Christmas now. Wind still unfavourable for our gas. The Bosch still keeps very quiet  though there was a little shelling yesterday.

Personal Diary: 31st August 1916

The 88th Bde got their gas off tonight but the wind can't have been very good as our people decided not to let it go. Went round the trenches at 5.30am with Morris, they are in a better condition than I expected after the rain. Bayley dined & slept.

Personal Diary: 30th August 1916

Rained all day with a fine drizzle, getting heavier at times, & a strong wind. Cleared up at dusk. Trenches flooded and falling in. Gas could not be let off again tonight as wind unfavourable. All four battns out clearing out drains and getting the water out of the trenches.

Personal Diary: August 29th 1916

Went round the right subsector with Welch at 5.30am, found lots of gas cylinders not properly sandbagged in. The gas was to have been let off tonight accompanied by a bombardment but the wind changes so it was off. Rain started coming down in torrents about 3pm and flooded all the trenches. A gas alarm started some miles S of us and spread all along the line about 10.30pm, we managed to stop it going further. Have not heard whether any gas was really let off. Bayley dined & slept.

The Inniskillings and Borders relieved the KOSB & SWB respectively after dark & must have got nice and wet going up.

Personal Diary:28th August 1916

The Corps and Divn commanders went round our trenches at 6am. Going (SWB) had to meet them and take them round. I was left behind to meet the army commander who turned up at 8.30am. Hunter-Weston & De Lisle both expressed themselves satisfied with the work we had done in the trenches. I got up at 5.30am and met Morris (Borders) on the canal bank at 6am, I went round their bank and the canal defences. The Army Commander (Plumer) turned up shortly after 9am and talked for about half an hour. He was very pleasant. 

Got a wire about 8pm  to say Roumania had come in. COs conference at 4.30pm to discuss work, reliefs etc. Completed carrying gas up after dark, it took all our spare men, we now have 200 cylinders in place.

Personal Diary Entry: August 27th 1916

Began carrying gas up tp our sector between Warwick Farm & the Haymarket.

Personal Diary Entry: August 21st 1916

Went round the trenches with Welch starting 5am. The recent rain had not had much effect . Met De Lisle on the way back. A deserter reported a few days ago that the Germans had still got a lot of gas cylinders in their trenches so this afternoon we knocked their trenches about for 2 hours with shells of all sizes up to 9”. They damaged ours a bit in return. We had 5 killed and 2 wounded. Bayley lunched, dined and spent the night.

Letter to Mother: August 13th 1916

My dear Mother

I am having an easy at present and have seen numbers of old friends. Percy came round and looked me up the other day. If we can keep on catching Germans and Austrians at this rate we ought to have mopped them all up in under a yea. The news all round is most satisfactory. I got a taste of German gas last week for the first time. I did not get it strong and it had no effect whatever on me.

The weather here is poisonously hot and muggy, we want some rain badly.

Tell Cecil the peas don’t travel well, they get tasteless and flowery before they arrive. They would probably do better in their pods. The melon was excellent. There is any amount of fruit and vegetables procurable here now, so it is hardly worth sending any out here, though it is jolly good of her to think of it.

I shan’t get leave for another month yet. I have really quite a lot to say, but it’s not much good when you are not allowed to.

I have lost Father’s last letter but I believe he said Raymond’s memorial would cost £80 so I enclose a cheque. If it turns out to be more please let me know.

Your loving son

Cuthbert

War Dairy Entry: August 11th 1916

Went over to lunch with Webber at the 2^nd Canadian Divn Hd qrs. He sent a car for me. On the way I called in at No10 Casualty Clearing station to see Nichols who is recovering from gas. McBrien was also lunching with Webber & Ruthuen was there too on the divn staff. After lunch I went on to the 19^th Divn. Monkhouse was away sick with sciatica, but I saw haskard. Morgan dined and we played bridge.

War Dairy Entry: August 10th 1916

Inspected all the transport lines in the evening. Welch, Raikes & Micklejohn started their inquiry on the gas attack.

War Diary Entry: August 8th 1916

More shelling during the day, particularly at a battery about 200 yards N of our hd qrs. they got direct hits on all the emplacements and dugouts but did no damage.

At 10.30pm the gas alarm was sounded, and everyone was warned. The guns opened a heavy barrage on our front. I got onto the Borders and Inniskillings and both sent in messages that though they could smell gas it was not being discharged on their front. The Inniskillings message proved to have been a mistake on the part of the signallers. On this information I stopped the guns firing on our front. Fuller & Mellor were up regulating the transport & came in to our hd qrs. After about 20 minutes we began to smell gas in Ypres so we all put our helmets on, but it never got really bad, occasionally getting thicker and then dying away. The relief of the two reserve battns went on at the prison and on the canal bank and they hardly felt its effects at all. At 12 midnight everything seemed to be over so I went to bed. The prepared blankets over all the doors and windows kept the gas out of the dugouts quite effectively.

War Diary Entry: August 7th 1916

Went around the right sub-sector with De Lisle starting at 5am. We crawled over the open to look at Mill Cot, Nickalls was with us. A big trench mortar is being dug in there. So as to give the whole show away he then insisted on the 3 of us sitting on the old windmill mound close by, with an open map between us for ten minutes, in full view of the whole German line. He was not very pleased with our trenches, but then went on to the 88^th, these appeared o annoy him more than ours, so he decided that we should be relieved tomorrow and the next day instead of the 88^th. 2 or 3 of the KOSBs were gassed during the night by gas shells whilst working on the Strand and Fleet St. Bayley stayed the night with us. Welch dined and we had some bridge. Dill looked in after tea.

War Dairy: August 2nd 1916

Our bde hd qrs are quite comfortable and fairly safe. They are in the Ypres ramparts. My dugout looks and smells like a cabin on board ship but is much bigger. It has 2 electric lights fitted in it. It has a light shaft which lets in a good deal of light. It only has one entrance so I trust it wont get blown in. The mess has a very fine tiled porch with hat racks and umbrella stands, and a glass door which has not been blown in yet, with quite a good mess room inside; it has not been knocked down yet though it requires a good many more feet of sandbags all round yet, to make it quite safe. We have one of the old cathedral bells stuck up on the ramparts just above us to give the gas alarm.

Letter to Mother (envelope mis-labelled): July 9th, 1916

My dear Mother

Please send out at once a uniform coat and trousers also a pair of breeches. The ones I want are the ones sent by Flight and Hammond after I had returned from last leave.

I can’t tell you much more about this scrap than you see in the papers, it is still going quite well down south of us. In our area it stopped on the first day. We met the main German strength, as they expected main push from us and so had everything ready. The result was that our brigade and another on the left went over the parapet and got a very unpleasant mauling, hardly anyone got through their wire. We collected a small percentage that night after dark. We came in for a good deal of heavy shelling all the remainder of the day, and there were some very nasty sights.

During the 7 days bombardment our headquarters were well underground about 1200 yds behind the firing line and we were not worried much. The noise was not very much, though we had all our biggest guns firing over us from just behind. The last evening we moved up to our deep dugout 150 yds behind our front trench. The dugout bounced about a good deal during July 1^st, but nothing was blown in, even when our mine containing 20 tons of explosive went up 500 yds away. Since then we have been holding the noisiest bit of line I have ever been in (in the same old place). An incessant stream of shrapnel, 5.9 high explosives, and gas shells bursting all round, but never exactly where we were and none of the gas reached us. It is a great strain on the men, we have just started a few days breather which ought to put them right again.

I am making inquiries about John but fancy he must be 5 or 6 miles south of us. The Germans seem to be very disorganised down there; all the prisoners seem to have had a very rotten time before they were captured. We are still pushing on satisfactorily there, though of course slowly, as we are not right through their numerous systems of trenches. I doubt we shall have enough fresh troops to push on very much further. 
I am afraid there is not much prospect of leave til August now. 
Brand is going to leave us, he has just been pushed up into a bigger job. 
I hope the two invalids are progressing satisfactorily. 
our loving son 
Cuthbert

War Diary Entry: July 18th 1916

Rained hard in the morning. W end of Englebelmer shelled for a quarter of an hour about 4am. We were to have let off gas again last night, but wind unfavourable, so we hung on till 1am when it was finally put off. The SWB were to have attempted a raid last night, they were only going to send off quite a small party; on their way up about 2.45am a big shell buried 4 of them in a communication trench, and by the time they were dug out it was too late to start. COs conference in Mailly Wood at 11am. Got back to bde hd qrs at 1pm & found De Lisle there; as there are not enough pioneers available we have got to complete a trench that has been dug about 200 yds in advance of our present line. Walked down to see Williams after tea; his hd qrs are in some canvas huts half way down the Englebelmer – Martinsart Rd.

War Dairy Entry: 3rd July 1916

It was the intention at one time to withdraw the 29^th Divn into reserve to recoup, but it has now been decided to withdraw the 31^st instead.The 4^th Divn are taking over the 29^th Divn line as far up as Broadway, & we are to hold from there to the Ancre, the 88^th Bde on the left & 87^th on the right, 86th bde in reserve in Englebelmer. 

De Lisle came up this morning and I went all along our frontline with him. On the right down by the marsh the trenches are blown about a good deal & trees are lying across them in several places, on the left they are not so bad, but all the trenches want deepening, revetting & traversing. The Germans again bombarded Thiepval Wood once or twice, & seemed to be putting in some gas shell. It is just across the Ancre above our hd qrs so we get all the benefit of the noise, but very few of the shells. All our machine guns are laid on the Bosch trenches in front of this wood. We are being left entirely alone by them at present.

War Diary Entry: 26th June 1916

Borrowed a car from the ASC and Brand went in to Amiens for an outing. A few shells were fired into Englebelmer at 7am but as no one was about no damage was done. I did not know it was going on at the bottom  of our dugouts. We are rather like rabbits in a warren sitting round the entrance to our burrow. 

We discharged our gas at 1015 am. It did not excite the Bosch as there was very little shelling. I watched the shelling most of the day, it is warming up a bit , and there are big shells going over our heads from behind at much shorter intervals all day. The 36^th Divn let off their gas between 2.30 and 3.30pm. This appeared to excite the Bosch as he was shelling their line very heavily about 4pm. I hear our 190lb trench mortars are knocking Beaumont Hamel flat, but we can’t see the village from here. 

All the german wire has been pretty well knocked about. All 3 german observation balloons in front of this army were brought down in flames yesterday by our aeroplanes.They knocked in the divn northern observation post about lunchtime, killing the telephone operator, both the officers had gone underground to lunch a few seconds before. We let off a lot of smoke along the line both morning and afternoon which brought on a little extra shelling.

War Diary Entry: 25th June 1916

The bombardment today was a good deal heavier, though by no means deafening. The 15” and 12” guns behind us did not (I think) open till the evening, and did not blow the farm down as we expected. I went out twice to watch the bombardment, there was a medium amount of smoke all along the line. About 12.15pm the Bosch put it across Collincamps (next village N of Mailly). They just kept on pumping clusters of big shells into it for ten minutes, causing a lot of smoke. Monkhouse came into tea. He has moved his headquarters up to be close to the forward batteries, with the result that the Bosch yesterday evening blew up his kitchen and cook, so he had to move house again. The Bosch is not replying much to our bombardment, everything appears to be fairly quiet in the trenches, but he opens furious squirts at intervals on batteries and villages behind. When the 4^th Divn discharged their gas last night , the Bosch opened a heavy bombardment on their firing and support line, but did not shell the trenches just behind at all.

We were to have discharged our gas tonight but wind again unfavourable.