1917, APRIL 30th – RELIEF BY 2/4th ROYAL BERKSHIRE REGIMENT COMPLETE 1.00 AM

Dug Outs in Attilly (near Holnon),
2 May 1917
Rose, Geoffrey K (MC)
A view along a railway track, which runs through a narrow man-made valley bordered by steep earth banks. British soldiers are gathered along the left bank, with men sitting on the ground amongst equipment and stacked rifles.

From The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, by Captain G. K. Rose M.C. (Oxford: B.H. Blackwell, 1920)

Though chased a little on the way by shells, the Battalion had an easy march to Holnon Wood, in which a pleasant resting place was found. The trees and undergrowth, just bursting into green, presented happy contrast to the dust and danger of Fayet.

In the sandy railway cutting, where the single line turns through the wood to reach Attilly, companies sat during the day and slept secure at night. Transport and cookers were near, and for a spell one was on terms of friendship with the world

War Diary of the 2/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment

1917-04-29

Regiment. 2/4th Royal Berkshire


Location France, Bois d’holnom


Entry [This entry covers 29th/30th April 1917] The Battn relieved the 2/4 OXFORDS in the front line on night 29th/30th, relief complete by 1am 30th.

1917, APRIL 29th – RAID BY B COMPANY ON CEPY FARM BEFORE A RELIEF BY THE 2/4th ROYAL BERKSHIRE REGIMENT

By G. K. Rose

Relieved by the 2/4th R. Berks, and marched to reserve billets. Cepy Farm was entered by a strong patrol of our B Company/and had one or two encounters with the enemy, leaving some killed, and obtaining an identification. Two men wounded.

ORDER NO 70. April 29th 1917 (2/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment)

1.The Battalion will relieve the 2/4 OXFORDS in the Front Line on night 29/30th as under :-

“A” Coy 2/4 BERKS relieve “A” Coy 2/4 OXFORDS.

“B” Coy “C” Coy

“D” Coy do “B”

“C” Coy do “D”

Guide per platoon and one for HQ will be at the gap in the wire about S.3.b.8.3 at 9.0 pm. Companies will march by platoons at 200 yards distance. A. B. C. D. Coys, Hdqrs.

2.BAGGAGE :- Officers valises and mens packs will be dumped at Coy HQ by 4.0 pm. for collection by Transport. Mess boxes will be dumped at Coy HQ by 7.30 pm.

3.1 Representative per Coy and HQ will go up in the afternoon and take over Stores (except SOS Grenades).

4.The spare Lewis guns with Companies will be carried forward and utilised in the Posts.

5.Trench Shelters and Stores (except SOS Grenades) will be handed over to 2/1 BUCKS and receipts obtained. Receipts will be made out in triplicate for all Stores (except SOS Grenades) taken over from 2/4 OXFORDS and sent to Bn HQ by 6.00 am. 30th inst.

6.Rations for 30th will be carried on the man. Companies will carry their own Petrol cans (filled) for 30th.

7.Code for Completion of Relief :- “HANKEY PANKY”.

From The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, by Captain G. K. Rose M.C. (Oxford: B.H. Blackwell, 1920)

At night another minor operation preceded the relief. Orders were given for B Company, which held the right of the Battalion’s line, to seize the much-disputed Cepy Farm and hand it over to the incoming Berks. Moberly, who had recently rejoined his old Battalion, was in command of this enterprise. The farm was reached and duly occupied, but when the time for handing over to the Berks arrived our post was driven out by a strong party of the enemy. This was the first of many similar encounters at Cepy Farm. Luckily it did not long prejudice the relief. Though chased a little on the way by shells, the Battalion had an easy march to Holnon Wood, in which a pleasant resting place was found. The trees and undergrowth, just bursting into green, presented happy contrast to the dust and danger of Fayet.

War Diary of the 2/4^th Royal Berkshire Regiment

1917-04-29
Regiment. 2/4th Royal Berkshire
Location France, Bois d’holnon
Entry [This entry covers 29th/30th April 1917] The Battn relieved the 2/4 OXFORDS in the front line on night 29th/30th, relief complete by 1am 30th. A Coy (Capt Willenk) on right. B Coy (Capt Allen) right centre. C Coy (Capt Whitaker) left centre and D Coy (Capt Field) left. Patrols were sent out during night. A patrol under 2Lieut Hinchcliffe A Coy went out to ascertain if CEPY FARM was held by the enemy. It had been shelled by our guns and reported clear but subsequently the patrol reporting this was[driven] in. The guns were again put on, previous to 2Lt Hinchliffe’s patrol, on cessation of the guns his patrol pushed forward to FARM although fired on from the buildings and ascertained that enemy still held it in strength 12 men were seen to enter. 2 Lieut Hinchcliffe again went out on morning of 30th at 7am to reconnoitre FARM and report. He reported no movement at all observed nor was anything heard. The day was little below normal – the enemy’s artillery being not so active with the shelling of posts. At 9.30pm a party of 50 OR of A Coy under Capt Willink together with 2nd Lieut Hinchcliffe, 2Lieut Watson, 5 Lewis guns and 2 Vickers Guns carried out a small operation against the enemy in CEPY FARM. The object of the operation being to drive out the enemy should he be in occupation, and also to prevent him establishing himself there and ultimately creating a strong post there against us. At 9.30pm the guns opened on the FARM with 3 guns putting small barrage behind the FARM in the valley E of it. Directly this concentration on the FARM ceased (which was 10 minutes) the party advanced into the FARM. It was reported at 10.50pm that the enemy fled directly we appeared and relived to trenches on N and E of the FARM. The FARM was thoroughly searched and cellars bombed but no sign of the enemy found there or identification. The party then withdrew leaving a standing patrol of 1 Sgt and 10 men. When the party that had been withdrawn reached our line again, the enemy immediately approached the FARM to the extent of about 50 men. The standing patrol seeing their position made a fight of it but were forced to relive to a position underway between FARM and the Outpost line. Two strong listening posts were then pushed out to prevent the enemy establishing in strength in the FARM or in the valley, E of it. At 4.30am on 1st May Sgt Denton and his 10 men worked forward to the FARM again and reported no sign of the enemy neither was there any noise or movement. Casualties 1 OR killed, 1 OR wounded, 1 OR Shell Shock, 1 OR wounded at duty.

1917, JUNE 9th – RELIEVED FROM THE FRONT LINE TRENCHES SOUTH EAST OF MONCHY-LE-PREUX

The Battalion, less C Company, was relieved, and returned to reserve-line trenches

KILLED IN ACTION JUNE 9th 1917

201275 Private Arthur James Hobbs

1917, JUNE 6th – RELIEVED THE 2/4th ROYAL BERKSHIRE REGIMENT IN THE FRONT LINE TRENCHES SOUTH EAST OF MONCHY-LE-PREUX

The outskirts of Monchy-le-Preux, 30th May 1917. (Captured 11th April 1917, by 37th Division).Relieved 2/4th R. Berks in the front-line trenches (Monchy); A Company, left front; C, right front; B and D, in support; 3 men wounded.

Relieved 2/4th R. Berks in the front-line trenches (Monchy); A Company, left front; C, right front; B and D, in support; 3 men wounded.

From The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry by Captain G. K. Rose M.C. (Oxford: B.H. Blackwell, 1920)

To prepare for an attack on Infantry Hill, a position held by the enemy south-east of Monchy-le-Preux, the 2/4th Oxfords went into the front line on June 6. Orders were received to advance across No-Man’s-Land and link up a line of shell-holes as a ‘jumping-off place’ for the subsequent attack. A Company successfully accomplished the task, and the Battalion earned a message of thanks from the Division which a few days afterwards made the designed attack.

Apart from this achievement, the confused network of old and new trenches occupied during this period offered few features of special interest. C and A Companies and part of D were in the front line, which ran through chalk and was unsavoury by reason of the dead Germans lying all about. The enemy’s fire was of that harassing kind which began now to mark the conduct of the war. In the old days conventional targets such as roads, trenches, and villages within a mile or two of our front were generally shelled at times which could be guessed and when such places could be avoided. These methods changed. Wherever Infantry or transport were bound to go at special times during the night, the German shells, reserved by day, were fired. Roads, tracks, and approaches, where in daylight English nursemaids could almost have wheeled perambulators with confidence, by night became hated avenues of danger for our Infantrymen moving up the line or ration-carrying to their forward companies. The fire to which they went exposed was the enemy’s ‘harassing fire,’ and we, in our turn, very naturally ‘harassed’ the Germans. At this time a crater on the Arras-Cambrai road which must needs be passed and a shallow trench leading therefrom, known as Gordon Alley, were the most evil spots. Monchy, the hill-village which had cost us so many lives to capture, was heavily shelled by German howitzers both day and night; below its slopes lay several derelict tanks. Our gun positions, in proportion to the new increase in counter-battery work, were also often shelled.

War Diary of the 2/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment

1917-06-06
Regiment. 2/4th Royal Berkshire
Location France, Trenches
Entry [In trenches at MONCHY LE PREUX] The Battalion was relieved in the front line by the 2/4th Oxfords on the night of 6/7th and companies marched independently to Reserve Trenches in the WANCOURT-FEUCHY line. 2 OR killed, 1 OR wounded, 1 OR shell shock.

1916, AUGUST 21st – RELIEVED THE 2/4th ROYAL BERKSHIRE REGIMENT IN THE FANQUISSART SECTOR

Laventie, Showing The Fauquissart Sector 1916
From the The Story of the 2/5th Gloucestershire Regiment 1914-1918, by A. F. Barnes, M.C.

Killed in Action 21st August 1916

1538 Private James Henry Light

War Diary of the 2/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment

1916-08-21

Regiment. 2/4th Royal Berkshire

Location France, Fauquissart

Entry Relieved by 2/4 OXFORD and BUCKS LI. Relief complete at 6pm. Marched into old Billets at LAVENTIE.

1916, SEPTEMBER 19th – RELIEVED FROM THE LEFT SUB-SECTION OF THE MOATED GRANGE SECTOR BY the 2/4th ROYAL BERKSHIRE REGIMENT

Laventie, Showing The Fauquissart Sector 1916
From the The Story of the 2/5th Gloucestershire Regiment 1914-1918, by A. F. Barnes, M.C.

 War Diary of the 2/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment

1916-09-19

Regiment. 2/4th Royal Berkshire
Location France, Riez Bailleul
Entry Battn relieved 2/4 OXFORD and BUCKS LI on Left Sub Section of MOATED GRANGE Sector – 2/7 ROYAL WARWICKS on our Left (183rd Bde) (casualties 2 OR wounded).

1916, NOVEMBER 30th – RELIEF BY THE 2/4th GLOUCESTERS FROM REGINA TRENCH

 

From The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, by Captain G. K. Rose M.C. (Oxford: B.H. Blackwell, 1920)

On the night of November 30th the Battalion was relieved by the 2/4th Gloucesters.

1916, NOVEMBER 26th – DRENCHED WHILE RELIEVING THE 2/4th ROYAL BERKSHIRE REGIMENT

From The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, by Captain G. K. Rose M.C. (Oxford: B.H. Blackwell, 1920)

The next night (26th / 27th) the Battalion moved up to relieve the Berks, but was conducted, or conducted itself, along the very communication trench which I had studiously avoided using and which was in a shocking state from water and mud. As the result of the journey, D Company reached the front line practically wet-through to a man, and in a very exhausted condition. A proportion of their impedimenta had become future salvage on the way up, while several men and, I fancy, some officers, had compromised themselves for some hours with the mud, which exacted their gumboots as the price of their future progress. I regret that my own faithful servant, Longford, was as exhausted as anybody and suffered a nasty fall at the very gates of paradise (an hyperbole I use to justify the end of such a mud journey), namely Company Headquarters in Regina, where, like a sort of host, I had been waiting long.

Desire Trench, the name by which the front line was known, was a shallow disconnected trough upholstered in mud and possessing four or five unfinished dug-out shafts. These shafts, as was natural, faced the wrong way, but provided all the front line shelter in this sector. At one end, its left, the trench ran into chalk (as well as some chalk and plenty of mud into it!) and its flank disappeared, by a military conjuring trick, into the air. About 600 yards away the Germans were supposed to be consolidating, which meant that they were feverishly scraping, digging and fitting timbers in their next lot of dug-outs. To get below earth was their first consideration.

Regina dug-out deserves a paragraph to itself. This unsavoury residence housed two platoons of D Company, Company Headquarters, and Stobie, our doctor, with the Regimental Aid Post. In construction the dug-out, which indeed was typical of many, was a corridor with wings opening off, about 40 feet deep and some 30 yards long, with 4 entrances, on each of which stood double sentries day and night. Garbage and all the putrefying matter which had accumulated underfoot during German occupation and which it did not repay to disturb for fear of a worse thing, rendered vile the atmosphere within. Old German socks and shirts, used and half-used beer bottles, sacks of sprouting and rotting onions, vied with mud to cover the floor. A suspicion of other remains was not absent. The four shafts provided a species of ventilation, reminiscent of that encountered in London Tubes, but perpetual smoking, the fumes from the paraffin lamps that did duty for insufficient candles, and our mere breathing more than counterbalanced even the draughts and combined impressions, fit background for post-war nightmares, that time will hardly efface. Regina Trench itself, being on a forward slope and exposed to full view from Loupart Wood, was shelled almost continuously by day and also frequently at night. ‘Out and away,’ ‘In and down’ became mottoes for runners and all who inhabited the dug-out or were obliged to make repeated visits to it. Below, one was immune under 40 feet of chalk, and except when an entrance was hit the 5.9s rained down harmlessly and without comment.

War Diary of the 2/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment

1916-11-26
Regiment. 2/4th Royal Berkshire
Location France, Trenches
Entry Normal artillery activity on both sides. Casualties 3 OR killed, 2/Lt DANIELLS and 4 OR wounded. Relieved by 2/4 OXFORDS.

1916, AUGUST 15th – RELIEVED BY THE 2/4th ROYAL BERKSHIRE REGIMENT FROM THE TRENCHES AT FAUQUISSART

Laventie, Showing The Fauquissart Sector 1916

After the Relief moved to Laventie.

War Diary of the 2/4th Royal Berkshire Regiment

1916-08-15
 Regiment.

2/4th Royal Berkshire

Location France, Laventie

Entry Took over Left Sub Section of FAUQUISSART Sector of Trenches from 2/4 OXFORD and BUCK LI. Relief completed 6pm. 2/5th GLOSTERS on our Right. AUSTRALIANS on our Left.

Relieved by the 2/5th Gloucestershire Regiment, 29th September 1918

Story of the 2/5th Battalion the Gloucester Regiment 1914-1918
ed by A.F.Barnes
ISBN: 9781843427582
Format: 2003 N&M Press reprint (original pub 1930) 192pp with 39 b/w photos and 12 maps.

29th September 1918.
“On the night of the 29th the Battalion relieved the Oxfords, who were holding a line of posts more or less on the forming-up line and to do so proceeded through Estaires and up the same road traversed by the troops on the way up to the attack of July 19th, 1916.”

Street through Estaires 1918

Church Interior of Estaires 1918