Tag: First World War

Tuesday 30th January, 1917

On By Sue JenkinsIn First World WarLeave a comment

Fell in at 8.00 a,m. Same as previous day. Had a good feed at night at cafe of steak, potatoes, bread and cafe’* for 1s 5½d.**

*Leonard may not have had much to do with coffee before this time; although it was generally available – and could easily be made at home – it had a reputation for being both expensive and ‘foreign’. Also, an article here suggests that there had been supply chain problems with it earlier in the war, but that the absence or presence of coffee in any food establishment was probably a good indicator of the progress of the war.

**The equivalent of about £6.50 ($8.80) in the present day, which is a modest enough price for what is essentially steak and chips and a cup of coffee.

Monday 29th January, 1917

On By Sue JenkinsIn First World WarLeave a comment

Fell in at 8.00 a.m. Had drill of various kinds until 12.30 p.m. Dinner 1.00 p.m. More drill until 3.00 p.m. Dismissed for day then had to stop in camp at night for water fatigue*.

*I have not been able to identify exactly what ‘water fatigue’ involved and I suspect that it was different at every base anyway; presumably it involved transporting water from wherever it was sourced to wherever it was needed, i.e. from a pump or standpipe to the kitchen, latrines or laundry. Alternatively it may have been pumping water for the use of the locomotives in the shunting yard. Leonard knew what he meant, anyway, and didn’t feel the need to include any further illustrative detail. And ‘stopping in camp’ doesn’t sound too bad, really; it’s hard to imagine that Audruicq had very much of a night-life to offer, even if Leonard had been the type to indulge in it!

Saturday 27th January, 1917

On By Sue JenkinsIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Heard we are stopping at Audricq for a week. Laid down several sidings for the light railway – 2 Ft. gauge. Saw two armoured trains also a German Taube**. Can hear the guns quite plainly here.

*Audruicq is a small town 11 miles south-west of Calais/16 miles from Port Boulogne, the Wikipedia entry for which is remarkably unforthcoming about its wartime activities. (It was apparently bombed by the Germans in 1916, however.) Its greatest claim to fame is that that pilot who disappeared with Roald Amundsen in 1928 was apparently born there.

**The Taube (Dove) was a type of monoplane developed in the years leading up to the war. It’s impossible to guess which of the many variants may have been involved in this particular sighting.

The following additional information is from Martin Farebrother:

British Army L[ight] R[ailway]s in France were 60cm gauge, the same as French and German military light railways. In Imperial units this is 1ft 11⅝in, but was often equated with the British industrial 2ft gauge, and was also very close to the 1ft 11½in gauge used on some Welsh lines, such as the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland Railways.

Thursday 25th January, 1917

On By Sue JenkinsIn First World WarLeave a comment

Left Folkestone 3.00pm* arrived Boulogne 4-30pm marched up hill three miles to rest camp. Had biscuits and margarine for tea. Slept in tents. Snow outside three inches thick.

*Clearly they had been sitting around at Folkestone for several hours waiting to embark.

The following additional information is from Martin Farebrother:

Extract from 1st LROC War Diary summary sheet 1, RE Museum Library:

Dated 5 September 1917 (typed)

formed Longmoor 20 Jan 1917

arrived Western Front 25 Jan 1917

CO Captain E F McCourt

Remarks: Unit has been mostly engaged in carrying up ammunition to Battery Positions, and also RE Material for use in the trenches.

Wednesday 24th January, 1917

On By Sue JenkinsIn First World WarLeave a comment

[N.B. If you missed the introduction to Leonard’s war diary, please see https://wordpress.com/post/onthetrack.home.blog/2244%5D

Left Longmoor 9.15pm arrived Folkestone 6.00am January 25th

*Longmoor Camp was at 51° 4′ 23″ N, 0° 52′ 8″ W, just off what is now the A3 Liphook-Petersfield Bypass in Hampshire. Although there was a station at Bordon, the simplest and most efficient route for moving men from Longmoor to Folkestone seems likely to have been via embarkation at Liphook on the London & South Western Railway (operated 1838 to 1922) with a change at Shalford Junction onto the South-East and Chatham Railway (operated 1899 to 1923); that is, unless wartime operational conditions/special working allowed for a train to be routed through from the LSWR to the SECR. It’s also not impossible that the men were taken by road from Longmoor to Shalford, a distance of roughly twenty miles, but this would no doubt have required vehicles when they could easily have marched the four miles into Liphook. At any rate it’s clear that the movements of large bodies of men were undertaken during the night hours for reasons of convenience; security was probably not a consideration at this stage of the war.