Yearly Archives: 2016

7 September 1916; Thursday

September 1916, , ,

Up at 6.30. Went to the C.C.S. and had tooth stopped. Fine day. Called at Y.M. in Bailleul and looked at some papers. Went over to the house at the top of the village with Duggins and had some supper. Running short of cash and Wood had to dig us out.

Heard that the Zeppelin1 was brought down by an airman named Robinson23 who had been presented with the V.C.

  1. “Zeppelin”: Continuing the story begun in the previous day’s diary entry. ↩

  2. Lt. William Leefe Robinson of the Royal Flying Corps (as it still was) was the first British pilot to shoot down a German airship over Britain during the First World War and was indeed given the V.C. for this act. He was himself shot down in 1917 in France by one of the Red Baron group, and was thought dead for around 2 months until a letter arrived from him at a PoW camp. He was repatriated in 1918 but died of influenza on 31 December 1918. ↩

  3. A similar incident is recorded on 7 June 1915 when Sub-Lt. Reginald A J Warneford RNAS brought down a Zeppelin over Ghent in Belgium by bombing it in the air. ↩

2 September 1916; Saturday

September 1916, , , ,

On guard at 9 o’clock. My turn in the middle. Had a few short walks and called in Y.M.

[The foregoing words are superimposed on “Father’s birthday” and “Dorothy 7th”, written faintly in longhand.] 12

On from 1 o’clock in the morning until 5 o’clock. Gas alert put on and gave me some trouble. Pinched some petrol and washed tunic next morning3.

  1. ALL’s father’s birthday was the 4th of September, not the 2nd. ALL noted his father’s 59th birthday on 4th September 1914, so he would have celebrated his 61st birthday two days after this diary entry. ↩

  2. “Dorothy” refers to Dorothy Wiseman, ALL’s niece and daughter of his elder sister, Marmie, and her husband, Joe Wiseman. “7th” refers to the date of Dorothy’s birthday, 7th September, and not to her age. The 7th of September 1916 would have been her 4th birthday. See also: Family. ↩

  3. “Washed tunic”: possibly to remove discolouration of buttons caused by gas? (q.v. gas test on 3rd June). ↩

31 August 1916; Thursday

August 1916, , , ,

Went to Baileul 1 at 8.30 to have tooth done. Got there about 9 o’clock. Walked round town. Had dinner at the C.C.S. Left Bailleul about 3 o’clock. Called in at the house in the village we found the other night and had coffee. Munton, Taylor and Moss. Worked an hour extra at night. Wrote letter to Dorothy and commenced one to Father in reply to one <I> had received from him today.

  1. Baileul: ALL always omits one ‘l’ from ‘Bailleul’ in his longhand; the transcription follows this, but where he writes it in shorthand, ie phonetically, it is transcribed with the correct spelling. ↩

30 August 1916; Wednesday

Abridged, August 1916, , ,

Up at 6.30. Fatigue cleaning walls and scrubbing floors. Stormy wet day. Wrote to Ranald MacDonald. Heard that Roumania12 has joined Allies.

  1. Roumania joined the Allies (not least because Bulgaria was with the Central Powers) with singularly bad timing. Falkenhayn was removed from the Western Front due to his perceived failures (and replaced by Hindenburg, who was President of Germany in 1933 when Hitler became Chancellor), but when transferred to Transylvania (still part of Austria-Hungary at this time) proved much too good for the Roumanians, who were routed in Wallachia (the southern portion of the country, where Bucharest is situated, between the Carpathians and the Danube) and were driven back to their original capital Iași (pronounced Yash; formerly spelt Jassy) at the Northern end of Moldova. ↩

  2. In 1916, Romania was still usually spelled “Roumania” or “Rumania” in English, from the French “Roumanie”.  The modern English spelling, “Romania”, was adopted some time after WWII. ↩