Up at 7 o’clock. Paraded with full packs at 9 o’clock. Helped Sergeant Powell with the panniers. Spent the afternoon cleaning up kit and having hair cut. Received letters from Joe, George Crawford and Metgrave. Finished letter to Leishman.
Category Archives: November 1917
13 November 1917; Tuesday
Up about 7 o’clock. Paraded in the morning . Went through panniers with Ben Jenkins. Spent afternoon writing and walked to Hazebrouck at night and back again. Pay parade before dinner.
12 November 1917; Monday
Up about 7 o’clock. On parade in the morning and did nothing else all day. Read part of the paper and had a long walk at night.
11 November 1917; Sunday
Up at 7 o’clock. Walked through to Hazebrouck in the afternoon and returned pretty early. Had a good supper at the little house near our billet.
10 November 1917; Saturday
Up shortly after 6 o’clock. Raining all morning. Got ready for parade at 9.15. Marched to Bailleul station. Had train to near Hazebr.<ouck> and marched to Wallon Cappell1. Our billets just outside the village.
9 November 1917; Friday
Up about 6 o’clock. Marched from Kemmel at 9.45. Arrived outside Bailleul at about 1 o’clock. Cleaned up and wrote some letters. Went into Bailleul with Harvey and Holman and had a good tea, then went into the concert hall and enjoyed the concert. The 63rd Divisional party. Returned to camp shortly before 9 o’clock.
8 November 1917; Thursday
Up about 7 o’clock. On parade at 9 o’clock. Helped to pack in the morning. Got pass to Bailleul in the afternoon but Ernie didn’t turn up there so I only went into Locre. Returned in good time.
Heard of the death of Willie Whittaker 1 in a letter from Ernie.
ALL also recorded this in a note added to his diary on the date of Willie Whittaker’s death, 22 October 1917. ↩
Sunderland Daily Echo 8 November 1917
ROLL OF HONOUR
Image and text via the British Newspaper Archive.
WHITTAKER – – Killed in action October 22nd1, 1917 aged 22 years, 2nd-Lieut, William Gaylard Whittaker2, Northumberland Fusiliers, dearly loved son of William and Agnes Whittaker.
See ALL’s retrospective note of W’s death on 22 October – coincidentally, the news actually reached ALL on 8 November, the same day that W’s name appeared in this Roll of Honour in the Sunderland Daily Echo. ↩
See also: William Gaylard Whittaker at Lives of the First World War. ↩
7 November 1917; Wednesday
Up about 6 o’clock after a poor night’s rest. Relieved about 10.15 and arrived at headquarters about noon. On parade in the afternoon for inspection before leaving Kemmel. Wrote letter at night.
6 November 1917; Tuesday
Up at 6 o’clock after a poor night. Only one walking case to take down. Talked a good bit with Mark Jackson. A fair number of shells came over but we managed all right.
Somersets went over the top on the left.