Monday February 18th, 1918
Still deep in snow – awful miserable. Clearing CT (communication trenches – Ed.) Minden. Afternoon in trenches. Night in – glad. Wrote home 14th letter.
Silbury to Minden
Today is a quiet day in terms of artillery and military action. The snow is still falling and visibility remains poor. Frank is in a party tasked with clearing the communication trenches between Silbury and the Battalion HQ at Minden. This is shown towards the lower right hand of the following sketch.
The sketch shows the layout of trenches and defences around Silbury Hill. The top of the page is North, it is in quadrant 183/184 x 126/127 on the Dojran Map. The legend for the sketch: crosses indicate barbed wire; the double lines the base of the valleys and ravines; the boxy lines are the advance and front line trenches and the wavy lines the communication trenches. The night and day posts, some with Lewis Guns are also shown. One of the wiring parties from B company (possibly Frank’s) has been working around B10 (upper right on map). There, they have been laying wire from the left front of B10 down to Jumeaux and along to join the north-west corner of Silbury.
Dugout at night time
Being thankful for small mercies, after an afternoon in the trenches, Frank gets sleep in a dugout tonight.
13th (Service) Battalion War Diary – 18th February 1918 – No 1 Sector, Minden Camp
Thick snow everywhere. No enemy artillery fire in the Sector. Slight reciprocal Machine Gun fire in the night. Gap in enemy wire by ruined house is still untouched. Visibility low throughout the day rendering observation behind enemy front line poor. The personal Mess Allowance issuable to an Officer who belongs to or is attached to a Mess is due to the funds of the Mess and should be debited against the Officer in his Mess bill and paid by him in that bill. 2Lt J Byrne is struck off the effective strength with effect from 18-2-18 under GRO 1011. 6 OR struck off effective strength under GRO 1011 from 18-2-18. 1 OR compulsorily transferred from 2nd Batt East Surrey Regt with effect from 15-2-18, he is taken on effective strength from 18-2-18.
References & Further Reading