Billets

Sunday September 22^nd, 1918

On the move again to Manin. Raining hard. In barn again. Very cold sleeping – too cold to sleep.

THE BRITISH ARMY ON THE WESTERN FRONT, 1914-1918 — Royal Artillery gunners of 51st Division entering their billet © IWM (Q 8393)

Frank is once again billeted in a barn. He finds the billet very cold and difficult to sleep in.

A similar experience was described by Lance Corporal Frederick G. Woodhams of 13 London Rifles, 1383. He wrote to his family in February 1916: ‘We are billeted in a barn and have a sea of mud to get through. We have no boards, so sleep on the ground, fires are not allowed in the billet and at night time it’s devilish cold.’²

These experiences reinforce a comment made by CQMS Harry Drake, ‘Any bed before a barn was a working motto in those bitter days’. Drake, who had enlisted in September, 1914 in the 16th West Yorks Regiment, was able to speak French. As such he was often sent out as a member of a billeting party – tasked with finding billets for the Battalion – to the villages of France in 1916/17.¹

I wonder what Frank or the others would have thought about the billet in the photograph. This shows gunners of the Royal Artillery entering their billet – a collapsed water tower – at Riencourt near Bapaume in January 1918.

Life in the Rear Area

THE GERMAN WITHDRAWAL TO THE HINDENBURG LINE, MARCH-APRIL 1917 — British troops billetted with a French family © IWM (Q 1900)^

The infrastructure supporting the war was sited and operated well behind the front lines. This ‘rear area’ would comprise headquarters, supply depots, logistics hubs and hospitals, complete with the men and women who worked there. Troops rotating in and out of the front lines or recuperating from wounds were often temporary inhabitants too. Both groups co-existed, sometime painfully, with local inhabitants.

‘In general, civilians in the rear had to endure the militarization of their daily routine. The local population had to submit to military command, open their homes to soldiers billeted in their towns, and provide all goods and material demanded for the upkeep of the troops. Moreover, army commanders were especially concerned about the safety of their troops … and the inhabitants were subjected to curfews and restrictions on mobility. Thus, even though many soldiers maintained amicable relations with the local population … , there were also several causes for friction.‘³

The photograph shows some British troops billeted with a French family at Bouvingcourt-en-Vermandois in March 1917.^ They all look happy enough.

9^th Battalion War Diary – 22^nd September 1918 – Penin /Manin

Operation Order No 2 (Appendix No 5) issued. The Battalion marched to Manin, billets were taken over from 6^th Lancs Fus. 9^th Gloucester Regiment took over Battalions billets at Penin. Capt. P Darlington MC returned from leave to UK.

References & Further Reading

¹ ‘Memoirs & Diaries – in a Billet‘ on First World War site

² ‘Letters from the First World War‘ National Archives

³ ‘Rear Area on the Western Front‘ International Encyclopedia of WWI

A Year of War

Frank’s Diary 1917 – 1918

Billets – September 22nd, 1918

Billets

Life in the Rear Area

2 thoughts on “Billets – September 22nd, 1918”