Saturday October 19th, 1918
Nice day, still feeling better. W. Hilton goes to Casualty Clearing Station (CCS) – hope he gets away. The lad on next bed dying. Do not think he will live to CCS. Believe they are closing this place – sorry.
Field Ambulance
The medical facility that Frank is in is about to close. It only opened just before he arrived as a patient earlier this month. Presumably it is becoming detached from the line of fighting and therefore needs to relocate or change its role.
Frank mentions that one of his friends is also being treated there. However Hinton’s wounds are more serious and he is being evacuated down the line to the CCS. It must have been very sad to see the wounded coming down from the line and know that some of them are dying around you.
The photograph shows stretcher bearers bringing a wounded man on a wheeled stretcher to an Advanced Dressing Station in a wrecked building in Albert, 22 August 1918, following the village’s capture by 18th Division at the start of the Hundred Days Offensive.*
Machine Gun Fire at the Battle of the Selle
Yesterday the British Fourth Army and the French First Army broke through the German defences (aka the Hermann Position) and took 5,000 prisoners. However the fighting has been much more intense than anticipated. Unbeknownst to Rawlinson, Ludendorff had sent reinforcements to the area. Therefore the Allies are facing nine, relatively fresh German divisions.¹ This resistance continues today and the 9th Battalion, near Le Cateau, are in the thick of it.
2Lt H Smith and two other ranks have been killed and several more are missing or wounded, including Captain FO Thorne MC. Ironically both the officers were left out of the fighting on October 8th as they were members of the Battalion’s B team. Captain Thorne had been the Battalion’s Adjutant until he was sent on medical leave to the UK in mid-January 1918. He was suffering from malaria and has only recently rejoined the Battalion.º
2Lt Smith joined the Army as a Private (2495) with the Notts & Derby Regiment and was in France from March 1915. He must have been promoted rapidly and was sent to the officer cadet unit at the end of April 1917. From Rowenstall in Manchester, Smith was commissioned to the 13th Manchesters. He is buried in the cemetery at Maurois with 89 other casualties of war.
9th Battalion War Diary – 19th October 1918 – Le Cateau K6
From the early hours of the morning the battalion position was subjected to MG fire and sniping from positions on the SW side of Richmond Riv. At dawn a post of A Coy was missing with the exception of one man who was able to run away from the enemy patrol. Later in the day enemy batteries fired on our positions and used a considerable number of gas shells. 2Lt H Smith was killed whilst on patrol. Capt FO Thorne MC was wounded. 2 OR killed, 2 OR wounded and 4 OR missing.
References & Further Reading
¹ ‘The Western Front 1917-1918: The History of World War I: From Vimy Ridge to Amiens and the Armistice’. By Andrew Wiest. Amber Books Ltd., 2014, Kindle locn 3312
º 29265, 13 August 1918, London Gazette
* Q 11211, copyright Imperial War Museums